452 DEATH OF SIN. 



propensities ; all know that they are evil ; all can 

 suppress them if they please. There are some, 

 indeed, who appear to be criminals by nature ; who 

 do not feel it wrong to prey upon mankind. These 

 are cases of reversion ; they are savages or wild beasts ; 

 they are the enemies of society, and deserve the prison 

 to which sooner or later they are sure to come. But 

 it is rare indeed that these savage instincts resist a 

 kind and judicious education ; they may all be stifled 

 in the nursery. Life is full of hope and consolation ; 

 we observe that crime is on the decrease, and that men 

 are becoming more humane. The virtues as well as 

 the vices are inherited ; in every succeeding generation 

 the old ferocious impulses of our race will become 

 fainter and fainter, and at length they will finally die 

 away. 



There is one moral sentiment which cannot be 

 ascribed to the law of Gregarious Preservation, and 

 which is therefore of too much importance to be en- 

 tirely passed over, though it cannot here be treated in 

 detail. The sense of decorum which is outraged at 

 the exposure of the legs in Europe, is as artificial as 

 that which is shocked at the exhibition of the female 

 face in the East : if the young lady of London thinks 

 that the absence of underclothing in the Arab peasant 

 girl " looks rather odd," on the other hand no Arab 

 lady could look at her portrait in an evening dress 

 without a feeling of discomfort and surprise. Yet 

 although the minor details of nudity are entirely con- 

 ventional ; although complete nudity prevails in some 

 parts of Africa, where yet a petticoat grows on every 

 tree, and where the people are by no means indifferent 

 to their personal appearance, for they spend half their 



