ORIGIN OF DECORUM. 453 



lives upon their coiffure ; although in most savage 

 countries the unmarried girl is never permitted to 

 wear clothes ; although decoration is everywhere ante- 

 cedent to dress, still the traveller does find that a 

 sentiment of decency, though not universal, is at least 

 very common amongst savage people. 



Self-interest here affords an explanation, but not 

 in the human state ; we must trace back the senti- 

 ment to its remote and secret source in the animal 

 kingdom. Propriety grows out of cleanliness through 

 the association of ideas. Cleanliness is a virtue of the 

 lower animals, and is equivalent to decoration ; it is 

 nourished by vanity, which proceeds from the love of 

 sexual display, and that from the desire to obtain a 

 mate ; and so here we do arrive at utility after all. It 

 is a part of animal cleanliness to deposit apart, and 

 even to hide, whatever is uncleanly ; and men, going 

 farther still, conceal whatever is a cause of the un- 

 cleanly. The Tuaricks of the desert give this as their 

 reason for bandaging the mouth ; it has, they say, 

 the disgusting office of chewing the food, and is there- 

 fore not fit to be seen. The custom probably origi- 

 nated as a precaution against the poisonous wind and 

 the sandy air ; yet the explanation of the people 

 themselves, though incorrect, is not without its value 

 in affording a clue to the operations of the savage 

 mind. But the sense of decorum must not be used 

 by writers on Mind to distinguish man from the lower 

 animals, for savages exist who are as innocent of 

 shame and decorum as the beasts and birds. 



There is in women a peculiar timidity, which 

 is due to Nature alone, and which has grown out 

 of the mysterious terror attendant on the func- 



