[51] We cannot, in the light of
all that has gone before, regard ornaments and clothing as the sole cause
of modesty, but the feelings that are thus gathered around the garment
constitute a highly important factor of modesty.
Among some Australian tribes it is said that the sexual organs
are only covered during their erotic dances; and it is further
said that in some parts of the world only prostitutes are
clothed. "The scanty covering," as Westermarck observes, "was
found to act as the most powerful obtainable sexual stimulus." It
is undoubtedly true that this statement may be made not merely of
the savage, but of the most civilized world. All observers agree
that the complete nudity of savages, unlike the civilized
_decollete_ or _detrousse_, has no suggestion of sexual
allurement. (Westermarck quotes numerous testimonies on this
point, op. cit., pp. 192 et seq.) Dr. R.W. Felkin remarks
concerning Central Africa, that he has never met more indecency
than in Uganda, where the penalty of death is inflicted on an
adult found naked in the street. (_Edinburgh Medical Journal_,
April, 1884.) A study of pictures or statuary will alone serve to
demonstrate that nakedness is always chaster in its effects than
partial clothing. As a well-known artist, Du Maurier, has
remarked (in _Trilby_), it is "a fact well known to all painters
and sculptors who have used the nude model (except a few shady
pretenders, whose purity, not being of the right sort, has gone
rank from too much watching) that nothing is so chaste as nudity.
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