sh sect, the Essenes,
concealed part of the body from the sun, as the "all-seeing eye of God,"
even in the bath. The Jew might not uncover the body in the face of the
temple. The rules of the Essenes for bodily necessities were such that
those necessities could not be satisfied on the Sabbath.[1537] At Rome
"_oppedere_, _mingere_, _cacare_ towards persons or statues belonged to
the grossest marks of contempt, and were so employed more than we
think."[1538] Patursson[1539] bathed with aborigines near the mouth of
the Ob. They would not bare the body below the waist and were shocked at
his immodesty because he was not so scrupulous.

+472. Obscenity.+ Another topic in this group of subjects, obscenity, is
still harder to treat within the limits set by our mores. It offers
still more astounding proofs that the folkways can make anything
"right," and that our strongest sentiments of approval or abhorrence are
given to us by the age and group in which we live. The tabooed parts of
the body are not to be seen. It is obscenity when they are exposed to
sight. We have already noticed, under the head of decency, a great range
of conventions in regard to things and acts which are set aside from all
the common activities of life. We have seen that there is no ultimate
and rational definition of the things to be tabooed, no universal
agreement as to what they are, no philosophical principle by which they
are selected; that the customs have had no uniformity or consistency,
and that those usages which we might suppose to be referable to a taboo
of obscenity have an entirely different motive, while the notion of
obscenity does not exist. There is no "natural" and universal instinct,
by collision with which some things are recognized as obscene. We shall
find that the things which we regard as obscene either were not, in
other times and places, so regarded, any more than we so regard bared
face and hands, or else that, from ancient usage, the exhibition was
covered by a convention in protection of what is archaic or holy, or
dramatic, or comical. In primitive times goblinism and magic covered
especially the things which later became obscene. Facts were accepted
with complete naivete. The fashion of thinking was extremely realistic.
The Japanese now cannot understand how facts can be made shameful. They
have very exact and authoritative conventions which every one must obey,
but the conventions are practical and realistic. They serve pur