torture is purely horrible
and repulsive. No one could get edification from an artistic
representation of a man hanging on the gallows. Many people overlook so
much of the crucifix and add so much in imagination that they get great
edification from it. The language used in the communion about eating the
body and drinking the blood of Christ refers to nothing in our mores,
and appeals to nothing in our experience. It comes down from very remote
ages, very possibly from cannibalism.[1554] If we heard that the Chinese
or Mohammedans had a religious custom in which they used currently the
figure of eating the body and drinking the blood of a man (or god), and
if we had no such figure of speech in our own use, we should consider it
shocking and abominable.

+478. The notion of obscenity is modern.+ It is evident that the notion
of obscenity is very modern. It is due to the modern development of the
arts of life and the mode of life under steam and machinery. The
cheapening and popularization of luxury have made houses larger,
plumbing cheaper, and all the apparatus of careful living more
accessible to all classes. The consequence is that all the operations
and necessities of life can be carried on with greater privacy and more
observation of conventional order and decorum. Then the usages and
notions grow more strict and refined. It is only in poverty that
exposures and collisions occur which violate decency and involve
obscenity. Therefore the standards and codes of all classes have risen,
and the care about dressing, bathing, and private functions, for the
sexes and for children, has been intensified. Out of this has come the
notion of what is obscene, as the extreme of indecency and impropriety.
What we call obscene was, in ancient times, either a matter of
superstition or a free field for jest. The conventionalization in favor
of what is amusing must always be recognized. It has always entered into
comedy in the theater. A jest will not cover as much now as it once
would, but it still goes far. The ancient mythology long covered
obscenity in drama. When Hephaestus caught Ares and Aphrodite in his net
the gods all enjoyed the joke. The goddesses did not come to see the
sight.[1555] The difference between the masculine and feminine judgment
as to whether a thing is funny or shameful is well drawn. Hera insisted
to Zeus that their conjugal familiarity should not be seen.[1556] The
young women served the men in the bath, but