situations which were painful or atrocious, the
horror of which we to-day could not endure." Although the age was full
of religiosity, the extravagances of which ought to have been restrained
by good taste, if it had existed, there was, on the other hand, no true
reverence for what were "sacred things." The churches were put to uses
which would to-day be considered improper. Parodies and caricatures of
ecclesiastical persons, institutions, and ritual called out no
remonstrance. Mock sermons were a favorite form of monologue in a
theatrical entertainment. In a morality produced late in the fifteenth
century, called _Les Blasphemateurs_, the actors tortured and wounded
the figure on a crucifix. The Virgin and two angels came down to catch
in a cup the blood which miraculously flowed from the body, but the
actors kept on. "The hideous scene is interminable." Personalities were
employed beyond all decent toleration, not only in theological disputes,
but in political conflicts of all kinds. Of course the fanaticism of the
age accounts for the extravagance of the acts and doctrines, and good
taste seems to be only a trivial defense against fanaticism, but good
taste consists largely in a sense of due limits, and if there had been a
good code of social usage tempered by taste, it would have prevented
many of the greatest scandals in the history, especially the church
history, of the period. Buffoons had a share in the great "moralities,"
although they did not have a role in the action. Their function was to
interject comical comments from time to time. The comments aimed to be
witty, but were generally gross, coarse, and obscene. Late in the
fifteenth century, in France, a buffoon recited a prelude containing
licentious jests to an edifying morality called _Charity_.[1653]

+502. Whence good taste is derived.+ Good taste is a more delicate and
refined philosophy of action than any which have been mentioned above.
It would escape from any attempt to formulate it, more completely than
propriety or politeness. It floats in the ways of the group, and is
absorbed by those who grow up in it. It is a product of breeding. We
have a well-worn saying that there is no disputing about it. That is
true, but for equal reason there is no disputing about decency,
propriety, obscenity, or sex taboo. Good taste is a product of the
group. It is absorbed from the group. Like honor, however, it calls for
an individual reaction of assent and dissen