y for beauty of clothing to
be accepted as a substitute for beauty of body appears early in the
history of mankind, and, as we know, tends to be absolutely accepted in
civilization.[136] "We exclaim," as Goethe remarks, "'What a beautiful
little foot!' when we have merely seen a pretty shoe; we admire the lovely
waist when nothing has met out eyes but an elegant girdle." Our realities
and our traditional ideals are hopelessly at variance; the Greeks
represented their statues without pubic hair because in real life they had
adopted the oriental custom of removing the hairs; we compel our sculptors
and painters to make similar representations, though they no longer
correspond either to realities or to our own ideas of what is beautiful
and fitting in real life. Our artists are themselves equally ignorant and
confused, and, as Stratz has repeatedly shown, they constantly reproduce
in all innocence the deformations and pathological characters of defective
models. If we were honest, we should say--like the little boy before a
picture of the Judgment of Paris, in answer to his mother's question as to
which of the three goddesses he thought most beautiful--"I can't tell,
because they haven't their clothes on."

The concealment actually attained was not, however, it would appear,
originally sought. Various authors have brought together evidence to show
that the main primitive purpose of adornment and clothing among savages is
not to conceal the body, but to draw attention to it and to render it more
attractive. Westermarck, especially, brings forward numerous examples of
savage adornments which serve to attract attention to the sexual regions
of man and woman.[137] He further argues that the primitive object of
various savage peoples in practicing circumcision, as other similar
mutilations, is really to secure sexual attractiveness, whatever religious
significance they may sometimes have developed subsequently. A more recent
view represents the magical influence of both adornment and mutilation as
primary, as a method of guarding and insulating dangerous bodily
functions. Frazer, in _The Golden Bough_, is the most able and brilliant
champion of this view, which undoubtedly embodies a large element of
truth, although it must not be accepted to the absolute exclusion of the
influence of sexual attractiveness. The two are largely woven in
together.[138]

There is, indeed, a general tendency for the sexual functions to take on a
r