state of German morality as it
exists to-day is a new phenomenon, and the sign of a rapid
national degeneration. That is by no means the case. In this
connection we may accept the evidence of Catholic priests, who,
by the experience of the confessional, are enabled to speak with
authority. An old Bavarian priest thus writes (_Geschlecht und
Gesellschaft_, 1907, Bd. ii, Heft I): "At Moral Congresses we
hear laudation of 'the good old times' when, faith and morality
prevailed among the people. Whether that is correct is another
question. As a young priest I heard of as many and as serious
sins as I now hear of as an old man. The morality of the people
is not greater nor is it less. The error is the belief that
immorality goes out of the towns and poisons the country. People
talk as though the country were a pure Paradise of innocence. I
will by no means call our country people immoral, but from an
experience of many years I can say that in sexual respects there
is no difference between town and country. I have learnt to know
more than a hundred different parishes, and in the most various
localities, in the mountain and in the plain, on poor land and on
rich land. But everywhere I find the same morals and lack of
morals. There are everywhere the same men, though in the country
there are often better Christians than in the towns."

If, however, we go much farther back than the memories of a
living man it seems highly probable that the sexual customs of
the German people of the present day are not substantially
different--though it may well be that at different periods
different circumstances have accentuated them--from what they
were in the dawn of Teutonic history. This is the opinion of one
of the profoundest students of Indo-Germanic origins. In his
_Reallexicon_ (art. "Keuschheit") O. Schrader points out that the
oft-quoted Tacitus, strictly considered, can only be taken to
prove that women were chaste after marriage, and that no
prostitution existed. There can be no doubt, he adds, and the
earliest historical evidence shows, that women in ancient Germany
were not chaste before marriage. This fact has been disguised by
the tendency of the old classic writers to idealize the Northern
peoples.

Thus we have to realize that the conception of "German virtue,"
which has be