ure, much higher than either the natural
or the sensual conception of nakedness. The simple child of
Nature sees in nakedness nothing at all; the clothed man sees in
the uncovered body only a sensual irritation. But at the highest
standpoint man consciously returns to Nature, and recognizes that
under the manifold coverings of human fabrication there is
hidden the most splendid creature that God has created. One may
stand in silent, worshipping wonder before the sight; another may
be impelled to imitate and show to his fellow-man what in that
holy moment he has seen. But both enjoy the spectacle of human
beauty with full consciousness and enlightened purity of
thought."

It was not, however, so much on these more spiritual sides, but on the
side of hygiene, that the nineteenth century furnished its chief practical
contribution to the new attitude towards nakedness.

Lord Monboddo, the Scotch judge, who was a pioneer in regard to
many modern ideas, had already in the eighteenth century realized
the hygienic value of "air-baths," and he invented that now
familiar name. "Lord Monboddo," says Boswell, in 1777 (_Life of
Johnson_, edited by Hill, vol. iii, p. 168) "told me that he
awaked every morning at four, and then for his health got up and
walked in his room naked, with the window open, which he called
taking _an air-bath_." It is said also, I know not on what
authority, that he made his beautiful daughters take an air-bath
naked on the terrace every morning. Another distinguished man of
the same century, Benjamin Franklin, used sometimes to work naked
in his study on hygienic grounds, and, it is recorded, once
affrighted a servant-girl by opening the door in an absent-minded
moment, thus unattired.

Rikli seems to have been the apostle of air-baths and sun-baths
regarded as a systematic method. He established light-and
air-baths over half a century ago at Trieste and elsewhere in
Austria. His motto was: "Light, Truth, and Freedom are the motive
forces towards the highest development of physical and moral
health." Man is not a fish, he declared; light and air are the
first conditions of a highly organized life. Solaria for the
treatment of a number of different disordered conditions are now
commonly established, and most systems of natural therapeutics
attach prime importance to