ocial position, was likewise a pioneer in generous humanitarian
aspirations, which have since been adopted in the world at
large.

These refinements of prostitution may be said to be chiefly the
outcome of the late and more developed stages in civilization. As
Schurtz has put it (_Altersklassen und Maennerbuende_, p. 191):
"The cheerful, skilful and artistically accomplished _hetaira_
frequently stands as an ideal figure in opposition to the
intellectually uncultivated wife banished to the interior of the
house. The courtesan of the Italian Renaissance, Japanese
geishas, Chinese flower-girls, and Indian bayaderas, all show
some not unnoble features, the breath of a free artistic
existence. They have achieved--with, it is true, the sacrifice of
their highest worth--an independence from the oppressive rule of
man and of household duties, and a part of the feminine endowment
which is so often crippled comes in them to brilliant
development. Prostitution in its best form may thus offer a path
by which these feminine characteristics may exert a certain
influence on the development of civilization. We may also believe
that the artistic activity of women is in some measure able to
offer a counterpoise to the otherwise less pleasant results of
sexual abandonment, preventing the coarsening and destruction of
the emotional life; in his _Magda_ Sudermann has described a type
of woman who, from the standpoint of strict morality, is open to
condemnation, but in her art finds a foothold, the strength of
which even ill-will must unwillingly recognize." In his _Sex and
Character_, Weininger has developed in a more extreme and
extravagant manner the conception of the prostitute as a
fundamental and essential part of life, a permanent feminine
type.

There are others, apparently in increasing numbers, who approach the
problem of prostitution not from an aesthetic standpoint but from a moral
standpoint. This moral attitude is not, however, that conventionalized
morality of Cato and St. Augustine and Lecky, set forth in previous pages,
according to which the prostitute in the street must be accepted as the
guardian of the wife in the home. These moralists reject indeed the claim
of that belief to be considered moral at all. They hold that it is not
morally possible that the honor of some women shall be purchaseable at the