power of bodily movement, so as to transport
ourselves whither we will and to see without the aid of bodily
organs,--in a word the laws of thought's dynamic and those of its
physical influence,--these things will fall to the lot of the next
century, as their portion in the treasury of human sciences. And perhaps
we, of the present time, are merely occupied in quarrying the enormous
blocks which later on some mighty genius will employ in the building of
a glorious edifice.

Thus the error of Rousseau is simply the error of his age. He explains
modesty by the relations of different human beings to each other instead
of explaining it by the moral relations of each one with himself.
Modesty is no more susceptible of analysis than conscience; and this
perhaps is another way of saying that modesty is the conscience of the
body; for while conscience directs our sentiments and the least movement
of our thoughts towards the good, modesty presides over external
movements. The actions which clash with our interests and thus disobey
the laws of conscience wound us more than any other; and if they are
repeated call forth our hatred. It is the same with acts which violate
modesty in their relations to love, which is nothing but the expression
of our whole sensibility. If extreme modesty is one of the conditions on
which the reality of marriage is based, as we have tried to prove [See
_Conjugal Catechism, Meditation IV._], it is evident that immodesty will
destroy it. But this position, which would require long deductions for
the acceptance of the physiologist, women generally apply, as it were,
mechanically; for society, which exaggerates everything for the benefit
of the exterior man, develops this sentiment of women from childhood,
and around it are grouped almost every other sentiment. Moreover, the
moment that this boundless veil, which takes away the natural brutality
from the least gesture, is dragged down, woman disappears. Heart,
mind, love, grace, all are in ruins. In a situation where the virginal
innocence of a daughter of Tahiti is most brilliant, the European
becomes detestable. In this lies the last weapon which a wife seizes,
in order to escape from the sentiment which her husband still fosters
towards her. She is powerful because she had made herself loathsome; and
this woman, who would count it as the greatest misfortune that her lover
should be permitted to see the slightest mystery of her toilette, is
delighted to