It may well be that there is a rhythmic harmony and concordance between impulses of modesty and impulses of ostentation, though we have done our best to disguise the natural law by our stupid and perverse by-laws.
Stanley Hall, who emphasizes the importance of nakedness, remarks that at puberty we have much reason to assume that in a state of nature there is a certain instinctive pride and ostentation that accompanies the new local development, and quotes the observation of Dr.Seerley that the impulse to conceal the sexual organs is especially marked in young men who are underdeveloped, but not evident in those who are developed beyond the average.

Stanley Hall (_Adolescence_, vol.ii, p.

97), also refers to the frequency with which not only "virtuous young men, but even women, rather glory in occasions when they can display the beauty of their forms without reserve, not only to themselves and to loved ones, but even to others with proper pretexts." Many have doubtless noted this tendency, especially in women, and chiefly in those who are conscious of beautiful physical development.

Madame Celine Renooz believes that the tendency corresponds to a really deep-rooted instinct in women, little or not at all manifested in men who have consequently sought to impose artificially on women their own masculine conceptions of modesty.

"In the actual life of the young girl to-day there is a moment when, by a secret atavism, she feels the pride of her sex, the intuition of her moral superiority and cannot understand why she must hide its cause.