CHAPTER V.
THE FUNCTION OF CHASTITY.
Chastity Essential to the Dignity of Love--The Eighteenth Century Revolt Against the Ideal of Chastity--Unnatural Forms of Chastity--The Psychological Basis of Asceticism--Asceticism and Chastity as Savage Virtues--The Significance of Tahiti--Chastity Among Barbarous Peoples--Chastity Among the Early Christians--Struggles of the Saints with the Flesh--The Romance of Christian Chastity--Its Decay in Mediaeval Times--_Aucassin et Nicolette_ and the new Romance of Chaste Love--The Unchastity of the Northern Barbarians--The Penitentials--Influence of the Renaissance and the Reformation--The Revolt Against Virginity as a Virtue--The Modern Conception of Chastity as a Virtue--The Influences That Favor the Virtue of Chastity--Chastity as a Discipline--The Value of Chastity for the Artist--Potency and Impotence in Popular Estimation--The Correct Definitions of Asceticism and Chastity.
The supreme importance of chastity, and even of asceticism, has never at any time, or in any greatly vital human society, altogether failed of recognition.

Sometimes chastity has been exalted in human estimation, sometimes it has been debased; it has frequently changed the nature of its manifestations; but it has always been there.

It is even a part of the beautiful vision of all Nature.

"The glory of the world is seen only by a chaste mind," said Thoreau with his fine extravagance.

"To whomsoever this fact is not an awful but beautiful mystery there are no flowers in Nature." Without chastity it is impossible to maintain the dignity of sexual love.