When one has destroyed an error, there is
always someone who resuscitates it.
_MOUNTAIN_
It is a very old, very universal fable that tells of the mountain which,
having frightened all the countryside by its outcry that it was in
labour, was hissed by all present when it brought into the world a mere
mouse. The people in the pit were not philosophers. Those who hissed
should have admired. It was as fine for the mountain to give birth to a
mouse, as for the mouse to give birth to a mountain. A rock which
produces a rat is a very prodigious thing; and never has the world seen
anything approaching this miracle. All the globes of the universe could
not call a fly into existence. Where the vulgar laugh, the philosopher
admires; and he laughs where the vulgar open their big, stupid eyes in
astonishment.
_NAKEDNESS_
Why should one lock up a man or a woman who walked stark naked in the
street? and why is no one shocked by absolutely nude statues, by
pictures of the Madonna and of Jesus that may be seen in some churches?
It is probably that the human species lived long without being clothed.
People unacquainted with clothing have been found in more than one
island and in the American continent.
The most civilized hide the organs of generation with leaves, woven
rushes, feathers.
Whence comes this form of modesty? is it the instinct for lighting
desires by hiding what it gives pleasure to discover?
Is it really true that among slightly more civilized nations, such as
the Jews and half-Jews, there have been entire sects who would not
worship God save by stripping themselves of all their clothes? such
were, it is said, the Adamites and the Abelians.
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