A child left to itself, though very bashful, is wholly devoid of modesty.[5] Everyone is familiar with the shocking inconvenances of children in speech and act, with the charming ways in which they innocently disregard the conventions of modesty their elders thrust upon them, or, even when anxious to carry them out, wholly miss the point at issue:  as when a child thinks that to put a little garment round the neck satisfies the demands of modesty.  Julius Moses states that modesty in the uncovering of the sexual parts begins about the age of four.  But in cases when this occurs it is difficult to exclude teaching and example.  Under civilized conditions the convention of modesty long precedes its real development.  Bell has found that in love affairs before the age of nine the girl is more aggressive than the boy and that at that age she begins to be modest.[6] It may fairly be said that complete development of modesty only takes place at the advent of puberty.[7] We may admit, with Perez, one of the very few writers who touch on the evolution of this emotion, that modesty may appear at a very early age if sexual desire appears early.[8] We should not, however, be justified in asserting that on this account modesty is a purely sexual phenomenon.  The social impulses also develop about puberty, and to that coincidence the compound nature of the emotion of modesty may well be largely due.

The sexual factor is, however, the simplest and most primitive element of modesty, and may, therefore, be mentioned first.  Anyone who watches a bitch, not in heat, when approached by a dog with tail wagging gallantly, may see the beginnings of modesty.  When the dog’s attentions become a little too marked, the bitch squats firmly down on the front legs and hind quarters though when the period of oestrus comes her modesty may be flung to the air and she eagerly turns her hind quarters to her admirer’s nose and elevates her tail high in the air.  Her attitude of refusal is equivalent, that is to say, to that which in the human race is typified by the classical example of womanly modesty in the Medicean Venus, who withdraws the pelvis, at the same time holding one hand to guard the pubes, the other to guard the breasts.[9] The essential expression in each case is that of defence of the sexual centers against the undesired advances of the male.[10]

Stratz, who criticizes the above statement, argues (with photographs of nude women in illustration) that the normal type of European surprised modesty is shown by an attitude in which the arms are crossed over the breast, the most sexually attractive region, while the thighs are pressed together, one being placed before the other, the shoulder raised and the back slightly curved; occasionally, he adds, the hands may be used to cover the face, and then the crossed arms conceal the breasts.  The Medicean Venus, he remarks, is only a pretty woman coquetting with her body.  Canova’s Venus in the Pitti (who has drapery in front of