“It is certain that very much of what is best in religion, art, and life,” remark Stanley Hall and Allin, “owes its charm to the progressively-widening irradiation of sexual feeling.  Perhaps the reluctance of the female first long-circuited the exquisite sensations connected with sexual organs and acts to the antics of animal and human courtship, while restraint had the physiological function of developing the colors, plumes, excessive activity, and exuberant life of the pairing season.  To keep certain parts of the body covered, irradiated the sense of beauty to eyes, hair, face, complexion, dress, form, etc., while many savage dances, costumes and postures are irradiations of the sexual act.  Thus reticence, concealment, and restraint are among the prime conditions of religion and human culture.” (Stanley Hall and Allin, “The Psychology of Tickling,” American Journal of Psychology, 1897, p. 31.)

Groos attributes the deepening of the conjugal relation among birds to the circumstance that the male seeks to overcome the reticence of the female by the display of his charms and abilities.  “And in the human world,” he continues, “it is the same; without the modest reserve of the woman that must, in most cases, be overcome by lovable qualities, the sexual relationship would with difficulty find a singer who would extol in love the highest movements of the human soul.” (Groos, Spiele der Menschen, p. 341.)

I have not, however, been, able to find that the subject of modesty has been treated in any comprehensive way by psychologists.  Though valuable facts and suggestions bearing on the sexual emotions, on disgust, the origins of tatooing, on ornament and clothing, have been, brought forward by physiologists, psychologists, and ethnographists, few or no attempts appear to have been made to reach a general synthetic statement of these facts and suggestions.  It is true that a great many unreliable, slight, or fragmentary efforts have been made to ascertain the constitution or basis of this emotion.[1] Many psychologists have regarded modesty simply as the result of clothing.  This view is overturned by the well-ascertained fact that many races which go absolutely naked possess a highly-developed sense of modesty.  These writers have not realized that physiological modesty is earlier in appearance, and more fundamental, than anatomical modesty.  A partial contribution to the analysis of modesty has been made by Professor James, who, with his usual insight and lucidity, has set forth certain of its characteristics, especially the element due to “the application to ourselves of judgments primarily passed upon our mates.”  Guyau, in a very brief discussion of modesty, realized its great significance and touched on most of its chief elements.[2] Westermarck, again, followed by Grosse, has very ably and convincingly set forth certain factors in the origin of ornament and clothing, a subject which many writers imagine to cover the whole field of modesty.  More recently Ribot, in his work on the emotions, has vaguely outlined most of the factors of modesty, but has not developed a coherent view of their origins and relationships.