The manner in which the most distinguished and adventurous minds of the century approached it, can scarcely be better illustrated than by a conversation, reported by Madame d’Epinay, which took place in 1750 at the table of Mlle. Quinault, the eminent actress.  “A fine virtue,” Duclos remarked, “which one fastens on in the morning with pins.”  He proceeded to argue that “a moral law must hold good always and everywhere, which modesty does not.”  Saint-Lambert, the poet, observed that “it must be acknowledged that one can say nothing good about innocence without being a little corrupted,” and Duclos added “or of modesty without being impudent.”  Saint-Lambert finally held forth with much poetic enthusiasm concerning the desirability of consummating marriages in public.[59] This view of modesty, combined with the introduction of Greek fashions, gained ground to such an extent that towards the end of the century women, to the detriment of their health, were sometimes content to dress in transparent gauze, and even to walk abroad in the Champs Elysees without any clothing; that, however, was too much for the public.[60] The final outcome of the eighteenth century spirit in this direction was, as we know, by no means the dissolution of modesty.  But it led to a clearer realization of what is permanent in its organic foundations and what is merely temporary in its shifting manifestations.  That is a realization which is no mean task to achieve, and is difficult for many, even yet.  So intelligent a traveler as Mrs. Bishop (Miss Bird), on her first visit to Japan came to the conclusion that Japanese women had no modesty, because they had no objection to being seen naked when bathing.  Twenty years later she admitted to Dr. Baelz that she had made a mistake, and that “a woman may be naked and yet behave like a lady."[61] In civilized countries the observances of modesty differ in different regions, and in different social classes, but, however various the forms may be, the impulse itself remains persistent.[62]

Modesty has thus come to have the force of a tradition, a vague but massive force, bearing with special power on those who cannot reason, and yet having its root in the instincts of all people of all classes.[63] It has become mainly transformed into the allied emotion of decency, which has been described as “modesty fossilized into social customs.”  The emotion yields more readily than in its primitive state to any sufficiently-strong motive.  Even fashion in the more civilized countries can easily inhibit anatomical modesty, and rapidly exhibit or accentuate, in turn, almost any part of the body, while the savage Indian woman of America, the barbarous woman of some Mohammedan countries, can scarcely sacrifice her modesty in the pangs of childbirth.  Even when, among uncivilized races, the focus of modesty may be said to be eccentric and arbitrary, it still remains very rigid.  In such savage and barbarous countries modesty possesses the strength of a genuine and irresistible instinct.  In civilized countries, however, anyone who places considerations of modesty before the claims of some real human need excites ridicule and contempt.