We find the importance of the sight of the body—­though very narrowly, for the avoidance of fraud in the preliminaries of marriage—­set forth as early as the sixteenth century by Sir Thomas More in his Utopia, which is so rich in new and fruitful ideas.  In Utopia, according to Sir Thomas More, before marriage, a staid and honest matron “showeth the woman, be she maid or widow, naked to the wooer.  And likewise a sage and discreet man exhibiteth the wooer naked to the woman.  At this custom we laughed and disallowed it as foolish.  But they, on their part, do greatly wonder at the folly of all other nations which, in buying a colt where a little money is in hazard, be so chary and circumspect that though he be almost all bare, yet they will not buy him unless the saddle and all the harness be taken off, lest under these coverings be hid some gall or sore.  And yet, in choosing a wife, which shall be either pleasure or displeasure to them all their life after, they be so reckless that all the residue of the woman’s body being covered with clothes, they estimate her scarcely by one handsbreadth (for they can see no more but her face) and so join her to them, not without great jeopardy of evil agreeing together, if anything in her body afterward should chance to offend or mislike them.  Verily, so foul deformity may be hid under these coverings that it may quite alienate and take away the man’s mind from his wife, when it shall not be lawful for their bodies to be separate again.  If such deformity happen by any chance after the marriage is consummate and finished, well, there is no remedy but patience.  But it were well done that a law were made whereby all such deceits were eschewed and avoided beforehand.”

The clear conception of what may be called the spiritual value of nakedness—­by no means from More’s point of view, but as a part of natural hygiene in the widest sense, and as a high and special aspect of the purifying and ennobling function of beauty—­is of much later date.  It is not clearly expressed until the time of the Romantic movement at the beginning of the nineteenth century.  We have it admirably set forth in Senancour’s De l’Amour (first edition, 1806; fourth and enlarged edition, 1834), which still remains one of the best books on the morality of love.  After remarking that nakedness by no means abolishes modesty, he proceeds to advocate occasional partial or complete nudity.  “Let us suppose,” he remarks, somewhat in the spirit of Plato, “a country in which at certain general festivals the women should be absolutely free to be nearly or even quite naked.  Swimming, waltzing, walking, those who thought good to do so might remain unclothed in the presence of men.  No doubt the illusions of love would be little known, and passion would see a diminution of its transports.  But is it passion that in general ennobles human affairs?  We need honest attachments and delicate delights, and