Dr. Mercier, in dealing with the connection between sexualism and religion, which he says "has long been recognised, but never accounted for," traces it to a feeling of, or desire for self-sacrifice common to both. Certainly sacrifice in some form--of food, weapons, land, money, or bodily inconvenience--is a feature present in every religion more or less. And it is quite certain that not merely the fact, but the desire for some amount of sacrifice, forms "an integral, fundamental, and preponderating element" in the sexual emotion. Dr. Mercier further believes that the benevolence founded on religious emotion has its origin in sexual emotion, which is, again, extremely likely. This community of origin would allow for the transformation of one into the other, and supplies a key to the language of lover-like devotion and self-abnegation which is so prominent in religious devotional literature. The importance attached to dress is also very suggestive; for here, again, the element of sacrifice expresses itself in the cultivation of a studied repulsiveness to the normal attractiveness of costume. "Thus," says Dr. Mercier, "we find that the self-sacrificial vagaries of the rejected lover and of the religious devotee own a common origin and nature. The hook and spiny kennel of the fakir, the pillar of St. Simeon Stylites, the flagellum of the monk, the sombre garments of the nun, the silence of the Trappists, the defiantly hideous costume of the hallelujah lass, and the mortified sobriety of the district visitor, have at bottom the same origin as the rags of Cardenio, the cage of Don Quixote de la Mancha, and the yellow stockings and crossed garters of Malvolio."[119] Professor Granger, who at times comes very near the truth, says:-- "There is something profoundly philosophical in the use of _The Song of Songs_ to typify the communion of the soul with its ideal. The passion which is expressed by the Shulamite for her earthly lover in such glowing phrases becomes the type of the love of the soul towards God."[120]