It has been fully proved in the course of our previous investigations that Asia and Egypt must be regarded as the two focus-points of exaggerated sensual licence, the conditions of climate being most favourable in those regions for the generation of affections consequent upon sexual excesses. So it may be fairly concluded without further proof that in the same parts of the world attention was early devoted to the problem how to render such influences,—no mere passing ones, be it observed, but continuously operative,—as little harmful as possible. Now in what way could this end be more adequately attained than by _cleanliness_ carried out to the highest possible degree? As a matter of history, the merest superficial acquaintance with the customs and usages of Antiquity clearly shows that equally in Asia and in Egypt concern for bodily cleanliness had occupied the particular attention of both political and sacerdotal Legislators from the most remote period. More than this, it had come to be looked upon by the people as so entirely necessary, as to be all but inextricably blended with their very life and being. Any idea of vexatious compulsion entirely disappeared, and the laws and ordinances directed to this object are in force to this day as fully as they were thousands of years ago. Inhabitants of the temperate zone who visited these lands were bound to think,—unless they gave more careful consideration to the subject than most were likely to do,—such almost universal and such scrupulous care for cleanliness exaggerated; and so we find, e. g. the Greek writers, who cite many of the usages of this description, invariably referring to them merely as a sort of curiosity. In later times, e. g. in _St. Athanasius_,[208] they are even condemned as being prompted by the Devil, in order to diminish the amount of time to be devoted to pious exercises. It may well be that in course of time a too scrupulously precise dependence on ancestral custom had brought many of these usages into ridicule, especially when they were practised in countries where in some cases the reasons for their observance altogether cease to be operative. Yet anyone who considers with due care the conditions under which they were originally introduced, will find himself constrained to admit that the Lawgiver was only obeying a behest of necessity.