The artificial and systematic cultivation of an exaggerated sentiment of modesty produces _prudery_, the bad results of which are, however, less than those of pornography. There are young people so modest that the simple thought of sexual matters overexcites them terribly. By associating their own erotic feelings, of which they feel ashamed, with sexual ideas, they invest these with terrifying attributes, and become quite unhappy; in this way they are often led to masturbation. They are, however, excessively frightened at this also and imagine its effects so terrible that they think themselves lost. Their exaggerated feelings of modesty often prevent them confiding in some charitable person. However, they rarely find reasonable consolers; some ridicule them, while others regard them as iniquitous, which only increases their terror and drives them to extremes. The sexual sentiment of modesty very often becomes unhealthy, and is then easily combined with pathological sexual conditions. Prudery is, so to speak, sexual modesty codified and dogmatized. It is indeterminate, because the object of modesty is purely conventional, and man has no valid reason to regard any part of his body as shameful. Normal man ought only to be ashamed of bad thoughts and actions, contrary to his moral conscience. The latter should be based on natural human altruism only, and not artificially misled by dogma. =The Old Bachelor.=--The importance of the psychic irradiations of love is shown perhaps more clearly from the results of their presence in old bachelors than from any other consideration. In our time, no doubt, the state of the old bachelor rarely means the renunciation of the satisfaction of sexual appetite, although it generally entails the renunciation of love. There are, no doubt, two kinds of old bachelors, those who are chaste and those who are not. The old bachelor no doubt leads a less empty existence than the old maid, but the void exists none the less. Man also needs compensation for the absence of love and family, but his brain is more capable than that of woman of finding this compensation in hard intellectual work or in some other employment. The old bachelor is generally pessimistic and morose. He easily becomes the slave of his fads and hobbies, and the peculiarities of his character are proverbial. His egoism knows no bounds, and his altruistic impulses usually find too few objects or echoes. The chastity of some old bachelors conceals sexual anomalies. But even apart from this, the old celibate easily becomes shy, affected, misanthropic or misogynistic, at least if some energetic friend does not induce him to utilize his power of work in some useful sphere. At other times he lavishes exaggerated admiration on women and worships them in a pompous manner.