In the nineteenth century the evolution of morals took a strange turn. Neither clergy nor laity had before that time, speaking generally, observed chastity in practice, but the rise of non-Christian critics in the eighteenth century had compelled the clergy to be more faithful to their own precepts. This (and the growth of such movements as Wesleyanism) led to more concern about virtue, and when the English Agnostic school arose its leaders were taunted by the clergy with a wish to rationalise or alter morality. By a natural reaction they cultivated a particular zeal for virtue, and accepted the old code in its entirety. Those moralists who appealed to a "categorical imperative" or an "intuition" had no difficulty in doing this. Indeed, any man who to-day accepts the Stoic idea of morality, or the æsthetic idea (that virtue is so beautiful that we must cultivate it), has as much right as the Christian to profess a regard for chastity. There ensued a kind of rivalry of virtue between the clergy and the new pagans. It has ended in the curious spectacle of our modern clergy, whose historical knowledge is both slender and peculiar, claiming that their Churches are the most faithful preachers of purity the world has ever known, while Agnostic moralists indignantly dispute their supposed monopoly. The extreme complexity of this evolution, and the fact that few of us reflect critically at all on our moral sentiments, must excuse me for making this lengthy analysis. It shows that our conception of chastity still contains a large amount of the old non-rational tradition, and that any man or woman who declines (as so many do to-day) to bow to mystic and obscure commands has a right to examine it closely. In one of my works (_Life of G. J. Holyoake_, ii. 65) I have shown that so sensitive a moralist as J. S. Mill admitted this. Obviously, the precept of purity or chastity has a totally different basis from all the other recognised moral precepts. These others are invariably social laws, and the transgression of them is invariably a social hurt. Life itself furnishes the reply if a man asks why he _ought_ to be just, kind, and truthful: the answer is not so obvious when he asks why he _ought_ to be chaste.