show dissatisfaction; they said the beard was a sign of manliness that ought not to be suppressed, and so forth, and at length the moment arrived. A distinguished clergyman, happily still living, ‘bearded’ his Bishop on a critical occasion. The Bishop yielded without protest, and forthwith hair began to sprout in a thousand pulpits where it had never appeared before within the memory of man.
It would be no small shock to public sentiment if our athletes in running public races were to strip themselves stark naked, yet that custom was rather suddenly introduced into Greece. Plato says (Republic V, par. 452, Jowett’s translation):
Not long ago the Greeks were of the opinion, which is still generally received among the barbarians, that the sight of a naked man was ridiculous and improper, and when first the Cretans and the Lacedaemonians introduced naked exercises, the wits of that day might have ridiculed them....
Thucydides (I. 6) also refers to the same change as occurring ‘quite lately’.
Public opinion is commonly far in advance of private morality, because society as a whole keenly appreciates acts that