308 PASSIONS PREMATURELY AROUSED
becoming absolute masters of the house. One must, however, do them the justice to say that, after having thus gained the mastery over their parents, they take great care of them, as a general rule, and see that they want for nothing in their old age. But I fancy that in acting thus they are moved less by filial affection than by considerations of what the world will say. In the case of such spoilt children,
subjected as they are from their earliest youth to influences which prematurely develop the latent germs of passion
and vice, the knowledge of evil always comes before the first dawnings of reason. At the time of their lives when,
according to the laws of nature, the passions should remain unawakened, it is not at all unusual to find children of both sexes familiar with words and actions which are revolting to modesty. The instincts which are excited at an early age by the nudity in which they remain till they are seven or eight years old, the licentious conversation that they are always hearing around them, the lewd songs and obscene verses that their parents delight in teaching them as soon as they begin to talk, the disgusting expressions which they learn and use to the delight of those who hear them, and who applaud such expressions as witticisms; these are the foundations on which the young children ' s education is laid, and such are the earliest impressions which they receive.
Of course it is unnecessary to say that, as they get older, incontinence and all its attendant vices increase at the
same time. It really seems as if most of the religious and civil institutions of India were only invented for the purpose of awakening and exciting passions towards which they have already such a strong natural tendency. The shameless stories about their deities, the frequent recurrence of special feast-days which are celebrated everywhere,
the allegorical meaning of so many of their everyday customs and usages, the public and private buildings
which are to be met with everywhere bearing on their walls some disgusting obscenity, the many religious services in which the principal part is played by prostitutes, who often make even the temples themselves the scenes of their
abominable debauchery; all these things seem to be calculated to excite the lewd imagination of the inhabitants of