Note 1 — INTRODUCTION.

The Greeks and Romans considered that by familiarizing the population with the exhibition of the human figure completely naked, libidinous propensities and desires would be less excited. The continence and chastity of the half-clad Germans, Tacitus highly extols, and contrasts with the effeminate and luxurious habits of the more polished nations of his time. The worship of the Phallus, or erect penis, is of the most remote antiquity, and derived its origin not from vulgar or obscene notions, but from a consideration that the generative powers of nature were thus best personified; and to render the type more complete, the Deities were often made Hermaphroditic or of a two-fold sex, to show that either alone would be incomplete without the other, to represent nature engendering and reproducing. The Phallus was also used as an amulet or charm suspended from the neck, and its exhibition over a house in Pompeii is explained by the words “domus felicitatis.” On this interesting subject, Mr. O’Brien’s learned, but too fanciful work, on the Round Towers of Ireland, will throw considerable light.