But in a very high degree of civilization this feeling is
unknown, as, indeed, it is unknown to most barbarians, and the beauty of a
woman's breasts, and of any natural or artificial object which suggests
the gracious curves of the bosom, is a universal source of pleasure.
The casual vision of a girl's breasts may, in the chastest youth,
evoke a strange perturbation. (Cf., e.g., a passage in an early
chapter of Marcelle Tinayre's _La Maison du Peche_.) We need not
regard this feeling as of purely sexual origin; and in addition
even to the aesthetic element it is probably founded to some
extent on a reminiscence of the earliest associations of life.
This element of early association was very well set forth long
ago by Erasmus Darwin:--
"When the babe, soon after it is born into this cold world, is
applied to its mother's bosom, its sense of perceiving warmth is
first agreeably affected; next its sense of smell is delighted
with the odor of her milk; then its taste is gratified by the
flavor of it; afterward the appetites of hunger and of thirst
afford pleasure by the possession of their object, and by the
subsequent digestion of the aliment; and, last, the sense of
touch is delighted by the softness and smoothness of the milky
fountain, the source of such variety of happiness.
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