Nudity and Nonsense.
WITH much that Dr. Saleeby and others urge concerning the value of sunlight, and the necessity of exposing our
bodies to their natural element, fresh air, we are in agreement.
The need for a more natural way of living is apparent in ninety-nine out of every hundred city-dwellers, with their clogged skins. But when Dr. Parmelee endeavours to enlist public support for " the new gymnosophy " we feel he is going too far and protesting too much.
The gynmosophists were naked philosophers of ancient India, who ate no flesh, renounced all bodily pleasures,
and gave themselves up to mystical contemplation. The
new variety of this cult, as practised by Dr. Parmelee and his German friends, is not specifically ascetic, or indeed meditative. It attends its festivals by bicycle or charabanc, and dances to a gramophone or wireless. It snapshots its members in more or less graceful poses, and it is, above all, acutely self-conscious and self-assertive, which the ancient Aryans were not.
Dr. Parmelee believes in a return to primitive life. We should give up living in cold climates, where we must wrap ourselves in hideous garments and bustle about to earn our bread. " The sensible thing for many to do is to retire from the frigid zones to warmer regions." Certain of the gymnosophic circles in which he moved seem, however, to have thought that the hope of the world lay with the white- skinned races, and excluded from their number all Jews and Orientals. These folk are in the outer darkness—not of Dr. Parmelee's 'doxy. They believe in Nordicism as he believes in nudity—and we shall not attempt to consider which is the wiser.
The tropics, we are told, are perfectly suitable for the white man. He eats and drinks too much—Dr. Parmelee saw him at it when he passed through India—and he does not take enough exercise. If only " white men and women will reduce their clothing, adopt a light diet, eliminate alcoholic beverages; and accustom themselves to the sun's rays, from which they always flee, there is no reason why they should not live and work successfully in the tropics." After reading several such passages this reviewer wondered whether the author would be of the same opinion after a week or two in August on the Indian North-West frontier.
But, easy generalizations and fantastic theories aside, this book has a certain value as evidence of how seriously men and women in the North of Europe are considering the " back to Nature " movement. For children especially the movement has much of value in it. We read of ceremonies to greet the solstices of summer and winter. We are told that in Germany, Nacktkultur began as a middle-class movement, but is now spreading to the manual workers. We hear of Dr.
Parmelee disporting himself amongst English gymnosophists ; and we read that Mr. Havelock Ellis has no intention of joining any society for the promotion of nakedness because he has always practised it among friends. Moreover, he slily adds, we shall automatically reach a state of pure Nacktkultur, at all events for women, by a continuation of the present dress-reform movement, which finds such general approval."
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