nd a plate of argillaceous compound, on which was scratched a rude
drawing of the phallus."[90] Thus we see that, possibly, from the time
of the cave-dwellers to almost the beginning of the nineteenth century,
phallic worship existed in Southern Europe! From the Sagas, folklore
tales, and myths of the Norse we have every reason for believing that it
existed for almost as great a length of time in Northern Europe. That in
Western Europe, before and during the Middle Ages, it flourished in a
variety of forms, we have unimpeachable testimony.

[90] _The Worship of the Generative Powers_, footnote p. 117.

In this brief outline of phallic worship I have endeavored to show that
the worship of the generative principle has been universal; that it is
still practiced by primitive peoples, and that vestiges of it lingered
among certain civilized peoples until, comparatively speaking, a recent
time. In order to show what a height of idealization and abstraction it
had reached at a time when Greece stood at the head of the civilized
world, I will close this part of my essay with the following quotation
from Knight's strong, erudite, and exhaustive treatise: "The ancient
theologists ... finding that they could conceive no idea of infinity,
were content to revere the Infinite Being in the most general and
efficient exertion of his power--attraction; whose agency is perceptible
through all matter, and to which all motion may, perhaps, be ultimately
traced. His agency being supposed to extend through the whole material
world, and to produce all the various revolutions by which its system is
sustained, his attributes were, of course, extremely numerous and
varied. These were expressed by various titles and epithets in the
mystic hymns and litanies, which the artists endeavored to represent by
various forms and characters of men and animals. The great
characteristic attribute was represented by the organ of generation in
that state of tension and rigidity which is necessary to the due
performance of its functions. Many small images of this kind have been
found among the ruins of Herculaneum and Pompeii, attached to bracelets,
which the chaste and pious matrons of antiquity wore round their necks
and arms. In these the organ of generation appears alone, or accompanied
by the wings of incubation, in order to show that the wearer devoted
herself wholly and solely to procreation, the great end for which she
was ordained. So expressive a