eligious character and for the sexual organs to become sacred at a very
early period in culture. Generation, the reproductive force in man,
animals, and plants, was realized by primitive man to be a fact of the
first magnitude, and he symbolized it in the sexual organs of man and
woman, which thus attained to a solemnity which was entirely independent
of purposes of sexual allurement. Phallus worship may almost be said to be
a universal phenomenon; it is found even among races of high culture,
among the Romans of the Empire and the Japanese to-day; it has, indeed,
been thought by some that one of the origins of the cross is to be found
in the phallus.

"Hardly any other object," remarks Dr. Richard Andree, "has been
with such great unanimity represented by nearly all peoples as
the phallus, the symbol of procreative force in the religions of
the East and an object of veneration at public festivals. In the
Moabitic Baal Peor, in the cult of Dionysos, everywhere, indeed,
except in Persia, we meet with Priapic representations and the
veneration accorded to the generative organ. It is needless to
refer to the great significance of the _Linga puja_, the
procreative organ of the god Siva, in India, a god to whom more
temples were erected than to any other Indian deity. Our museums
amply show how common phallic representations are in Africa, East
Asia, the Pacific, frequently in connection with religious
worship." (R. Andree, "Amerikansche Phallus-Darstellungen,"
_Zeitschrift fuer Ethnologie_, 1895, ht. 6, p. 678.)

Women have no external generative organ like the phallus to play
a large part in life as a sacred symbol. There is, however, some
reason to believe that the triangle is to some extent such a
symbol. Lejeune ("La Representation Sexuelle en Religion, Art, et
Pedagogie," _Bulletin de la Societe d'Anthropologie_, Paris,
October 3, 1901) brings forward reasons in favor of the view that
the triangular hair-covered region of the mons veneris has had
considerable significance in this respect, and he presents
various primitive figures in illustration.

Apart from the religions and magical properties so widely accorded to the
primary sexual characters, there are other reasons why they should not
often have gained or long retained any great importance as objects of
sexual allurement. They are unnecessary and inconvenient for this pur