ded that the father is the only
parent, thereby reversing the established manner of reckoning descent,
still, as we shall hereafter observe, thousands of years were required
to eliminate the female element from the god-idea.

We must not lose sight of the fact that human society was first
organized and held together by means of the gens, at the head of which
was a woman. The several members of this organization were but parts of
one body cemented together by the pure principle of maternity, the chief
duty of these members being to defend and protect each other if needs be
with their life blood. The fact has been observed, in an earlier work,
that only through the gens was the organization of society possible.
Without it mankind could have accomplished nothing toward its own
advancement.

Thus, throughout the earlier ages of human existence, at a time when
mankind lived nearer to Nature and before individual wealth and the
stimulation of evil passions had engendered superstition, selfishness,
and distrust, the maternal element constituted not only the binding and
preserving principle in human society, but, together with the power to
bring forth, constituted also the god-idea, which idea, as has already
been observed, at a certain stage in the history of the race was
portrayed by a female figure with a child in her arms.

From all sources of information at hand are to be derived evidences of
the fact that the earliest religion of which we have any account was
pure Nature-worship, that whatever at any given time might have been the
object adored, whether it were the earth, a tree, water, or the sun, it
was simply as an emblem of the great energizing agency in Nature. The
moving or forming force in the universe constituted the god-idea. The
figure of a mother with her child signified not only the power to bring
forth, but Perceptive Wisdom, or Light, as well.

As through a study of Comparative Ethnology, or through an investigation
into the customs, traditions, and mythoses of extant races in the
various stages of development, have been discovered the beginnings of
the religious idea and the mental qualities which among primitive races
prompted worship, so, also, through extinct tongues and the symbolism
used in religious rites and ceremonies, many of the processes have been
unearthed whereby the original and beautiful conceptions of the Deity,
and the worship inspired by the operations of Nature, and especially
the cre