those who have not given special
attention to this subject.

It has been stated that in the time of Solon, law-giver of Athens, there
were twenty temples in the various cities of Greece dedicated to Venus
the courtesan, within which were practiced, in the name of religion, the
most infamous rites and the most shameless self-abandonment; and that
throughout Europe, down to a late period in the history of the race,
religious festivals were celebrated at certain seasons of the year, at
which the ceremonies performed in honor of the god of fornication were
of the grossest nature, and at which the Bacchanalian orgies were only
equalled by those practiced in the religious temples of Babylon.

It is impossible longer to conceal the fact that passion, symbolized
by a serpent, an upright stone, and by the male and female organs of
generation, the male appearing as the "giver of life," the female as a
necessary appendage to it, constituted the god-idea of mankind for at
least four thousand years; and, instead of being confined to the earlier
ages of that period, we shall presently see that phallic worship had
not disappeared, under Christianity, as late and even later than the
sixteenth century.

Such has been the result of the ascendancy gained by the grosser
elements in human nature: the highest idea of the Infinite passion
symbolized by the organs of generation, while the principal rites
connected with its worship are scenes of debauchery and self-abasement.

At the present time it is by no means difficult to trace the growth of
the god-idea. First, as we have seen, a system of pure Nature-worship
appeared under the symbol of a Mother and child. In process of time this
particular form of worship was supplanted by a religion under which the
male principle is seen to be in the ascendancy over the female. Later
a more complicated system of Nature-worship is observed in which the
underlying principles are concealed, or are understood only by the
initiated. Lastly, these philosophical and recondite principles are
forgotten and the symbols themselves receive the adoration which once
belonged to the Creator. The change which the ideas concerning womanhood
underwent from the time when the natural feminine characters and
qualities were worshipped as God, to the days of Solon the Grecian
law-giver, when women had become merely tools or slaves for the use
and pleasure of men, is forcibly shown by a comparison of the character
ascrib