uistic principles
involved in these teachings contain the highest wisdom--that they
form the basis of a true social science, and that a high stage of
civilization will never be reached until these principles are recognized
as the foundation of human conduct Unselfishness, purity of life, and
the brotherhood of man will never be realized so long as man shifts the
responsibility of his wrong-doing upon another.

Quite recently the fact has been proved that the progressive principle
originated in the female constitution; that in sympathy, a character
which has its root in maternal affection, lies the key to human
progress. Conscience and the moral sense are outgrowths of sympathy;
therefore, that which distinguishes man from the lower orders of life
originated in and has been developed through the female organization.

When these plain scientific truths, which are so simple as scarcely to
need demonstration, become popularized, doubtless our present god-idea
will undergo a process of reconstruction, and the later development
will probably involve conceptions more in keeping with science and human
reason. Surely a scientific age will tolerate no religious conception
whose principles are not founded on truth. The worship of a male god as
the sole creator and sustainer of the universe is as unphilosophical as
it is unreasonable and unscientific.

As in many ways at the present time, mankind seems inclined to retrace
its steps, and as upon its onward march humanity is beginning to
manifest a willingness to return to truer and more primitive methods of
thought and action, it is not impossible that in the not distant future,
Perceptive Wisdom and the altruistic principles, together with the
power to give life, may again be divinely enthroned in the place so long
usurped by physical force and virile might.

End of Project Gutenberg's The God-Idea of the Ancients, by Eliza Burt Gamble

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