PREFACE.
Much of the material for this volume was collected during the time that
I was preparing for the press the Evolution of Woman, or while
searching for data bearing on the subject of sex-specialization. While
preparing that book for publication, it was my intention to include within
it this branch of my investigation, but wishing to obtain certain facts
relative to the foundations of religious belief and worship which were not
accessible at that time, and knowing that considerable labor and patience
would be required in securing these facts, I decided to publish the first
part of the work, withholding for the time being that portion of it
pertaining especially to the development of the God-idea.
As mankind construct their own gods, or as the prevailing ideas of the
unknowable reflect the inner consciousness of human beings, a trustworthy
history of the growth of religions must correspond to the processes
involved in the mental, moral, and social development of the individual
and the nation.
By means of data
brought forward in these later times relative to the growth of the
God-idea, it is observed that an independent chain of evidence has been
produced in support of the facts recently set forth bearing upon the
development of the two diverging lines of sexual demarcation. In other
words, it has been found that sex is the fundamental fact not only in the
operations of Nature but in the construction of a god.
In the Evolution of Woman it has been shown that the peculiar
inheritance of the two sexes, female and male, is the result of the bias
given to these separate lines of development during the earliest periods
of sex-differentiation; and, as this division of labor was a necessary
step in the evolutionary processes, the rate of progress depended largely
on the subsequent adjustment of these two primary elements or forces. A
comprehensive study of prehistoric records shows that in an earlier age of
existence upon the earth, at a time when woman's influence was in the
ascendancy over that of man, human energy was directed by the altruistic
characters which originated in and have been transmitted through the
female; but after the decline of woman's power, all human institutions,
customs, forms, and habits of thought are seen to reflect the egoistic
qualities acquired by the male.
Nowhere is the
influence of sex more plainly manifested than in the formulation of
religious conceptions and creeds. With the rise of male power and
dominion, and the corresponding repression of the natural female
instincts, the principles which originally constituted the God-idea
gradually gave place to a Deity better suited to the peculiar bias which
had been given to the male organism. An anthropomorphic god like that of
the Jews -- a god whose chief attributes are power and virile might --
could have had its origin only under a system of masculine rule.
Religion is especially liable to reflect the vagaries and weaknesses of
human nature; and, as the forms and habits of thought connected with
worship take a firmer hold on the mental constitution than do those
belonging to any other department of human experience, religious
conceptions should be subjected to frequent and careful examination in
order to perceive, if possible, the extent to which we are holding on to
ideas which are unsuited to existing conditions.
In an age when every branch of inquiry is being subjected to reasonable
criticism, it would seem that the origin and growth of religion should be
investigated from beneath the surface, and that all the facts bearing upon
it should be brought forward as a contribution to our fund of general
information. As well might we hope to gain a complete knowledge of human
history by studying only the present aspect of society, as to expect to
reach reasonable conclusions respecting the prevailing God-idea by
investigating the various creeds and dogmas of existing faiths.
The object of this volume is not only to furnish a brief outline of
religious growth, but to show the effect which each of the two forces,
female and male, has had on the development of our present God-idea, which
investigation serves to accentuate the conclusions arrived at in the
Evolution of Woman relative to the inheritance of each of the two
lines of sexual demarcation.
E.B.G.
THROUGH a study of the primitive
god-idea as manifested in monumental records in various parts of the
world; through scientific investigation into the early religious
conceptions of mankind as expressed by symbols which appear in the
architecture and decorations of sacred edifices and shrines; by means of a
careful examination of ancient holy objects and places still extant in
every quarter of the globe, and through the study of antique art, it is
not unlikely that a line of investigation has been marked out whereby a
tolerably correct knowledge of the processes involved in our present
religious systems may be obtained. The numberless figures and sacred
emblems which appear carved in imperishable stone in the earliest cave
temples; the huge towers, monoliths, and rocking stones found in nearly
every country of the globe, and which are known to be closely connected
with primitive belief and worship, and the records found on tablets which
are being unearthed in various parts of the world, are, with the
unravelling of extinct tongues, proving an almost inexhaustible source for
obtaining information bearing upon the early history of the human race,
and, together, furnish indisputable evidence of the origin, development,
and unity of religious faiths.
By comparing the languages used by the earlier races to express their
religious conceptions; by observing the similarity in the mythoses and
sacred appellations among all tribe and nations, an through the discovery
of the fact that the legends extant in the various countries of the globe
are identical, or have the same foundation, it is probable that a clue has
already been obtained whereby an outline of the religious history of the
human family from a period even as remote as the "first dispersion," or
from a time when one race comprehended the entire population of the globe,
maybe traced. Humboldt in his Researches observes: "In every part
of the globe, on the ridge of the Cordilleras as well as in the Isle of
Samothrace, in the Ægean Sea, fragments of primitive languages are
preserved in religious rites."
Regarding the identity of the fundamental
ideas contained in the various systems of religion, both past and present,
Hargrave Jennings, in referring to a parallel drawn by Sir William Jones,
between the deities of Meru and Olympus, observes:
"All our speculations
tend to the same conclusions. One day it is a discovery of cinerary vases,
the next, it is etymological research; yet again it is ethnological
investigation, and the day after, it is the publication of unsuspected
tales from the Norse; but all go to heap up proof of our consanguinity
with the peoples of history -- and of an original general belief, we might
add."
That the religious systems of India and Egypt were originally the same,
there can be at the present time no reasonable doubt. The fact noted by
various writers, of the British Sepoys, who, on their overland route from
India, upon beholding the ruins of Dendera, prostrated themselves before
the remains of the ancient temples and offered adoration to them, proves
the identity of Indian and Egyptian deities These foreign devotees, being
asked to explain the reason of their strange conduct declared that they
"saw sculptured before them the gods of their country."
Upon the subject of the identity of Eastern religions, Wilford remarks
that one and the same code both of theology and of fabulous history, has
been received through a range or belt about forty degrees broad across the
old continent, in a southeast and northwest direction from the eastern
shores of the Malaga peninsula to the western extremity of the British
Isles, that, through this immense range the same religious notions
reappear in various places under various modifications, as might be
expected; and that there is not a greater difference between the tenets
and worship of the Hindoos and the Greeks than exists between the churches
of Home and Geneva.
Concerning the
universality of certain religious beliefs and opinions, Faber, commenting
upon the above statement of Wilford, observes that, immense as is this
territorial range, it is by far too limited to include the entire
phenomenon, that the observation
"applies
with equal propriety to the entire habitable globe; for the arbitrary
rites and opinions of every pagan nation bear so close a resemblance to
each other, that such a coincidence can only have been produced by their
having had a common origin. Barbarism itself has not been able to efface
the strong primeval impression. Vestiges of the ancient general system may
be traced in the recently discovered islands in the Pacific Ocean; and,
when the American world was first opened to the hardy adventurers of
Europe, its inhabitants from north to south venerated, with kindred
ceremonies and kindred notions, the gods of Egypt and Hindostan, of Greece
and Italy, of Phoenicia and Britain." 1
"Though each religion has its own
peculiar growth, the seed from which they spring is everywhere the same."2
The question as to whether the identity of conception and the
similarity in detail observed in religious rites, ceremonies, and symbols
in the various countries of the globe are due to the universal law of
unity which governs human development, or whether, through the dispersion
of one original people, the early conceptions of a Deity were spread
broadcast over the entire earth, is perhaps not settled; yet, from the
facts which have been brought forward during the last century, the latter
theory seems altogether probable, such divergence in religious ideas as is
observed among the various peoples of the earth being attributable to
variations in temperament
caused by changed conditions of life. In other words, the divergence in
the course of religious development has doubtless been due to environment.
In an attempt to understand the history
of the growth of the god-idea, the fact should be borne in mind that, from
the earliest conception of a creative force in the animal and vegetable
world to the latest development in theological speculation, there has
never been what might consistently be termed a new religion. On the
contrary, religion like everything else is subject to the law of growth;
therefore the faiths of to-day are the legitimate result, or outcome, of
the primary idea of a Deity developed in accordance with the laws
governing the peculiar instincts which have been in the ascendancy during
the life of mankind on the earth.
The erroneous impression which under a belief in the unknown has come
to prevail, namely, that the moral law is the result of religion; or, in
other words, that the human conscience is in some manner dependent on
supernaturalism for its origin and maintenance, is, with a better and
clearer understanding of the past history of the development of the human
race, being gradually dispelled. On one point we may reasonably rest
assured that the knowledge of right and wrong and our sense of justice and
right-living have been developed quite independently of all religious
beliefs. The moral law embodied in the golden rule is not an outgrowth of
mysticism, or of man's notions of the unknowable; but, on the contrary, is
the result of experience, and was formulated in response to a recognized
law of human necessity, -- a law which involves the fundamental principle of progress. The
history of human development shows conclusively that mankind grew
into the recognition of the moral law, that through sympathy, or a desire
for the welfare of others, -- a character which had its root in maternal
affection, -- conscience and the moral sense were evolved.
While the moral law and the conscience
may not be accounted as in any sense the result of man's ideas concerning
the unknowable, neither can the errors and weaknesses developed in human
nature be regarded as the result of religion. Although the sexual excesses
which during three or four thousand years were practiced as sacred rites,
and treated as part and parcel of religion in various parts of the world,
have had the effect to stimulate and strengthen the animal nature in man,
yet these rites may not be accounted as the primary cause of the supremacy
of the lower nature over the higher faculties. On the contrary, the
impulse which has been termed religion, with all the vagaries which its
history presents, is to be regarded more as an effect than as a cause. The
stage of a nation's development regulates its religion. Man creates his
own gods; they are powerless to change him.
As written history records only those events in human experience
which belong to a comparatively recent period of man's existence, and as
the primitive conceptions of a Deity lie buried beneath ages of
corruption, glimpses of the earlier faiths of mankind, as has already been
stated, must be looked for in the traditions, monuments, and languages of
extinct races.
In reviewing this matter we shall
doubtless observe the fact that if the stage of a nation's growth is
indicated by its religious conceptions, and if remnants of religious
beliefs are everywhere present in the languages, traditions, and monuments
of the past through a careful study of these subjects we may expect to
gain a tolerably correct understanding not alone of the growth of the
god-idea but of the stage of development reached by the nations which
existed prior to the beginning of the historic age. We shall be enabled
also to perceive whether or not the course of human development during the
intervening ages has been continuous, or whether, for some cause hitherto
unexplained, true progress throughout a portion of this time has been
arrested, thus producing a backward movement, or degeneracy.
If we would unravel the mysteries involved in present religious
faiths, we should begin not by attempting to analyze or explain any
existing system or systems of belief and worship. Such a course is likely
to end not only in confusion and in a subsequent denial of the existence
of the religious nature in mankind, but is liable, also, to create an
aversion for and a distrust of the entire subject of religious experience.
In view of this fact it would appear to be not only useless but
exceedingly unwise to spend one's time in attempting to gain a knowledge
of this subject simply by studying the later developments in its history.
If we are really desirous of obtaining information regarding present
religious phenomena, it is plain that we should adopt the scientific
method and turn our attention to the remote past, where, by
careful and systematic investigation, we are enabled to perceive the
earliest conception of a creative force and the fundamental basis of all
religious systems, from which may be traced the gradual development of the
god-idea.
[1] Pagan Idolatry,
book i., ch. i.
[2] Max Müller, Origin and Growth of Religion, p.
48.
Chapter 1
CHAPTER I.
SEX THE FOUNDATION OF THE GOD-IDEA.
In the study of primitive religion,
the analogy existing between the growth of the god-idea and the
development of the human race, and especially of the two sex-principles,
is everywhere clearly apparent.
"Religion is to be found alone with its
justification and explanation in the relations of the sexes. There and
therein only."1
As the conception of a deity originated in sex, or in the creative
agencies female and male which animate Nature, we may reasonably expect to
find, in the history of the development of the two sex-principles and in
the notions entertained concerning them throughout past ages, a tolerably
correct account of the growth of the god-idea. We shall perceive that
during an earlier age of human existence, not only were the reproductive
powers throughout Nature, and especially in human beings and in animals,
venerated as the Creator, but we shall find also that the prevailing ideas
relative to the importance of either sex in the office of reproduction
decided the sex of this
universal creative force. We shall observe also that the ideas of a god
have always corresponded with the current opinions regarding the
importance of either sex in human society. In other words, so long as
female power and influence were in the ascendency, the creative force was
regarded as embodying the principles of the female nature; later, however,
when woman's power waned, and the supremacy of man was gained, the
god-idea began gradually to assume the male characters and attributes.
Through scientific research the fact has
been observed that, for ages after life appeared on the earth, the male
had no separate existence; that the two sex-principles, the sperm and the
germ, were contained within one and the same individual. Through the
processes of differentiation, however, these elements became detached, and
with the separation of the male from the female, the reproductive
functions were henceforth confided to two separate individuals.
As originally, throughout Nature, the
female was the visible organic unit within whom was contained the
exclusive creative power, and as throughout the earlier ages of life on
the earth she comprehended the male, it is not perhaps singular that, even
after the appearance of mankind on the earth, the greater importance of
the mother element in human society should have been recognized; nor, as
the power to bring forth coupled with perceptive wisdom originally
constituted the Creator, that the god-idea should have been female instead
of male.
From the facts to be observed in relation to this subject, it is
altogether probable that for ages
the generating principle throughout Nature was venerated as female; but
with that increase of knowledge which was the result of observation and
experience, juster or more correct ideas came to prevail, and subsequently
the great fructifying energy throughout the universe came to be regarded
as a dual indivisible force -- female and male. This force, or agency,
constituted one God, which, as woman's functions in those ages were
accounted of more importance than those of man, was oftener worshipped
under the form of a female figure.
Neith, Minerva, Athene, and Cybele, the
most important deities of their respective countries, were adored as
Perceptive Wisdom, or Light, while Ceres and others represented Fertility.
With the incoming of male dominion and supremacy, however, we observe the
desire to annul the importance of the female and to enthrone one
all-powerful male god whose chief attributes were power and might.
Notwithstanding the efforts which during
the historic period have been put forward to magnify the importance of the
male both in human affairs and in the god-idea, still, no one, I think,
can study the mythologies and traditions of the nations of antiquity
without being impressed with the prominence given to the female element,
and the deeper the study the stronger will this impression grow.
During a certain stage of human development, religion was but a
recognition of and a reliance upon the vivifying or fructifying forces
throughout Nature, and in the earlier ages of man's career, worship
consisted for the most part in the celebration of festivals at stated
seasons of the year, notably during seed-time and harvest, to commemorate the benefits derived from the grain
field and vineyard.
Doubtless the first deified object was
Gaia, the Earth. As within the bosom of the earth was supposed to reside
the fructifying, life-giving power, and as from it were received all the
bounties of life, it was female. It was the Universal Mother, and to her
as to no other divinity worshipped by mankind, was offered a spontaneity
of devotion and a willing acknowledgment of dependence. Thus far in the
history of mankind no temples dedicated to an undefined and undefinable
God had been raised. The children of Mother Earth met in the open air,
without the precincts of any man-made shrine, and under the aerial canopy
of heaven, acknowledged the bounties of the great Deity and their
dependence upon her gifts. She was a beneficent and all-wise God, a tender
and loving parent -- a mother, who demanded no bleeding sacrifice to
reconcile her to her children. The ceremonies observed at these festive
seasons consisted for the most part in merry-making and in general
thanksgiving, in which the gratitude of the worshippers found expression
in song and dance, and in invocations to their Deity for a return or
continuance of her gifts.
Subsequently, through the awe and reverence inspired by the mysteries
involved in birth and life, the adoration of the creative principles in
vegetable existence became supplemented by the worship of the creative
functions in human beings and in animals. The earth, including the power
inherent in it by which the continuity of existence is maintained, and by
which new forms are continuously called into
life, embodied the idea of God; and, as this inner force was regarded as
inherent in matter, or as a manifestation of it, in process of time earth
and the heavens, body and spirit, came to be worshipped under the form of
a mother and her child, this figure being the highest expression of a
Creator which the human mind was able to conceive. Not only did this
emblem represent fertility, or the fecundating energies of Nature, but
with the power to create were combined or correlated all the mental
qualities and attributes of the two sexes. In fact the whole universe was
contained in the Mother idea -- the child, which was sometimes female,
sometimes male, being a scion or offshoot from the eternal or universal
unit.
Underlying all ancient mythologies may be
observed the idea that the earth, from which all things proceed, is
female. Even in the mythology of the Finns, Lapps, and Esths, Mother Earth
is the divinity adored. Tylor calls attention to the same idea in the
mythology of England,
"from the
days when the Anglo-Saxon called upon the Earth, `Hal wes thu folde fira
modor' (Hail, thou Earth, men's mother), to the time when mediæval
Englishmen made a riddle of her asking `Who is Adam's mother?' and poetry
continued what mythology was letting fall, when Milton's Archangel
promised Adam a life to last
`. . . till like ripe fruit thou drop
Into thy Mother's lap.'"2
In the old religion the sky was the husband of the earth and the
earth was mother of all the gods.3 In the traditions of
past ages the fact is clearly
perceived that there was a time when the mother was not only the one
recognized parent on earth, but that the female principle was worshipped
as the more important creative force throughout Nature.
Doubtless the worship of the female
energy prevailed under the matriarchal system, and was practised at a time
when women were the recognized heads of families and when they were
regarded as the more important factors in human society. The fact has been
shown in a previous work that after women began to leave their homes at
marriage, and after property, especially land, had fallen under the
supervision and control of men, the latter, as they manipulated all the
necessaries of life and the means of supplying them, began to regard
themselves as superior beings, and later, to claim that as a factor in
reproduction, or creation, the male was the more important. With this
change the ideas of a Deity also began to undergo a modification. The dual
principle necessary to creation, and which had hitherto been worshipped as
an indivisible unity, began gradually to separate into its individual
elements, the male representing spirit, the moving or forming force in the
generative processes, the female being matter -- the instrument through
which spirit works. Spirit which is eternal had produced matter which is
destructible. The fact will be observed that this doctrine prevails to a
greater or less extent in the theologies of the present time.
A little observation and reflection will show us that during this
change in the ideas relative to a creative principle, or God, descent and
the rights of succession which had hitherto been reckoned through
the mother were changed from the female to the male line, the father
having in the meantime become the only recognized parent. In the
Eumenides of Æschylus, the plea of Orestes in extenuation of his crime
is that he is not of kin to his mother. Euripides, also, puts into the
mouth of Apollo the same physiological notion, that she who bears the
child is only its nurse. The Hindoo Code of Menu, which, however, since
its earliest conception, has undergone numberless mutilations to suit the
purposes of the priests, declares that "the mother is but the field which
brings forth the plant according to whatsoever seed is sown."
Although, through the accumulation of
property in masses and the capture of women for wives, men had succeeded
in gaining the ascendancy, and although the doctrine had been propounded
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 creative functions in human beings gradually became
obscured by the grossest ideas and the vilest practices. The symbols which
appear in connection with early religious rites and ceremonies, and under
which are veiled the conceptions of a still earlier and purer age, when
compared with subsequently developed notions relative to the same objects,
indicate plainly the change which has been wrought in the original ideas
relative to the creative functions, and furnish an index to the direction
which human development, or growth, has taken.
As the human race constructs its own gods, and as by the conceptions
involved in the deities worshipped at any given time in the history of
mankind we are able to form a correct estimate of the character,
temperament, and aspirations of the worshippers, so the history of the
gods of the race, as revealed to us through the means of symbols,
monumental records, and the investigation of extinct tongues, proves that
from a stage of Nature worship and a pure and rational conception of the
creative forces in the universe, mankind, in course of time, degenerated
into mere devotees of sensual pleasure. With the corruption of human
nature and the decline of mental power which followed the supremacy of the
animal instincts, the earlier abstract idea of God was gradually lost
sight of, and man himself in the form of a potentate or ruler, together
with the various emblems of virility, came to be worshipped as the
Creator. From adorers of an abstract creative principle, mankind had
lapsed into worshippers of the symbols under which this principle had been
veiled.
Although at certain stages in the history
of the human race the evils, which as a result of the supremacy of the
ruder elements developed in mankind had befallen the race were lamented
and bewailed, they could not be suppressed. Man had become a lost and
ruined creature. The golden age had passed away.
[1] Hargrave Jennings,
Phallicism.
[2] Primitive Culture, vol. i., p. 295.
[3] Max Müller, Origin and Growth of Religion, p.
279.
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