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
