ire development and symbolism centers about
articles of food, and since in the phallic rites an entirely analagous
development and symbolism centers about the generative organs, it is
only reasonable to infer that the phallic rites have to do with the
desire for children. In this we have the meaning of sex worship. It is
primitive man's expression of his desire for the perpetuation of the
race and so it represents a biological necessity, the earlier motive
being for the preservation of the individual.

Fortunately the conclusions which the above arguments would appear to
warrant are borne out by the statements of those who have studied these
matters in great detail. Miss J. Harrison,[34] who also quotes Dr.
Frazer, states: "The two great interests of primitive man are food and
children. As Dr. Frazer has well said, if man the individual is to live
he must have food; if his race is to persist he must have children, 'to
live and to cause to live, to eat food and to beget children, these were
the primary wants of man in the past, and they will be the primary wants
of men in the future so long as the world lasts.' Other things may be
added to enrich and beautify human life, but, unless these wants are
first satisfied, humanity itself must cease to exist. These two things,
therefore, food and children, were what man chiefly sought to secure by
the performance of magical rites for the regulation of the seasons. They
are the very foundation stones of that ritual from which art, if we are
right, took its rise."

There is a very striking parallelism between these two rites. It would
be interesting to trace out these analogies step by step, but we shall
refer to them only in a general way.

The outward form of the two rites is very similar. In both a religious
ceremony is enacted. In the development of this ceremony a system, in
which a priesthood forms a prominent part, is developed in both
instances. The element of mystery runs through both procedures and, as
Steven D. Peet[35] has stated, the nature worship ceremony of the North
American Indians bears a remarkable resemblance to the mysteries of the
Eleusis and of the Bacchanalia.

In both the nature rites and the phallic rites, a sacred ceremonial
object develops, and about this object a very elaborate symbolism
evolves. Just as in the most primitive form of sex worship we saw that
the deity consisted of a rude representation of the generative organs,
so in nature worship