man and woman, or to such things as
he considered symbolical of them--that is to say, to understand the
extensiveness of those religions which are grouped under the term
"phallicism". Nor, to my mind, is the symbol of sex a wholly inadequate
one under which to conceive of the origin of things. And, as I have
said before, that phallicism usually appears to have degenerated into
immorality of a very pronounced type is to be deplored, but an immoral
view of human relations is by no means a necessary corollary to a sexual
theory of the universe.(1)

(1) "The reverence as well as the worship paid to the phallus, in early
and primitive days, had nothing in it which partook of indecency; all
ideas connected with it were of a reverential and religious kind....

"The indecent ideas attached to the representation of the phallus were,
though it seems a paradox to say so, the results of a more advanced
civilization verging towards its decline, as we have evidence at Rome
and Pompeii....

"To the primitive man (the reproductive force which pervades all nature)
was the most mysterious of all manifestations. The visible physical
powers of nature--the sun, the sky, the storm--naturally claimed his
reverence, but to him the generative power was the most mysterious of
all powers. In the vegetable world, the live seed placed in the ground,
and hence germinating, sprouting up, and becoming a beautiful and
umbrageous tree, was a mystery. In the animal world, as the cause of all
life, by which all beings came into existence, this power was a mystery.
In the view of primitive man generation was the action of the Deity
itself. It was the mode in which He brought all things into existence,
the sun, the moon, the stars, the world, man were generated by Him.
To the productive power man was deeply indebted, for to it he owed the
harvests and the flocks which supported his life; hence it naturally
became an object of reverence and worship.

"Primitive man wants some object to worship, for an abstract idea
is beyond his comprehension, hence a visible representation of the
generative Deity was made, with the organs contributing to generation
most prominent, and hence the organ itself became a symbol of the
power."--H, M. WESTROPP: _Primitive Symbolism as Illustrated in Phallic
Worship, or the Reproductive Principle_ (1885), pp. 47, 48, and 57. {End
of long footnote}

The Aruntas of Australia, I believe, when discovered by Europeans, had
no