an Valley."(53)

53) Prehistoric Nations, p. 191.

Although at the time of the building of the Tower of Babel the worship
of a Deity in which the male principle was pre-eminent had not become
universal, still the facts seem to indicate that the doctrine of male
superiority which for ages had been steadily advancing had at length
gained the ascendancy over the older religion. The new faith and worship
had corrupted the old, and through the conditions which had been imposed
upon women, and the consequent stimulation of the lower nature in man,
even the adherents of the older faith were losing sight of those higher
principles which in preceding ages they had adored as God.

We have seen that in every country upon the earth there is a tradition
recounting the ravages of a flood. Whether or not this legend is to
be traced to an actual calamity by which a large portion of Asia was
inundated, is not for a certainty known; but the fact that there was a
deluge of contention and strife, surpassing anything perhaps which the
world has ever witnessed, seems altogether probable.

Not long after the catastrophe designated as the flood, emblems of
the Deity, representations of the male and female elements, appear in
profusion. Babylon, at which place was erected the Tower of Belus, and
Memphis, which contained the Pyramids, were among the first cities which
were built. As the tower typified the Deity worshipped by those who
claimed superiority for the male, so the pyramids symbolized the
creative agency and peculiar qualities of the female, or of the dual
Deity which was worshipped as female.

Although the grosser elements in human nature were rapidly assuming a
more intensely aggressive attitude, and although the higher principles
involved in an earlier religion were in a measure forgotten, it is
evident that at this time humanity had not become wholly sensualized,
and that the lower propensities and appetites had not assumed dominion
over the reasoning faculties.

The Great Mother Cybele, who is represented by the Sphinx, had doubtless
been adored as a pure abstraction, her worship being that of the
universal female principle in Nature. She is pictured as the "Eldest
Daughter of the Mythologies," and as "The Great First Cause." She
represented the past and the future. She was the source whence all that
was and is had proceeded.

In its earliest representations, the Sphinx is figured with the head of
a woman and the