ative 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.

CHAPTER II. TREE, PLANT, AND FRUIT WORSHIP.

When mankind first began to perceive the fact of an all-pervading agency
throughout Nature, by or through which everything is produced, and when
they began to speculate on the origin of life and the final cause
and destiny of things, it is not in the least remarkable that various
objects and elements, such as fire, air, water, trees, etc., should in
their turn have been venerated as in some special manner embodying the
divine essence. Neither is it surprising although this universal agency
wa