The God-Idea of the Ancients | Page 3

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Digitized by Charles Keller

THE GOD-IDEA OF THE ANCIENTS OR SEX IN RELIGION
BY ELIZA BURT GAMBLE Author of "The Evolution of Woman"

PREFACE. Much of the material for this volume was collected during the time that I was
preparing for the press the Evolution of Woman, or while searching for data bearing on
the subject of sex-specialization. While preparing that book for publication, it was my
intention to include within it this branch of my investigation, but wishing to obtain
certain facts relative to the foundations of religious belief and worship which were not
accessible at that time, and knowing that considerable labor and patience would be
required in securing these facts, I decided to publish the first part of the work,
withholding for the time being that portion of it pertaining especially to the development
of the God-idea.

As mankind construct their own gods, or as the prevailing ideas of the unknowable reflect
the inner consciousness of human beings, a trustworthy history of the growth of religions
must correspond to the processes involved in the mental, moral, and social development
of the individual and the nation.
By means of data brought forward in these later times relative to the growth of the
God-idea, it is observed that an independent chain of evidence has been produced in
support of the facts recently set forth bearing upon the development of the two diverging
lines of sexual demarcation. In other words, it has been found that sex is the fundamental
fact not only in the operations of Nature but in the construction of a god.
In the Evolution of Woman it has been shown that the peculiar inheritance of the two
sexes, female and male, is the result of the bias given to these separate lines of
development during the earliest periods of sex-differentiation; and, as this division of
labor was a necessary step in the evolutionary processes, the rate of progress depended
largely on the subsequent adjustment of these two primary elements or forces. A
comprehensive study of prehistoric records shows that in an earlier age of existence upon
the earth, at a time when woman's influence was in the ascendancy over that of man,
human energy was directed by the altruistic characters which originated in and have been
transmitted through the female; but after the decline of woman's power, all human
institutions, customs, forms, and habits of thought are seen to reflect the egoistic qualities
acquired by the male.
Nowhere is the influence of sex more plainly manifested than in the formulation of
religious conceptions and creeds. With the rise of male power and dominion, and the
corresponding repression of the natural female instincts, the principles which originally
constituted the God-idea gradually gave place to a Deity better suited to the peculiar bias
which had been given to the male organism. An anthropomorphic god like that of the
Jews--a god whose chief attributes are power and virile might--could have had its origin
only under a system of masculine rule.
Religion is especially liable to reflect the vagaries and weaknesses of human nature; and,
as the forms and habits of thought connected with worship take a firmer hold on the
mental constitution than do those belonging to any other department of human experience,
religious conceptions should be subjected to frequent and careful examination in order to
perceive, if possible, the extent to which we are holding on to ideas which are unsuited to
existing conditions.
In an age when every branch of inquiry is being subjected to reasonable criticism, it
would seem that the origin and growth of religion should be investigated from beneath
the surface, and that all the facts bearing upon it should be brought forward as a
contribution to our fund of general information. As well might we hope to gain a
complete knowledge of human history by studying only the present aspect of society,