It is clear that there have been three main lines, so far,
along which human speculation and study have run. One
connecting religious rites and observations with the movements
of the Sun and the planets in the sky, and leading to
the invention of and belief in Olympian and remote gods
dwelling in heaven and ruling the Earth from a distance;
the second connecting religion with the changes
of the season, on the Earth and with such practical things
as the growth of vegetation and food, and leading to or
mingled with a vague belief in earth-spirits and magical
methods of influencing such spirits; and the third connecting
religion with man's own body and the tremendous force
of sex residing in it--emblem of undying life and all
fertility and power. It is clear also--and all investigation
confirms it--that the second-mentioned phase of religion
arose on the whole BEFORE the first-mentioned--that is,
that men naturally thought about the very practical questions
of food and vegetation, and the magical or other
methods of encouraging the same, before they worried themselves
about the heavenly bodies and the laws of THEIR
movements, or about the sinister or favorable influences the
stars might exert. And again it is extremely probable that
the third-mentioned aspect--that which connected religion
with the procreative desires and phenomena of human
physiology--really came FIRST. These desires and physiological
phenomena must have loomed large on the primitive
mind long before the changes of the seasons or of the sky
had been at all definitely observed or considered. Thus we
find it probable that, in order to understand the sequence of
the actual and historical phases of religious worship, we must