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.