conjecture, but that this idea constituted the Deity among the
Ethiopian or early Cushite race, the people who doubtless carried
civilization to Egypt, India, and Chaldea, is quite probable.

If we bear in mind the fact that the gods of the ancients
represented principles and powers, we shall not be surprised to
find that Muth, Neith, or Isis, who was creator of the sun, was
also the first emanation from the sun. Minerva is Wisdom--the
Logos, the Word. She is Perception, Light, etc. At a later
stage in the history of religion, all emanations from the Deity
are males who are "Saviors."

That the office of the male as a creative agency is dependent on
the female, is a fact so patent that for ages the mother
principle could not be eliminated from the conception of a Deity,
and the homage paid to Athene or Minerva, even after women had
become only sexual slaves and household tools, shows the extent
to which the idea of female supremacy in Nature and in the Deity
had taken root.

Notwithstanding the efforts which during numberless ages were
made to dethrone the female principle in the god-idea, the Great
Mother, under some one of her various appellations, continued,
down to a late period in the history of the human race, to claim
the homage and adoration of a large portion of the inhabitants of
the globe. And so difficult was it, even after the male element
had declared itself supreme, to conceive of a creative force
independently of the female principle, that oftentimes, during
the earlier ages of their attempted separation, great confusion
and obscurity are observed in determining the positions of male