CHAPTER V.

SEPARATION OF THE FEMALE AND HALE ELEMENTS IN THE DEITY.

Glimpses of antiquity as far back as human ken can reach reveal
the fact that in early ages of human society the physiological
question of sex was a theme of the utmost importance, while
various proofs are at hand showing that throughout the past the
question of the relative importance of the female and male
elements in procreation has been a fruitful source of religious
contention and strife. These struggles, which from time to time
involved the entire habitable globe, were of long duration,
subsiding only after the adherents of the one sex or the other
had gained sufficient ascendancy over the opposite party to
successfully erect its altars and compel the worship of its own
peculiar gods, which worship usually included a large share of
the temporal power. Only since the male sex has gained
sufficient influence to control not only human action, but human
thought as well, have these contentions subsided.[48]

[48] At the present time, through causes which are not difficult
to understand, the question of the relative importance of the two
sexes is again assuming a degree of importance indicative of the
changes which are taking place in human thought, and for the
reason that we are just witnessing the dawn of an intellectual
age, the problems to be solved will admit of no answers other
than those based upon a scientific foundation.