Bygone Beliefs [61]
relation therewith. That is what the mind-- at least the primitive mind--means by "explanation". "It is obvious," we say, commencing an argument, thereby proclaiming our intention to bring that which is at first in the category of the not-obvious, into the category of the obvious. It remains for a more sceptical type of mind--a later product of human evolution--to question obvious facts, to explain them, either, as in science, by establishing deeper and more far-reaching correlations between phenomena, or in philosophy, by seeking for the source and purpose of such facts, or, better still, by both methods.
Of the second class of facts--those common and obvious facts which the primitive mind accepts at face-value and uses as the basis of its explanations of such things as seem to it to stand in need of explanation--one could hardly find a better instance than sex. The universality of sex, and the intermittent character of its phenomena, are both responsible for this. Indeed, the attitude of mind I have referred to is not restricted to primitive man; how many people to-day, for instance, just accept sex as a fact, pleasant or unpleasant according to their predilections, never querying, or feeling the need to query, its why and wherefore? It is by no means surprising, that when man first felt the need of satisfying himself as to the origin of the universe, he should have done so by a theory founded on what he knew of his own generation. Indeed, as I queried on a former occasion, what other source of explanation was open to him? Of what other form of origin was he aware? Seeing Nature springing to life at the kiss of the sun, what more natural than that she should be regarded as the divine Mother, who bears fruits because impregnated by the Sun-God? It is not difficult to understand, therefore, why primitive man paid divine honours to the organs of sex in man and woman, or to such things as he considered symbolical of them--that is to say, to understand the extensiveness of those religions which are grouped under the term "phallicism". Nor, to my mind, is the symbol of sex a wholly inadequate one under which to conceive of the origin of things. And, as I have said before, that phallicism usually appears to have degenerated into immorality of a very pronounced type is to be deplored, but an immoral view of human relations is by no means a necessary corollary to a sexual theory of the universe.[1]
[1] "The reverence as well as the worship paid to the phallus, in early and primitive days, had nothing in it which partook of indecency; all ideas connected with it were of a reverential and religious kind....
"The indecent ideas attached to the representation of the phallus were, though it seems a paradox to say so, the results of a more advanced civilization verging towards its decline, as we have evidence at Rome and Pompeii....
"To the primitive man [the reproductive force which pervades all nature] was the most mysterious of all manifestations. The visible physical powers of nature--the sun, the sky, the storm-- naturally claimed his reverence, but to him the generative power was the most mysterious of all powers. In the vegetable world, the live seed placed in the ground, and hence germinating, sprouting up, and becoming a beautiful and umbrageous tree, was a mystery. In the animal world, as the cause of all life, by which all beings came into existence, this power was a mystery. In the view of primitive man generation was the action of the Deity itself. It was the mode in which He brought all things into existence, the sun, the moon, the stars, the world, man were generated by Him. To the productive power man was deeply indebted, for to it he owed the harvests and the flocks which supported his life; hence it naturally became an object of reverence and worship.
"Primitive man wants some object to worship, for an abstract idea is beyond his comprehension, hence a visible representation of the generative Deity was made, with the organs contributing to generation most prominent, and hence the organ itself
Of the second class of facts--those common and obvious facts which the primitive mind accepts at face-value and uses as the basis of its explanations of such things as seem to it to stand in need of explanation--one could hardly find a better instance than sex. The universality of sex, and the intermittent character of its phenomena, are both responsible for this. Indeed, the attitude of mind I have referred to is not restricted to primitive man; how many people to-day, for instance, just accept sex as a fact, pleasant or unpleasant according to their predilections, never querying, or feeling the need to query, its why and wherefore? It is by no means surprising, that when man first felt the need of satisfying himself as to the origin of the universe, he should have done so by a theory founded on what he knew of his own generation. Indeed, as I queried on a former occasion, what other source of explanation was open to him? Of what other form of origin was he aware? Seeing Nature springing to life at the kiss of the sun, what more natural than that she should be regarded as the divine Mother, who bears fruits because impregnated by the Sun-God? It is not difficult to understand, therefore, why primitive man paid divine honours to the organs of sex in man and woman, or to such things as he considered symbolical of them--that is to say, to understand the extensiveness of those religions which are grouped under the term "phallicism". Nor, to my mind, is the symbol of sex a wholly inadequate one under which to conceive of the origin of things. And, as I have said before, that phallicism usually appears to have degenerated into immorality of a very pronounced type is to be deplored, but an immoral view of human relations is by no means a necessary corollary to a sexual theory of the universe.[1]
[1] "The reverence as well as the worship paid to the phallus, in early and primitive days, had nothing in it which partook of indecency; all ideas connected with it were of a reverential and religious kind....
"The indecent ideas attached to the representation of the phallus were, though it seems a paradox to say so, the results of a more advanced civilization verging towards its decline, as we have evidence at Rome and Pompeii....
"To the primitive man [the reproductive force which pervades all nature] was the most mysterious of all manifestations. The visible physical powers of nature--the sun, the sky, the storm-- naturally claimed his reverence, but to him the generative power was the most mysterious of all powers. In the vegetable world, the live seed placed in the ground, and hence germinating, sprouting up, and becoming a beautiful and umbrageous tree, was a mystery. In the animal world, as the cause of all life, by which all beings came into existence, this power was a mystery. In the view of primitive man generation was the action of the Deity itself. It was the mode in which He brought all things into existence, the sun, the moon, the stars, the world, man were generated by Him. To the productive power man was deeply indebted, for to it he owed the harvests and the flocks which supported his life; hence it naturally became an object of reverence and worship.
"Primitive man wants some object to worship, for an abstract idea is beyond his comprehension, hence a visible representation of the generative Deity was made, with the organs contributing to generation most prominent, and hence the organ itself