+157+. As circumcision is often performed shortly before marriage it has been suggested that its object is to increase procreative power by preventing phimosis.[307] The opinion that such is its effect, though it has no scientific support, has been and is held by not a few persons. Such an object, however, is improbable for low stages of society--it implies an extent of observation that is not to be assumed for savages; and there is, besides, the fact that certain tribes (in Australia and elsewhere) that practice circumcision do not connect the birth of children with sexual intercourse. In general it is not to be supposed that savages make well-considered physical preparation for marriage in the interests of procreation. The choice of mates is determined by tribal law, but in other respects the individual is generally left free before marriage to satisfy his appetite--it is instinct that controls the relations between the sexes. +158+. There is no clear evidence that the origin of circumcision is to be traced to religious conceptions. It has been held that it is connected with the cult of the generative organs (phallic worship).[308] It is true that a certain sacredness often attached to these organs; this appears, for example, in the oath taken by laying the hands upon or under the thigh, as in the story of Abraham.[309] In some parts of Africa circumcision is directly connected or combined with the worship of the phallus.[310] But, on the other hand, each of these customs is found frequently without the other: in India we have phallic worship without circumcision, in Australia circumcision without phallic worship; and this separateness of the two may be said to be the rule. The cult of the phallus seems not to exist among the lowest peoples. +159+. The view that circumcision is of the nature of a sacrifice or dedication to a deity, particularly to a deity of fertility, appears to be derived from late usages in times when more refined ideas have been attached to early customs. The Phrygian practice of excision was regarded, probably, as a sacrifice. But elsewhere, in Egypt, Babylonia, Syria, and Canaan, where the worship of gods and goddesses of fertility was prominent, we do not find circumcision connected therewith. In the writings of the Old Testament prophets it is treated as a symbol of moral purification. Among the lower peoples there is no trace of the conception of it as a sacrifice. It is not circumcision that makes the phallus sacred--it is sacred in itself, and all procedures of savage veneration for the prepuce assume its inherent potency.