In this brief outline of phallic worship I have endeavored to show that the worship of the generative principle has been universal; that it is still practiced by primitive peoples, and that vestiges of it lingered among certain civilized peoples until, comparatively speaking, a recent time. In order to show what a height of idealization and abstraction it had reached at a time when Greece stood at the head of the civilized world, I will close this part of my essay with the following quotation from Knight's strong, erudite, and exhaustive treatise: "The ancient theologists ... finding that they could conceive no idea of infinity, were content to revere the Infinite Being in the most general and efficient exertion of his power--attraction; whose agency is perceptible through all matter, and to which all motion may, perhaps, be ultimately traced. His agency being supposed to extend through the whole material world, and to produce all the various revolutions by which its system is sustained, his attributes were, of course, extremely numerous and varied. These were expressed by various titles and epithets in the mystic hymns and litanies, which the artists endeavored to represent by various forms and characters of men and animals. The great characteristic attribute was represented by the organ of generation in that state of tension and rigidity which is necessary to the due performance of its functions. Many small images of this kind have been found among the ruins of Herculaneum and Pompeii, attached to bracelets, which the chaste and pious matrons of antiquity wore round their necks and arms. In these the organ of generation appears alone, or accompanied by the wings of incubation, in order to show that the wearer devoted herself wholly and solely to procreation, the great end for which she was ordained. So expressive a symbol, being constantly in view, must keep her attention fixed on its natural object, and continually remind her of the gratitude she owed the Creator for having taken her into his service, made her partaker of his most valuable blessings, and employed her as the passive instrument in the exertion of his most beneficial power. The female organs of generation were revered as symbols of the generative power of nature or matter, as the male's were of the generative powers of God."[91] [91] Knight: _The Worship of Priapus_, p. 27, _et seq._ CHAPTER III. THE PSYCHICAL CORRELATION OF RELIGIOUS EMOTION AND SEXUAL DESIRE.