for the _agnati_ can only be those of the fire or father’s side. If the father derived his authority in the household from the sacred hearth-fire, we can understand why General Forlong has assigned to ancestor-worship the last place in his scheme. He says, moreover, that ancestor-worship is “a development and sequence of that idiosyncracy of man which has led him to worship and deify even the living—that which, according to the teaching of Euemerus, accounts for all the mythological tales of the gods and god-like men of Greece.” The ancestor was worshipped in the great chief, the Father of Fathers, each of whom was worshipped in the _Dii Gentiles_ of his own class, and this not only during the comparatively modern Roman sway, but during the ages of serpent, fire, and solar faiths. In the still earlier faiths he was represented in the rude pillar, as well as in the little Lares and Penates of the hearths. In this case, however, ancestor-worship would seem to be entitled to stand on the same level as tree-worship and serpent-worship as a phase of the Phallic faith. In fact, it is in a sense identified with serpent-worship. General Forlong remarks that among the Greeks and Romans “the ancestor came to be honoured and worshipped only as the Generator, and so also the serpent as his symbol.” This agrees with the conclusion I have elsewhere endeavoured to establish, that the serpent is really regarded as the representative of the ancestor, in which case ancestor-worship is a very primitive faith, although, in a specialised form, it may possibly, as asserted by General Forlong, come later than fire-worship.