There is one Phallic rite which, from its wide range, is of peculiar importance. I refer to circumcision. The origin of this custom has not yet, so far as I am aware, been satisfactorily explained. The idea that, under certain climatic conditions, circumcision is necessary for cleanliness and comfort,[11] does not appear to be well founded, as the custom is not universal, even within the tropics. Nor is the reason given by Captain Richard Burton, in his “Notes connected with the Dahoman,” for both circumcision and excision, perfectly satisfactory. The real origin of these customs has been forgotten by all peoples practising them, and therefore they have ceased to have their primitive significance. That circumcision at least had a superstitious origin may be inferred from the traditional history of the Jews. The old Hebrew writers, persistent in their idea that they were a peculiar people, chosen by God for a special purpose, asserted that this rite was instituted by Jehovah as a sign of the covenant between Him and Abraham. Although we cannot doubt that this rite was practised by the Egyptians and Phœnicians[12] long before the birth of Abraham, yet two points connected with the Hebrew tradition are noticeable. These are, the religious significance of the act of circumcision—it is the sign of a covenant between God and man—and its performance by the head of the family. These two things are indeed intimately connected; since, in the patriarchal age, the father was always the priest of the family, the officer of the sacrifices. We have it on the authority of the Veda that this was the case also among the primitive Aryan people.[13] Abraham, therefore, as the father and priest of the family, performed the religious ceremony of circumcision on the males of his household.