"The twofold name of Jehovah also finds a correspondence in the Arddha-Nari, or incarnation of Brahma, who is represented in sculptures as containing in himself the male and female organisms. And the worship of the implements of fecundity continues popular in India to this day. The same idea underlies much of the worship of the ancient Greeks, finding expression in the symbols devoted to Apollo or the sun, and in their androgynous sculptures. Aryan, Scandinavian, and Semitic religions were alike pervaded by it, the male principle being represented by the sun, and the female by the moon, which was variously personified by the virgins, Ashtoreth or Astarte, Diana, and others, each of whom, except in the Scandinavian mythology, where the sexes are reversed, had the moon for her special symbol. Similarly, the allegory of Eden finds one of its keys in the phenomena of sex, as is demonstrated by the ancient Syrian sculptures of Ashera, or _the Grove_; and 'the tree of life in the midst of the garden' forms the point of departure for beliefs which have lasted thousands of years, and which have either spread from one source over, or been independently originated in, every part of the habitable globe."[20] It is evident that this worship is of the most extremely ancient character and that it was based originally upon ideas that had nothing gross and debasing in them. It is true that it at various times assumed indelicate forms and was associated with much that was of the most degrading character, but the first idea was only to use for religious purposes that which seemed the most apt emblem of creation and regeneration. "Is it strange," asks a lady writer, "that they regarded with reverence the great mystery of human birth? Were they impure thus to regard it? Or, are we impure that we do _not_ so regard it? Let us not smile at their mode of tracing the infinite and incomprehensible cause throughout all the mysteries of nature, lest by so doing we cast the shadow of our own grossness on their patriarchal simplicity." It became with this very much as it does with all symbolism, more or less, that is to say from the worship of that which was symbolised, it degenerated to the worship of the emblem itself. But the ancient Egyptians exerted themselves considerably to restrain within certain bounds of propriety the natural tendency of this worship and we find them allowing it to embrace only the masculine side of humanity, afterwards, as was perhaps only to be expected, the feminine was introduced. Then, as particularly exhibited in the case of India, it gradually became nothing more or less than a vehicle for satisfying the licentious desires of the most degrading of both sexes.