“Mythical tradition appears to be the faithful interpretation of the progress of the law of life, at a time when the foundations of the historical development of the ancient world were laid; it reveals the original mode of thought, and we may accept this direct revelation as true from our complete confidence in this source of history.”[10] [10] _Das Mutterrecht_, Intro., p. vii. This mystical religious element, which is the essential part of _Das Mutterrecht_, is closely connected by Bachofen with the power of women. As it is his belief that, even at this early period, the religious impulse was more developed among women than men, he bases on this unproved hypothesis his theory of women’s supremacy. “Wherever gynæcocracy meets us,” he says, “the mystery of religion is bound up with it, and lends to motherhood an incorporation in some divinity.”[11] [11] _Ibid._, Intro., p. xv. Doubtless this theory of a higher feminine spirituality is a pleasing one for women--but is it true? The insuperable difficulty to its acceptance arises, in the first place, from the fact that we can know nothing at all of the spiritual condition of the human beings among whom mother-kin was held first to have been practised. But we must go further than this in our doubt. Can we accept for any period a spiritual superiority in the character of woman over man? To me, at least, it is clear that a knowledge of the two sexes among all races both primitive and civilised--yes, and among ourselves, is sufficient to discredit such a supposition. Bachofen would have us believe that[12] the mother-right of the ancient world, was due to a revolt of women against the degraded condition of promiscuity, which previously had been universal among mankind, a condition in which men had a community of wives, and _openly lived together like gregarious animals_. [12] _Das Mutterrecht_, Intro., p. xxiv. and p. 10. “Women, by their nature nobler and more spiritual than men, became disgusted with this lawless _hetaïrism_, and, under the influence of a powerful religious impulse, combined in a revolt (the first Amazonian movement) to put an end to promiscuity and established marriage.” Over and over again Bachofen affirms this spiritual quality in women.