Those persons who have acquainted themselves with the available facts underlying the growth of organized society and the development of existing institutions, and who have co-ordinated these facts with the present situation are able to trace not only the growth of the destructive principle in human affairs but are able to forecast with a considerable degree of accuracy the results which must inevitably follow. Without a knowledge of the past it is impossible to understand or interpret the present. We are living in a remarkable age. It is to be doubted if throughout the entire historic period there has been a time when passing events moved so swiftly or when they assumed the magnitude of those now taking place. Causes which were set up during prehistoric times have reached a climax. The inevitable results from those causes are upon us. In order to compare the past and the present it becomes necessary briefly to recall some of the already recorded facts relative to existing conditions under early organized society. When human beings lived closer to nature and before the natural checks to the lower or disintegrating forces had been withdrawn, the basic principles underlying human action were equality and liberty. No member of a communal group could claim any right or privilege not enjoyed by all. There was no poverty and no crime. Disease as we know it was unknown. As the lands were held in common, women were absolutely free and independent. They chose their mates and were responsible for the well-being of their offspring. As women controlled the sexual relation and themselves regulated prenatal conditions, the children inherited strong bodies and healthy minds. Dissensions over property did not occur, and jealousy and a desire for personal aggrandizement had not been developed. The religious worship of primitive people consisted for the most part in invocations to the Great Mother, the fructifying principle throughout nature, from whom were derived all earthly benefits. Later the Great Mother came to be worshipped under various appellations, namely, Cybele, or Astarte, in Asia Minor, Athene in Greece, Minerva in Rome, and Isis or Neith in Egypt. Finally, as is well known, these goddesses were dethroned by an all-powerful male God, an anthropomorphic deity whose chief attribute was virile might. This change in the god-idea was coincident with, and dependent upon, a corresponding change in the relations of the sexes which took place at a certain period in human history. The god-idea is now and ever has been in strict accord with the existing conceptions concerning the relative importance of the sex-functions in human beings.