IT will not be necessary for me to give details of the rites by which the phallic superstition is distinguished, as they may be found in the works of Dulaure,0F 1 Payne Knight,1F 2  and other writers. I shall refer to them, therefore, only so far as may be required for the due understanding of the subject to be considered--the influence of the Phallic idea in the religions of antiquity. The first step in the inquiry is to ascertain the origin of the superstition in question. Faber ingeniously referred to a primitive universal belief in a great father, the curious connection seen to exist between nearly all non-Christian mythologies, and he saw in phallic worship a degradation of this belief.