SUMMARY CONCLUSION
Man first emerged from the animal world as a freak of nature.
Having lost most of the instinctive equipment which regulates
the animal's activities, he was more helpless, less well equipped
for the fight for survival, than most animals. Yet he had
developed a capacity for thought, imagination and self-
awareness, which was the basis for transforming nature and
himself For many thousands of generations man lived by food
gathering and hunting. He was still tied to nature, and afraid of
being cast out from her. He identified himself with animals and
worshiped these representatives of nature as his gods. After a
long period of slow development, man began to cultivate the
soil, to create a new social and religious order based on agri-
culture and animal husbandry. During this period he worshiped
goddesses as the bearers of natural fertility, experienced himself
as the child dependent on the fertility of the earth, on the life-
giving breast of Mother. At a time some four thousand years ago,
a decisive turn in man's history took place. He took a new step in
the long-drawn-out process of his emergence from nature. He