Note 186 — Chapter XIII · FAMILY INFLUENCES IN RELIGION

The very general identification of the Earth with the mother has probably played an important part in the history of human culture inasmuch as it has afforded a ready means of rendering psychic energy available for the practice of agriculture; the cultivation of the Earth's surface being from the psychological point of view a displacement of the original incestuous desires directed to the mother. On the other hand the very closeness of the association between mother and Earth has in some places led to a reluctance to till the soil, such an act being looked upon as impious (See Frazer, "Adonis, Attis, Osiris," I. 80 ff.).