ich appear to the eye as actual
events, are but the reflection of scenes enacted in a place far
distant and long before the moment of projection upon the screen which
meets his eye.

Science examines, dissects, and classifies these symbols according to
their relation to other symbols which the mind has previously noted
and classified. The same conclusion awaits both Science and Mysticism.

Humanity is ever seeking the Reality--the Noumenon, which we
intuitively postulate as behind the phenomena of Nature.

The institution of marriage, coming down to us through all the ages,
side by side with the mystery of sex, and incorporated with the
sex-mystery into every form and system of religious rites and
ceremonials among all peoples, would seem to have a place in human
ethics, as substantial and as permanent as the germ of life itself.

Indeed, the institution of marriage, in its first stages of evolution,
obtains in the animal kingdom, where selection in a great variety of
forms is common.

And it must be confessed that here we find the same tendency to change
and variation, both in regard to the individual and the family
species, as we have in the human family.

Polyandry, polygamy, and monogamy, have been general among some
animals while among others only one form of mating has been the rule.

Strange to say, sex promiscuity is not at all general among the
animals, though polygamy is common. The adoption of polygamy is
obviously due to one of two things, or possibly, to be more specific,
to both. First, because the percentage of deaths among the males is
greater than among the females; this applies to animal life, both wild
and domestic. In wild life, because of frequent combats; in domestic
life, because the females are kept for breeding while the males are
slaughtered for food.

The second reason is because the female is seldom as virile as the
male, and to this is also added the debilitating effect of bearing and
rearing the young, the necessity for which must have manifested itself
very early among the various families, from motives of self-protection,
if from nothing higher, since victory evidently favored the numerically
strong.

In bird-life, especially, where love is so vital a part of their life,
and so beautifully expressed, monogamy is the rule, and in some
species, like that of the robin, a certain aristocracy seems to exist,
preventing intercourse with any other family. The robin will mate only
wit