"What is excellent, as God lives, is permanent*

- Emerson.

Language can not create thought, but on the contrary is created by thought. Thus the first expression of articulate thought must have been through symbols rather than through words, for obviously before attempting speech man must have perceived objects, and their meaning, use and similarity must have established themselves in his consciousness. Spoken words, therefore, were evolved later than symbols and in the capacity of symbols they have remained incomplete, for they merely express ideas and do not originate them. For while human ingenuity may invent an object of which it has never heard, no man can give a name to that of which he has never heard, nor that he has not seen, either with his own eyes or through the description of another. Furthermore, it is not unusual for persons using the same words to misunderstand one another, but it is a demonstrated fact that a traveler may journey the length of the American Continent from Cape Horn to Point Barrow and one set of symbols will render him intelligible to all of the hundreds of Indian tribes that he will find, each one of whom employs a different dialect.

Science must hear Dr. Freud upon the subject of symbolism: "For a few kinds of material a universally applicable dream symbolism has been established on a basis of generally known allusions and equivalents. A good part of this symbolism, moreover, is possessed by the dream in common with the psychoneurosis, and with legends and popular customs." - Interpretation of Dreams, p. 318.

Havelock Ellis likewise commits himself to symbolism: "It seems to-day by no means improbable that amid the absurdities of this popular oneiromancy there are some items of real significance. . . . Where we are faced with the question of definite and constant symbols, it still remains true that skepticism is often called for. But there can be no manner of doubt that our dreams are full of symbolism." - The World of Dreams.

This recent tolerance of ultra-modernism accords tardy recognition to Schemer and other symbolists of the older schools of students who delved into dream symbolism.

"Schemer's book," says Freud, "after being considered fantastic for fifty years has suddenly been recognized by psychoanalysts. He is hailed as the true discoverer of symbolism in dreams."

A generous tribute from the father of modern psychoanalysis, whose laudable enthusiasm over a colleague causes him to forget that dream symbolism could scarcely be a discovery of fifty years ago, in that it has existed since the days of the Chaldeans.

Jung's fascinating, if somewhat cryptic, work likewise abounds in symbolism, marvelous of its kind but like that of Freud, Brill and others of their cult, incomplete. For in their enthusiastic desire to establish their hypotheses and to demonstrate their theories, they revert to whatever era may chance to bear upon their individual opinions, totally ignoring entire epochs of history and psychological thought that may intervene. Thus in translating the meaning of certain symbols and in fitting them upon certain dreams, they often ignore the history of that symbol throughout the centuries, and in so doing they are apt to belittle or make light of the mental and religious progress of the entire human race. The modern theory of the erotic significance of the dream of weapons is an example of the point in question. In the prehistoric era the sword, lance and spear were undoubtedly phallic symbols; ages, however, have intervened, ranks and files of knights of the Grail, centuries of crusaders, and years of men fighting for freedom; to each and all their weapons were sacred treasures over which they must pray, fast and keep vigil before receiving the golden spurs, symbols of God's love and of Divine illumination.

Human experience, source alike of science and of tradition, has piled up tomes of evidence to prove that symbolism is no random phantasy of disordered nerves, and of worn brains seeking novel methods of expression, but that it is purposeful and significant, the outcome of inherited memory, tradition and history. Tradition, representing the accumulating reasoning of the race from the inception of thought, is the most universal authority for the interpretation of symbols.

The precise translation of symbols is, however, impeded by the automatic rivalry between the subjective mind which remembers all things, neither blurring nor losing a fragment of life, and the objective mind that forgets everything not appertaining to the material. The objective mind is represented by history and the subjective is cosmically prototyped by tradition and the psychology of the race. History as typifying the objective mind has failed to record much that is of vast psychic importance, while tradition has faithfully clung to the subjective thought even when it presented apparent trivialities. Hence in the interpretation of symbols, which are, after all, merely instinctive records of the human psyche, we must consider not only history, creeds and traditions, but apparent trivialities, all of which combine to explain the soul of the race from which the symbol emanates.

The gamut of symbolism is vast and stretches over all humanity. The primitive expression of speechless man, it is also employed by the genii of the race. Beethoven, Raphael, Michael Angelo, Dante and Blake have bequeathed the world symbols that will outlast time. The Wise Men in the East with their frankincense and gold, and the man in the street who wears his bit of green on St. Patrick's Day, are alike symbolists, whatever the expression of the symbol. St. John, St. Paul, Solomon, Daniel and Ezekiel, the Bible, the Book of the Dead and the Zend Avesta express thought symbolically, while the baseball "fan" who "puts it over the plate" does likewise. And thus the rabble and their saviors find their common kin.

Although the civilizing centuries have taught man to think in words, in dreams the mind flies backward to its primitive thought and employs pictures, or symbols. Not only do the Chaldeans, Egyptians and the Biblical oneirocritics utilize the ineradicable human tendency towards symbolism, but the moderns, gypsy and scientist alike, acknowledge its importance. Thus, despite the mocking few, the dream-book with its list of symbolic dreams flourishes in the world to-day and is consulted frequently and with interest. For while man sometimes abandons his God, he somehow holds to his dreams.