that which belongs to it by right of
Cosmic law and order and justice.

All the inharmony of our social life comes from the attempt to
appropriate and _possess_ that which, in the final analysis, in the
Absolute, is not ours. When the majority of Mankind shall have
mastered this lesson, the human race will enter upon its true
spiritual life. The psychic mind with which man alone of all earth's
creatures is supposed to be endowed will have conquered the
instinctive mind, and the higher expression of love which would
protect and preserve, and _leave free_, will have gained supremacy
over selfishness and the desire for possession.

In bird-life we find this higher type of love almost universal.
Parental love, that exquisite and refined flower from the seed of
sex-attraction, characterizes the bird and we may readily agree that
Paradise would be incomplete without birds and flowers as well as
babies.

Considering the birds as an infinitely finer type of sex-expression
than that offered by any other of the forms of life below man, we note
with satisfaction the all-important point, namely, that the sex-urge
is more diffused and lasting, and of a finer quality than that of the
mammals.

The bird woos its mate with the beauty of its plumage and the
harmonious notes of its love-call. Its desire finds so many esthetic
ways of expressing itself; in tender pleadings; in cooing promises; in
continuous evidences of care and protection. Nor does its intense
love, vital as it is, exhaust itself in concentrated expression, but
it softens and ripens into something that so closely resembles our
ideals of spiritual love, that we are not surprised to find the emblem
of the dove employed throughout the history of the world, as the
spiritual symbol of pure and holy love. Well, indeed, may human beings
learn from the birds the lesson of the higher type of sex-mating,
which finds fruition in their mutual love for and care of their
progeny. Nor does the love-life of birds cease with sex-expression.
It permeates all their intercourse.

The trait which distinguishes the spiritual man from the animal man is
analogous to that of the birds; namely, that of finding a deep and
lasting joy in the presence of the loved one; in sympathizing with
each other's ideals; listening with devoted attention to each other's
words; contacting, as it were, each other's _inner nature_, rather
than obeying the merely animal urge of procreation. And above all, i