In the earliest ages, marriage between the nearest of kin was permitted by custom and by law; a man did not scruple to marry his sister, his paternal aunt, his maternal aunt — even his own daughter.

In their sexual mingling, human beings were animal-like: no sanctity for blood, and none for lineage.

Abram married Sarah, who before the marriage was his sister; after it she became his sister and his wife.

And the Torah tells us that Sarah was a beautiful woman.

Abraham traded on her beauty, and sheltered behind her from the wrath of "Pharaoh" and the tyranny of "Abimelech," saying to her: "Say thou art my sister, that it may be well with me for thy sake."

And through her Abram came into ample wealth and many goods.

Then he took her back and begot by her Isaac, from whom issued a blessed seed and a great people that was, and still is, the pivot of movement and the mainspring of action among the various nations and peoples.

Among the "Chosen People" these relations multiplied, until Moses came and forbade them, cursing those who prac-ticed them.

Moses, in his law, was humane: he put an end to the animality of his people.

"None of you shall approach to any that is near of kin to him, to uncover their nakedness." "The nakedness of thy father shalt thou not uncover, nor the nakedness of thy mother, nor the nakedness of thy father's wife, nor the nakedness of thy sister the daughter of thy father, nor the nakedness of thy son's daughter or thy daughter's daughter, nor the nakedness of thy father's sister or thy mother's sister. The nakedness of thy father's brother thou shalt not uncover; to his wife thou shalt not approach. Thou shalt not uncover the nakedness of thy daughter-in-law, nor the

nakedness of thy brother's wife, nor the nakedness of a woman and her daughter, nor her son's daughter, nor her daughter's daughter." (Book of Leviticus)

The Christian religions fol-lowed upon this law, seeing in it an acceptable code that joins the animality of nature to the humanity of society.

And the Prophet of Islam set it down in the very body of his law as a sacred verse: "Forbidden unto you are your mothers, and your daughters, and your sisters, and your fathers' sisters, and your mothers' sisters, and your brothers' daughters, and your sisters' daughters, and your mothers who have suckled you, and your foster sisters, and the mothers of your wives, and your stepdaughters who are in your keeping, born of your wives unto whom ye have gone in — but if ye have not gone in unto them, then it is no sin for you — and the wives of your sons who are of your own loins; and that ye should take two sisters together, save what hath already passed. Verily God is Forgiving, Merciful."

Certain Christian (sects) went to extremes in their legislation, forbidding marriage between rel-atives to the fifth degree; and their extremism was built upon sound foundations of health and of society. But people in past ages did not understand matters of health and society, so the lawgivers told them: these are laws laid down by the Church, and whoever strays from them shall be punished with excommu-nication and with hellfire.

And the people submitted to them — fleeing from the ban of the Church and the humiliation and shame that attend it, and fearing the torment of hell and the blaze of the fire.

Well done, this legislation of

the men of the Church! In it they were wise and reasonable men.

This aberration has grown rare in modern times, and people have come to call a man who marries his sister or his daughter an animal or a brute. Yet no soci-ety is wholly free of the brutish.

But human evolution is sure to do away with this sexual aberration, which taste rebuffs and which the social bodies of today find repugnant.

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Marriage is a great bond that draws peoples together and mingles nations, and the blending of civilizations by way of intermarriage is the ideal method for removing fanaticism from the children of the different creeds and the followers of the many sects. Whenever you see the members of a nation, or a sect, or a family refusing to intermarry with other nations, sects, and families, know that there a seed is sprouting from the seeds of fanaticism and selfishness.

Had the Jews mingled with the rest of the peoples and inter-married with others among them, the children of Israel would not today, in every quarter of the inhabited world, be (regarded) with the eye of wariness and hatred. And had the religions renounced their teachings for-bidding their children to marry those of another faith, religious and sectarian fanaticism — the scourge of the whole world, and of the East above all — would have died out.

In vain do the reformers strive to remove fanaticism from these Eastern lands. Education does not remove it, culture does not wipe out its evil, and the enacted laws do nothing to ward off its dangers.

Intermarriage between the various sects and communities, or the kinship by marriage that