face of the secondary group. This represents The Beginning of Things.
The arm of Destiny is calling forth life and points the way to the
earth. The three women figures next to the hand show the gradual
awakening from Oblivion. The adjoining two figures represent the kiss of
life or of love, and the woman is holding forth to the earth the
children created of that love. The entire group on this west face,
considered in relation to the main composition, may be taken as
representing the peopling of the earth.

There is now a gap which one must pass over, to reach the South panel of
the central composition. This gap represents the lost period of time
between the peopling of the earth and the beginning of history.

The South panel of the main structure has as its central figure Vanity
with her hand-glass. Whether the artist intended it as a pessimistic
commentary on all human life, or not, his series of episodes on earth
begins and ends with the figure of Vanity. Reading to the left on this
same panel one sees a man and a woman starting the journey of life on
earth, apparently with suffering but certainly with courage perhaps for
the sake of the children they carry.

The West panel now shows the first of three incidents or problems of
life on earth. This is entitled Natural Selection. Two women turn to one
man who is clearly superior to the two men they are leaving. The two who
have been spurned as mates cling to the hands of the women even while
they are turning away.

The North panel represents The Survival of the Fittest. Two men are in
combat, the woman at the left evidently to be the prize of the victor.
At the other side a woman tries to draw away one of the combatants. The