This article was included by Robert Lindner in his book, Explorations in Psychoanalysis. The author traces the unconscious meanings of symbolisms employed in clothing, architecture, and ornament in general. He uses anthropological and clinical material in an erudite but facile way. The genital meanings of such symbolism, and its transformation and 'sublimation' are illustrated by anthropological and clinical studies. Garma believes that dress began as the symbolic representation of foetal membranes. The ornamentation of such various objects as Doric, Ionic, Corinthian, and medieval columns, and the designs on Argentine money are derived from primitive designs, executed perhaps by mothers on the skin of newborn babies using excrement or other elemental substances. This primitive human ornamentation later developed into the phallic and feminine genital symbolism of columns, temples, and religious rituals. The author follows this transformation through Egyptian, Greek, Mayan, and other religious rituals and architecture.