Page:Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion volume 2.djvu/214

 —the harmony between man and the Good. The defect in this pictorial representation is that this unity is described as a condition of immediate Being. It is necessary to pass out of this condition of original naturalness, but the state of separation or disunion which then arises has to pass into a state of reconciliation again. Here this idea of reconciliation is represented by the thought that man ought not to have passed beyond that first condition. In the whole of this pictorial account, what is inward is expressed in terms of what is outward, and what is necessary in terms of what is contingent. The serpent says that Adam will become like God, and God confirms the truth of this, and adds His testimony that it is this knowledge which constitutes likeness to God. This is the profound idea lodged in the narrative.

But further, a punishment is next inflicted on man. He is driven out of Paradise, and God says, “Cursed be the ground for thy sake, in sorrow shalt thou eat what it brings forth to thee; thorns and thistles shall it bear to thee, and thou shalt eat the herb of the field. In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat thy bread, and thou shalt return unto the ground, for out of it wast thou taken; for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.”

We have to recognise that here we have the consequences of finitude; but, on the other hand, the greatness of man just consists in the fact that he eats his bread in the sweat of his brow, and that through his own activity, his work, and the exercise of his understanding, he wins sustenance for himself. Animals have the happy lot, if you like to call it so, of being supplied by Nature with what they need. Man, on the other hand, elevates what is necessary to this natural life to the rank of something connected with his freedom. This is just the employment of his freedom, though it is not the highest form in which he employs it, for that consists rather in knowing and willing the Good. The fact that man regarded from the natural side is also free, is involved in his nature, and is