Page:The Garden of Eden (Doughty).djvu/68

62 this spiritually invigorating food of the soul. Of this, so good, so redolent of eternal life, so joy-giving, man had been commanded to eat and live. But as the tree of life was love of the Lord and heavenly things, the tree of knowledge was love of self and the world. These principles man was commanded not to appropriate as the food of his soul; of this tree he was commanded not to eat, for in doing so he would die.

For a long time man experienced the perfect life of Eden. But he at last began to incline to the selfhood. He had enjoyed the constant perception of the Lord's life and influence controlling his affections, thoughts and actions. He began to desire an independent life. He wanted more self-consciousness. The Lord always permits man, in moral affairs, to have his own way; if he did not, there would be no human freedom. This permission of the Lord in reference to the earliest Church, is represented by his taking the rib and building it into a woman. The rib—hard, dry, bony, in itself dead—symbolizes the self-hood, self-consciousness, or proprium of man. His building it into a woman, represents his building of this selfhood into a thing of spiritual affection, and thus endowing it with the higher life or making it a living thing. And the woman became the symbol of the selfhood vivified, elevated, spiritualized. When man inclined to come into