Page:The Garden of Eden (Doughty).djvu/77

Rh dominion of man, and man recognized this. For when it is said that, "Out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air, and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them; and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof," a very suggestive truth is couched under the symbolism. It means that Adam, or primitive man, was aware of the existence of the various affections of the mind signified by the different beasts of the field, and of the various forms of thought signified by every fowl of the air. By the Lord's bringing the beasts and birds to him, is meant that in the providence of God his various forms of affection and thought were permitted to arrange themselves before his mind as matters of conscious knowledge and reflection. But by Adam's giving them names, is signified that he could call them all by their right names, that is, could recognize their comparative value and quality, and assign to each, with quick intuition, its proper sphere.

For every name in olden times expressed the character or quality of the object named; and to name a thing was to designate its character or determine its quality. For symbolism was founded on the very nature of things, and the man of that time was able to analyze the attributes of his soul, and to name each correctly, and