Page:The Garden of Eden (Doughty).djvu/89

Rh eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil."

Now it is a fact that, to this day, so inclined are the large mass of people to take sensuous views of things, that it is generally believed that natural death came into the world because two individuals, Adam and Eve, ate of the fruit of a natural tree. It is not seen that mankind fell, not because of any natural act of disobedience, nor because of anything heedlessly done on the natural plane, but because they became selfish, worldly and sensual. The first idea so generally accepted, is devoid of all rationality; the other commends itself to reason and common sense.

"Ye shall not surely die," said the serpent. Instead thereof, "Your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil." That their eyes would be opened, means that their understandings would be enlightened. That they would be as gods knowing good and evil, means that their power to distinguish between good and evil would be seen or thought of as a faculty originating in themselves; and that thus each one would be, as it were, a god unto himself, deciding for himself and from himself, and in the light of his own intelligence, what was good and what was evil.

Now, the effect of such an idea as this, we see plainly enough in the world's present condition. When human reason decides as to what is truth