would be that the man himself was the author of his own good, and the discoverer of the truths which constituted his own intelligence. It did not seem to him good to be alone in the Lord, but he wanted himself or his selfhood to be more consciously before himself. It was a leaning toward the love of self-consciousness. It was entering into an affection for himself and the things of his selfhood, that is, those of his own personality. Not but that he had an individuality or a selfhood before, but that his life was so pure and disinterested that he was, as it were, in all his meditations, desires and acts, quite unconscious of self. Therefore in this divine parable is it written: "And the Lord God said, It seemeth not good to man to be alone; I will make him one that shall be, as it were himself, before him." And from this time, as the first beginning of his fall, man began, instead of having the Lord and his neighbor constantly before him, to have himself before him.
Now as woman throughout the Word is employed as the symbol of affection in its many varying phases, and as this divinely inspired narrative is in the language of pure symbolism, this affection for self was represented by the woman. And when it is said that the Lord brought the woman unto the man, it is to be understood that He permitted man, created as he was a free being, to have his selfhood as a constantly conscious thing before his mind.
