thereof and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her, and he did eat."
Man as distinguished from woman, as was observed in a former discourse, symbolizes the intellect. Thus it was the woman who ate first—the love of self or the proprium. And then she in turn persuaded the man to eat. When the love of self appropriated as its food the delusions of sense, the intellect soon yielded its concurrence. It is the experience of all time. When we are on the downward path, what we love we are very apt to persuade ourselves is right. Into the arms of whatever evil the heart throws itself, intellect and reason are called upon for their assent, and they soon yield. The fall of each and every man and woman begins and ends in a similar way.
But as before observed, we have described the symbols in their more extreme meanings. The fall was gradual, extending perhaps through hundreds or even thousands of years. The fruit of the tree of knowledge changed its quality as time went on. The first aberration from the primal condition, was in life. From generation to generation the Adamic Church inclined to self and evil more and more. Still the true life would be acknowledged; but it would become, as one generation succeeded another, more and more a matter of mere faith, and less and less a matter of experience. Then gradually, with many, faith
