Man, in the sense of language, is to be considered as a compound of all beings, a microcosm in his form, and a general intelligent echo of the divine fiat by his speech; a vegetable, by his manner of growth and nourishment; an animal by his motion, respiration, and feeling; and a spiritual being from his thinking or intelligent faculties; his animal part being probably formed with the other animals, out of the dust of the earth, and his intelligence in its first state, that tree of life, breath, or superaddition breathed into his nostrils by the creator, by which he became a living soul. The essence of this celestial and terrestrial system or compound being will probably remain indefinable, until man shall recover his primitive existence, as the tree of life; tho’ the tree of knowledge of good and evil in the mean time furnish him with sufficient means for his happiness here, and existence hereafter as the tree of life; for his organs of sensation, in contact with external objects and impressions, form in the sensory the various modes of feeling, and those images are perceived by the will; which has not only a nilling power of permitting those images to remain without any additional light, as the mere images of sensation fit only for the government of animal bodies; but also of willing or presenting them to the reflecting faculty of the soul for the formation of sentimental ideas, to be registered in the memory, and employed by the mind in its intelligent, rational, wise and virtuous operations, for the illumination and conduct of a reasonable being, appointed by Providence lord of the creation. The human will being the sole energy of all voluntary motions in man, and motions continuing in direct lines or courses, if not diverted therefrom, most probably would have continued its pure intuitive course and direction towards goodness, virtue, and true happiness, without the power of nilling or depravely contradicting its original nature, as the tree of life, had not the serpent interposed and put the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and _evil_ in its way. And as man in his state of innocence, before his fall, must, as the tree or breath of life, have been furnished with the knowledge of good, so it seems probable that Moses by the tree of knowledge of good and _evil_, meant the generative powers, or certain characters or letters representing them, engraved on the _bark_ of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, furnishing the first pair, in their state of innocence, with two sorts of ideas or knowledge, and the means of gratifying their lust, as well as pride or curiosity of knowing good and evil, like their superiors; mankind before their fall being probably capable of seeing each others ideas, without the use of sounds; and of propagation after the manner of the second Adam.