ON THE TREE OF KNOWLEDGE OF GOOD AND EVIL, AND ON THE TREE OF LIFE: WITH SPECULATIONS ON THE DIVINE PROHIBITION TO MAN, NOT TO EAT OF THE FRUIT OF THE FORMER OF THOSE TREES, INTERSPERSED WITH REMARKS ON THE MORTALITY OF INNOCENT MAN. The mortality of animal life, and the dissolution of that of the vegetable, has been particularly considered in chapter three, section four, treating on physical evils. We now proceed to make an application of those arguments, in the case of our reputed first parents, whose mortality is represented by Moses to have taken place in consequence of their eating of the forbidden fruit. Moses in his description of the garden of Eden acquaints us with two chimerical kinds of fruit trees, which, among others, he tells us were planted by God in the place appointed for the residence of the new made couple; the one he calls by the name of "the tree of knowledge of good and evil," and the other by the name of "the tree of life." And previous to his account of the apostacy, he informs us, that God expressly commanded the man and woman, saying, "be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth; and God said, behold I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon, the face of all the earth, and every tree, in which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed, to you it shall be for meat." Again, "and the Lord commanded the man saying, of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat, but of the tree of knowledge of good and evil thou shalt not eat of it, for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die." "And the Lord said, it is not good for man to be alone, I will make him an help meet for him; and the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept, and he took out one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof, and the rib which the Lord God had taken from man made he a woman." Thus it appears from Moses's representation of the state of man's innocency, that he was commanded by God to labor, and to replenish the earth; and that to him was given the dominion over the creatures, and that at two several times he was licensed by God himself to eat of every of the fruit of the trees, and of the herbage, except of the tree of knowledge of good and evil; and because it was not good that the man should be alone, but that he might multiply and replenish the earth, our amorous mother Eve, it seems, was formed, who I dare say well compensated father Adam for the loss of his rib.