It has been customary to trace modern scepticism, or free inquiry, to the eighteenth century, or to the Renaissance; but in reality modern thought began with Adam in the Garden of Eden--assuming for the time being the correctness of the narrative. Man broke the very first commandment the gods ever gave, "Thou shalt not know," and by so doing he became himself a menace to the gods. That is very interesting. It was not man who died on the day the fruit of knowledge was plucked; it was the gods. "Take care!" said man to God. "Take care! The day on which I eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge thou shalt die!" It is now admitted by the foremost biblical scholars that there are really two different stories of the creation of man in the first and second chapters of the bible. The universe is called into being by _Elohim_ in the first; while _Jahve_ is the name of the creator in the second. Another important difference between the two accounts of the creation is that in the one, man appears before the deity has completed the creation of the heaven and the earth; while in the other man is the last thing God creates. It will be observed also that there is not a word said in the second account about man being made in the image of God, or of his being created male and female; while there is nothing in the first account about a garden or a forbidden tree. On the contrary, in the earlier story every tree is given for "meat" unto the man and the woman, who were created at the same time, and not the one out of a rib of the other, and at a later time, as is related in the second account. In the first, or Elohistic story, God blesses Adam and Eve and commands them to "be fruitful and multiply"; in the second, or Jehovistic story, child-bearing is not a blessing, but a curse pronounced upon the woman for having eaten of the forbidden fruit. Eve has no offspring until she is expelled from Paradise in the second version, while in the first, Adam and Eve are commanded from the start to "multiply and replenish the earth." But why are both stories published? In all probability, to satisfy both the _Elohistic_ and _Jehovistic_ factions. It is also probable that the different accounts are the work of different compilers or collectors of news. The bible gives many signs of being a miscellany of floating reports and rumors, or "they says," picked up here and there, and put together very loosely. Nor should we be surprised at the differences between the Elohistic and Jehovistic writers, for they are not more hopelessly at variance with each other than are the evangelists who tell the story of Jesus. II. Taboo and Totem.