"If, therefore, they be Mystic Books, they ought also to have a mystic consideration. But the fault of most writers lieth in this,--that they distinguish not between the books of Moses the prophet, and those books which are of an historical nature. And this is the more surprising because not a few of such critics have rightly discerned the esoteric character, if not indeed the true interpretation, of the story of Eden; yet have they not applied to the remainder of the allegory the same method which they found to fit the beginning; but so soon as they are over the earlier stanzas of the poem, they would have the rest of it to be of another nature. "It is, then, pretty well established and accepted of most authors, that the legend of Adam and Eve, and of the miraculous tree and the fruit which was the occasion of death, is, like the story of Eros and Psyche, and so many others of all religions, a parable with a hidden, that is, with a mystic meaning. But so also is the legend which follows concerning the sons of these mystical parents, the story of Cain and Abel his brother, the story of the Flood, of the Ark, of the saving of the clean and unclean beasts, of the rainbow, of the twelve sons of Jacob, and, not stopping there, of the whole relation concerning the flight out of Egypt. For it is not to be supposed that the two sacrifices offered to God by the sons of Adam, were real sacrifices, any more than it is to be supposed that the apple which caused the doom of mankind, was a real apple. It ought to be known, indeed, for the right understanding of the mystical books, that in their esoteric sense they deal, not with material things, but with spiritual realities; and that as Adam is not a man, nor Eve a woman, nor the tree a plant in its true signification, so also are not the beasts named in the same books real beasts, but that the mystic intention of them is implied. When, therefore, it is written that Abel took of the firstlings of his flock to offer unto the Lord, it is signified that he offered that which a lamb implies, and which is the holiest and highest of spiritual gifts. Nor is Abel himself a real person, but the type and spiritual presentation of the race of the prophets; of whom, also, Moses was a member, together with the Patriarchs. Were the prophets, then, shedders of blood? God forbid; they dwelt not with things material, but with spiritual significations. Their lambs without spot, their white doves, their goats, their rams, and other sacred creatures, are so many signs and symbols of the various graces and gifts which a mystic people should offer to Heaven. Without such sacrifices is no remission of sin. But when the mystic sense was lost, then carnage followed, the prophets ceased out of