How would the fable arise? Well, a primitive poet one day in a fit of melancholy made the whole thing up. Out of his misery his desires created for him an imaginary state, its opposite, the Garden of Eden. But this state being created, the problem arose, How did Man fall from it? And the Tree was brought in. But to the naïve, untheological poet, this tree had nothing to do with metaphysics or with sin, the child of metaphysics. It was simply a magical tree, and if Man ate of the fruit of it, something terrible would happen to him. The Fall of Man was a _mystery_ to the poet, which he did not rationalize or theologize. Well, Man succumbed to curiosity, and pain and misfortune befell the human race. But we must not assume in the modern manner that with the eating of the fruit early man associated any idea of guilt. Rather the contrary; he regarded the act simply as unfortunate, just as at the present day we regard as unfortunate the foolish princess in some fairy tale. So the Fall was not to him a crime, branding all mankind with a metaphysical stigma. That conception came much later, when the conscience had become deeper, more subtle and more neurotic; when individualism had been introduced into morality. And at that time, too, the ideal of the Redeemer became vitiated. Early man, if he did envisage a Redeemer, envisaged him as one who would set him back in the Garden of Eden again, in the literal, terrestrial Garden of Eden, be it understood: theology had not yet been etherealized. And this Redeemer would redeem _all_ men: the distinction of the individual came afterwards. It was not until later, too, that this ideal was "interpreted," and, as a concession to the conscience, salvation was made a conditional thing: the reward of those who were successful in a competition in credulity, in which the first prize went to the most simple, most stupid. The "guilt" now implicated in the Fall was not purged away from all men by the Redeemer, but only from such as would "accept" it. And, lastly, with the passing of Jesus, the redemption was still further de-actualized. It was found that acceptance of the Redeemer did _not_ reinstate Man in an earthly Garden: paradise was, therefore, drawn on the invisible wires of theology into the inaccessible heavens. Salvation lay at the other side of the grave, and there it was safe from assault. Nevertheless, what our primitive poet meant by the Fall and the Redemption was probably something entirely different. The Fall to him was the fall into misfortune, not into sin: the Redemption to him was the redemption from misfortune, not from sin. And his Redeemer would be, therefore--whom? Perhaps it is impossible for us to imagine the nature of such a being. This is not an interpretation, but an attempted explanation of the story of the Fall. 44 _Interpretations_