46 OF THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING, [VI. 6. 



the fall, it was, as was touched before, not the natural 

 knowledge of creatures, but the moral knowledge of good 

 and evil ; wherein the supposition was, that God s com 

 mandments or prohibitions were not the originals of good 

 and evil, but that they had other beginnings, which man 

 aspired to know ; to the end to make a total defection 

 from God and to depend wholly upon himself. 



7. To pass on : in the first event or occurrence after 

 the fall of man, we see (as the scriptures have infinite 

 mysteries, not violating at all the truth of the story or 

 letter) an image of the two estates, t.hg_ ^on tern relative 



jstate_ and the active state,_figured in the two persons 

 of ^\bel and Cain, and in the two simplest and most 

 primitive~~!ra3es&quot; of life ; that of the shepherd (who, by 

 reason of his leisure, rest in a place, and living in view of 

 heaven, is a lively image of a contemplative life), and that 

 of the husbandman : where we see again the favour and 

 election of God went to the shepherd, and not to the tiller 

 of the ground. 



8. So in the age before the flood, the holy records 

 within those few memorials which are there entered and 

 registered, have vouchsafed to mention and honour the 

 name of the inventors and authors of music and works in 

 metal. In the age after the flood, trie first great judge- 



&quot;&quot;Trmntnof-God upon the ambition of man was the confu- 

 ^ion^oftongues ; whereby the open trade and intercourse 

 of learning and knowledge was chiefly imbarred. 



9. To descend to Moyses the lawgiver, and God s first 

 pen : he is adorned by the scriptures with this addition 

 and commendation, That he was seen in all the learning of 

 the Egyptians ; which nation we know was one of the 

 most ancient schools of the world : for so Plato brings in 

 the Egyptian priest saying unto Solon, You Grecians are 



