380 THE STOEY OP THE EARTH AND MAN. 



food. And a river went out of Eden to water the garden, and 

 parted from thence, becoming four heads (of great rivers). 

 The name of the first is Pison, compassing the whole land of 

 Chavila, where there is gold, and the gold of that land is 

 good ; there is (also) pearl and agate. . . . And the Lord 

 God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden, to 

 cultivate it and to take care of it." 



Before leaving this most ancient and most beautiful 

 history, we may say that it implies several things of 

 much importance to our conceptions of primeval man. 

 It implies a centre of creation for man, and a group of 

 companion animals and plants, and an intention to 

 dispense in his case with any struggle for existence. 

 It implies, also, that man was not to be a lazy savage, 

 but a care-taker and utiliser, by his mind and his 

 bodily labour, of the things given to him ; and it also 

 implies an intelligent submission on his part to his 

 Maker, and spiritual appreciation of His plans and in- 

 tentions. It further implies that man was, in process 

 of time, from Eden, to colonise the earth, and subdue 

 its wildness, so as to extend the conditions of Eden 

 widely over its surface. Lastly, a part of the record 

 not quoted above, but necessary to the consistency of 

 the story, implies that, in virtue of his spiritual nature, 

 and on certain conditions, man, though in bodily frame 

 of the earth earthy, like the other animals, was to be 

 exempted from the common law of mortality which 

 had all along prevailed, and which continued to prevail, 

 even among the animals of Eden. Further, if man fell 

 from this condition into that of the savage of the age 

 of stone, it must have been by the obscuration of his 



