ADDITIONAL NOTES. X. 

 EVE FROM ADAM'S RIB. 



Form'd a new sex, the mother of mankind. CANTO. II. 1. 140. 



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THE mosaic history of Paradise and of Adam and Eve has been 

 thought by some to be a sacred allegory, designed to teach obedience 

 to divine commands, and to account for the origin of evil, like 

 Jotham's fable of the trees ; Judges ix. 8. or Nathan's fable of the 

 poor man and his lamb; 2 Sam. xii. 1. or like the parables in the New 

 Testament; as otherwise knowledge could not be said to grow upon 

 one tree, and life upon another, or a serpent to converse ; and lastly 

 that this account originated with the magi or philosophers of Egypt, 

 with whom Moses was educated, and that this part of the history, where 

 Eve is said to have been made from a rib of Adam might have been an 

 hieroglyphic design of the Egyptian philosophers, showing their opinion 

 that Mankind was originally of both sexes united, and was afterwards 

 divided into males and females: an opinion in later times held by 

 Plato, and I believe by Aristotle, and which must have arisen from 

 profound inquiries into the original state of animal existence. 



