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of the vegetable system, were evidently intended to show that 
the earth, at that period, was most plentifully stocked with plants 
and trees of every kind and size. The employment which was 
allotted to Adam — for “ the Lord God took the man, and put him 
into the garden of Eden, to dress it and to keep it*;” and the exten- 
sive space which this garden is implied to have filled— for ‘‘ out of 
the ground (of this garden) made the Lord God to grow every tree 
that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food;” as well as the 
general scenery, and the most prominent circumstances in this 
history of the first man, all concur to shew, that the mandate of the 
Creator was, in this respect, completely fulfilled, and that “ the earth 
brought forth grass and herb, yielding seed after its kind, and the tree 
yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind)'. 
Agreeable to the same sacred tradition, the earth was peopled 
from a single pair ; and, from various particulars which appear in 
the history of their immediate descendants, we may perceive, that 
the arts which they possessed, and the kind of life which they led, 
accorded with those which the historians of later times have shewn 
to have been adopted by the aboriginal inhabitants of every country. 
Their dress was simple ; and their employments — ^that of keeping of 
cattle, and of tilling the ground — were those of man in his rudest and 
most uncivilized state. 
After a certain period, seven generations from Adam, we are told 
the arts of civil life began to appear. “ Jabal was the father of 
such as dwell in tents, and -of such as have cattle Jubal was the 
father of such as handle the harp and organ — and Tubal Cain was 
the instructor of every artificer in brass and iron+.” Whether 
this relation is to be taken literally, and that these arts were actually 
invented during the eighth generation of mankind, or whether 
this account was only meant to designate the regular progress of 
* Genesis ii. 15. -j- Genesis i. 12. t Genesis v. 
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