Traces of this may still be recognised.
Jehovah does not descend to it from heaven, but goes out walking
in the garden in the evening as if He were at home. The garden of
Deity is, however, on the whole somewhat naturalised. A similar
weakening down of the mythic element is apparent in the matter of
the serpent; it is not seen at once that the serpent is a demon.
Yet parting with these foreign elements has made the story no
poorer, and it has gained in noble simplicity. The mythic
background gives it a tremulous brightness: we feel that we are
in the golden age when heaven was still on earth; and yet
unintelligible enchantment is avoided, and the limit of a sober
chiaroscuro is not transgressed.
The story of the creation in six days played, we know, a great
part in the earlier stages of cosmological and geological science.
It is not by chance that natural science has kept off Genesis ii.
iii. There is scarcely any nature there. But poetry has at
all times inclined to the story of Paradise. Now we do not
require to ask at this time of day, nor to argue the question,
whether mythic poetry or sober prose is the earlier stage in the
contemplation of the world.
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