Knowledge of good and evil
In old Scriptural pictures we see a serpent coiled around
the tree of knowledge and speaking to Adam and Eve.
This represents the serpent in the act of
commending to our first parents the knowl-
edge of good and evil, a knowledge gained from matter,
or evil, instead of from Spirit. The portrayal is still
graphically accurate, for the common conception of mor-
tal man - a burlesque of God's man - is an outgrowth
of human knowledge or sensuality, a mere offshoot of
material sense.
