According to the first chapter of Genesis, all things came into being through the divine word of God; and man, because in the highest order of being, was given dominion over all the earth. Thus we find the heritage of man is dominion not subjection.
Looking about on the world to-day, we have evidence that this heritage has been lost, and man seems to be in bondage to a tyrant that is merciless and pitiless in the exercise of his power, and this tyrant is the knowledge of evil, expressed in sin, sickness, and death. In Genesis we find in the garden of Eden two trees: the tree of Life, which was "good for food," also the tree of knowledge, of good and evil, which if partaken of would result in death. The command is imperative, "Thou shalt not eat of the tree of good and evil," and its self-inflicted punishment was death. The violation of this Word of God brings today, as then, the woes and miseries occasioned by sin, sickness, and death. If mortal estimate of Life had not fallen so far short of the truth, and if man had not violated this first "Thou shalt not," in Genesis, II: 17, this condition of servitude would never have existed.
If the knowledge of evil had never entered the calculus of man, manhood would have been perfect and expressed in Truth and Love. So long as Life is regarded from the double basis of good and evil, mind and matter, immortal and mortal, ignorance and superstition abounds. We can never discern true manhood while partaking of this duality. The Scripture is positive in its demands to keep thine eye single and thy whole body shall be full of light.
