ate of these different fruits. God's comprehension of the danger of
the tree of life is not wonderful, but his foreseeing of the danger of
the tree of knowledge was extraordinary foreseeing, for very little of
the fruit of this tree had been eaten at the time the text was
written. All through the Middle Ages the clerics strove to keep men
from it with tortures and burnings at the stake, and they were so
anxiously striving for success in protecting their flocks from this
tree that they allowed the sheep to wander, the rams to follow the
ewes, and to gambol as they pleased. But the efforts of the clerics
were vain. There were rams who renounced the ewes, and the succulent
herbage that grows about the tree of life, for the sake of the fruit
of the tree of knowledge; all the fences that the clerics had erected
were broken down one by one; and during the nineteenth century a great
feast was held under the tree. But after every feast there are always
ailing stomachs; these denouncing the feast go about in great
depression of spirit, surfeited feasters, saying the branches of the
tree have been plucked bare; others complain they have eaten bitter
fruit. This is the moment for the prowling cleric. Hell is remote, it
has been going down in the world for some time, and biology, if no
conclusions be drawn, serves the clerical purpose almost as well. "The
origins of existence are humble enough, my son, but think of the
glorious heritage," and the faint-hearted sheep is folded again....
The tree of life is more abundant; whenever a fruit is plucked another
instantly takes its place, and all the efforts of the clerics are now
directed to keep their flocks from this tree. "Back to the tree of
knowledge!" they cry. "Hu! Hu! Hu! Both trees," they mutter among
themselves, "are accursed, but this one, from which sweet fruit may
always be plucked, is the worser." And they collect together in groups
to pass censure on their predecessors. "My predecessors were
infallible fools," cries the Pope, "to have permitted praise of this