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    I am , of the vast inferiority of my abilities and furniture . It is from you , Sir , who have read every thing , and employed a long life in religious inquiries , and particularly in the prosecution of that noble object contained in your excellent proposition , that I expect solutions of this kind . However , to shew you the sense I have of your condescension and my confidence in your candour , I will not scruple to lay before you my poor thoughts on the subjects

    you propose . Qu . 1 . As to the Mosaic account of the Fall , I cannot still help thinking that the writer meant to give us an historical narrative ; not a parable or an allegorical representation : partly on acconnt of the appearance of simplicity through the whole narration , in which I can perceive nothing that bears the air of parable , poetry , or hieroglyphic ; and , partly , because I observe that the succeeding sacrea writers , especially those of the New Testament , refer to the several circumstances of the story as to real facts .

    I cannot help thinking that all the appearances of unaccountable , childish and irrational , which occur to us in the story , take their rise from a hasty presumption of our own , that the first human pair were produced into being in like circumstances as those in which we find ourselves when we arrive at mature age : I mean , with like compass of thought and sentiments , with all the variety of our affections and passions , and all the extent of our experience . Had that been the case , I own , the several circumstances of their trial and fall ,

    as related by Moses , would have appeared to me strange and unaccountable indeed . I know also that the Rabbins have vainly fancied , and many Christian divines have adopted the fancy , that Adam and Eve were originally enr dowed with much superior perfection in intellectual and moral excellencies than any of their posterity have ever attained to , which would place this story far beyond all the bounds of credibility . But I cannot but regard all this as mere stuff , as you say .

    I have been wont to consider this subject in the manner following . I figure to myself Adam just come from under the plastic hand of his Creator , endowed with the bodily senses and intellectual capacities of man in full perfection , but those capacities , as yet , unoccupied with the actual knowledge of any thing . I suppose him to be furnished with the seeds of all the affections and passions of the human heart ; but those seeds as yet dormant , and to be developed by impressions and events which might afterwards occur . He opens his eyes , and is immediately overwhelmed with astonishment and

    confusion by the impressions things make on them , scarce distinctly conscious of his own existence , and comprehending little of the things around him . Though surrounded with the means of sustenance , he would be liable to perish through ignorance of their properties or how to use them , unless he was endowed with some instincts , of which we are destitute , or his benevolent Creator inspired him immediately , or instructed him gradually in the knowledge of the properties and uses of things . In one of these two latter ways I suppose Adam soon to have received from his Maker so much natural

    knowledge as was necessary to his support and happiness . I suppose him also to have received , in the same way , the rudiments and principles , at least , of language , so far as was necessary to fit him for that limited society into which he was shortly to enter . Accordingly , we are told , that he gave names to the several living creatures before Eve was formed ; and this I suppose him to have done , prompted or guided by divine inspiration or instruction . Thus I suppose him to set out with a furniture of natural knowledge and speech sufficient , and not more than sufficient , for his present uses , and to b

    JV 44 BA -m * j ^ « _ - ~ ^ t ^ . * enable him to make improvements upon afterwards by his own attention and industry . The only affections I can imagine to have been awakened in him hitherto , are those of wonder , joy , sensitive pleasure , and the pleasure attending the perception of knowledge . Eve was now formed , and committed to Adam for his companion and partner , and to be instructed by him in what himself had learned . Now all the social affections awoke and the tender passions between the sexes .

    Untitled Article

    90 Correspondence between T . Amory , Esq ., and Rev . fV , Turner *

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Feb. 2, 1827, page 90, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1793/page/10/