ems most agreeable to the
intention of the author. It is said, that by Adam we are to
understand the mind or reason of man; by Eve, the flesh or
outward senses; and by the serpent, lust or pleasure. This
allegory, we are told, clearly explains the true causes of
man's fall and degeneracy, when his mind, through the
weakness and treachery of his senses, became captivated and
seduced by the allurements of lust and pleasure, he was
driven by God out of Paradise; that is, lost and forfeited
the happiness and prosperity which he had enjoyed in his
innocence. This interpretation is certainly very ingenious,
and conveys a noble and a beautiful moral; but I am of
opinion, that, without straining it in the least, it may be
carried a good deal farther, and that Moses, by prohibiting
his imaginary pair to taste of the tree of the knowledge of
good and evil, intended to warn men against, and shew them
the dangerous consequences of, an idle curiosity and
researches into vain and useless Things, and to make them
sensible, that all they could acquire thereby would be pain
and misery, the necessary consequences of the loss of virtue
and innocence, and a shameful sense of their own nakedness;
that is, the corruption and depravity of human nature. This
interpretation is not only deducible in a very obvious
manner from the fable itself, but is likewise agreeable to
experience. It is certain, that an ignorance of vice is,
with great numbers, the best, and sometimes the only
preservative against it, and that a simple and rural life is
the proper soil wherein every virtue flourishes. Neither is
such a state incompatible with the improvement of mankind in
natural and moral philosophy, or their advancement in all
the valuable arts and sciences.

The application of this doctrine to you is very obvious. Not
to mention many faulty scenes in your Grandison and Pamela,
several volumes of your Clarissa contain nothing else but a
minute and circumstantial detail of the most shocking vices
and villainous contrivances, transacted in the most infamous
of places, and by the most infamous characters, and all to
satisfy the brutal and the sensual appetite. Thus you act
the part of the serpent, and not only throw out to men the
tempting suggestions of lust and pleasure, but likewise
instruct the weak head and the corrupt heart in the methods
how to proceed to their gratification. That is, you tempt
them to swallow the forbidden fruit of the tree which