Note 3 — Chapter VII · Paradise and the Serpent.

Those who attentively compare these myths with the legend in Genesis will not have any need to rest upon the doubtful etymology of ‘Adam’3 to establish the Ayran origin of the latter. The Tree of the knowledge of Good and Evil which made man ‘as one of us’ (the Elohim) is the Soma of India, the Haoma of Persia, the kvásir of Scandinavia, to which are ascribed the intelligence and powers of the gods, and the ardent thoughts of their worshippers. The Tree of Immortality is the Amrita, the only monopoly of the gods. ‘The Lord God said, Behold the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever: Therefore the Lord God sent him forth the garden of Eden to till the ground whence he had been taken. So he drove out the man; and he placed on the east of the garden of Eden cherubim, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to guard the way of the tree of life.’