The Tartuffian Age Author:Paolo Mantegazza Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER II. WHEN HUMAN HYPOCRISY WAS BORN. — THE THIRD CHAPTER OF GENESIS AND THE FIRST FIG-LEAF. — EVOLUTION OF THAT LEAF THROUGH THE COURSE OF HISTORY. — HY... more »POCRISY PROPORTIONED DIRECTLY TO CULTURE. — OUR AGE DESERVES THE DESIGNATION OF TARTUFFE.— HYMNS OF BENEDICTION TO HYPOCRISY. 1HEN was the first Tartuffe born among men? He was born with the first man and with the first woman: to deceive, there must be two; -there must be the duper and the duped. To-day, perhaps, after so many centuries of deception, man may succeed even in deceiving himself. And where was the first sin of hypocrisy committed? In the garden of Eden, which God gave to man to dress it and to keep it. And it was committed the first time that Adam and Eve were ashamed of being naked, and when they gathered the first fig-leaves, and sewed them together, and made for themselves aprons, wherewith to gird themselves. It is the Bible which relates it to us, in the book of Genesis: — " And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed" (ii. 25). " Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden? " And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden: " But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die. " And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die: The Serpent in Eden 35 " For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as God, knowing good and evil. " And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to...« less