For my part, I believe that the Fall of Man was due to the introduction of the simple life. In a state of innocence our first ancestors (I suppose) ate beef and drank beer like Christians. Then came the Tempter, the spirit of intellectual pride and intellectual perversity; he took the form of a Serpent because that form is full of an evil simplicity. And he said, with the elaborate lucidity of modern hygiene, " All these meals are unnecessary to health. Take one raw apple, Madam, in the early morning; another at noon. The apple best suited for our purpose is of particular chemical properties, at once nutritious and light; it grows on a tree which I will show you in a moment. This simpler regimen will expand the moral powers, clear the intellect, purify and exalt the feelings: it will lead you up the endless spiral of Science and Moral Evolution. You will become as gods, knowing good and evil.'" But the divine justice smote that liar and put him also upon a regimen. '"On thy belly shalt thou go and the dust shalt thou eat.'" That is something like a Simple Life for you.
This theory of the Fall (which I commend to the teachers as an example of simple Bible teaching) is also supported by the story of Cain and Abel. It has often been pointed out that Cain was an agriculturist and therefore most probably a vegetarian; while Abel kept flocks and killed and ate them. I am sure that somewhere in this fact is to be found the key of that dark and terrible story. It seems so like a vegetarian to kill his brother on strictly altruistic principles. But however this may be, I decline to be soothed by the assurances of the social authority who delights in the increased hygiene of fashionable Society. This does not assuage the tender fears that fill me as I watch over the aristocracy. I still feel sadly responsible for them.
-July 7, 1906, Illustrated London News
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