Contents Index

I discovered the names

The first definitions are of discrete things, which happen also to be the necessities of life. The Creature's education places him in the condition of Adam, who named the animals of Eden. See Genesis 2:18-20:
Then the LORD God said, "It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him."

So out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the air, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them; and whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name.

The man gave names to all cattle, and to the birds of the air, and to every beast of the field; but for the man there was not found a helper fit for him.

The last phrase of the Genesis text we will soon see applies to the Creature as much as it does to all of God's creation.

Milton's litany of the creatures whom Adam named comes in his account of the Creation in Paradise Lost, Book VII, 493ff.