ASSYRIAN MONUMENTS. 43 



cherry tree in Isle de France, and the apple in 

 Picardy. 



All which considerations go to strengthen my belief that 

 it was mainly the great usefulness of the tree, as a gift of 

 nature, which induced them to elevate it into a sacred tree. 



Some such reason or reasons are probably and mainly 

 at the bottom of the sacredness of certain trees, and 

 also of certain animals. Although in the latter case 

 there may have been tribal totemistic reasons. 



The sacredness of trees, in many cases, may pro- 

 bably have begun anteriorly to agriculture or the 

 domestication of animals ; that is, at a time when man 

 lived by hunting and fishing, and by eating anything 

 he could find in the forests. 



Count d'Alviella, at p. 167,^ says: "I would be the first 

 to admit that considerations of usefulness may have 

 originally suggested to the Mesopotamians the worship 

 of a certain tree, which may afterwards have served to 

 represent the sacred tree." .... But it is evident 

 from the importance given to it " that it must be 

 something more." No doubt ; in those days nothing 

 was thought of without being mixed up with the 

 supernatural. The supernatural in this case, I think, 

 came in very naturally and reasonably. It was a Divine 

 Gift. After that, poetical minds transfigured the whole 

 thing, and may have added on myth upon m}'th. 

 ^ ' Migration des Symboles.' 



