DISAPPEARANCE OF FOPtESTS. 35 



at length extensively disappeared. Whether this has been 

 a blessing or a curse affects not the fact, which is such as 

 I have stated. 



Without speaking presumptuously of what must havelbeen 

 the purposes of God, as if He were altogether such an one 

 as ourselves, or forgetting that all that the more moderate 

 theologians speak of are the Attributes of God, for which 

 they claim no higher position than that they are what they 

 or others iu their ignorance attribute to Him, we may 

 reverently speak of what has actually occurred. In doing so 

 the fact which has been stated may be accepted ; and with 

 it the additional fact, that as the earth advanced through 

 its changing conditions, it became progressively prepared 

 and fitted for the flora of the present ; and in like manner 

 for the fauna of the present ; and also for the residence of 

 man, who found in the forests a shelter and a home ; but 

 who found also there materials which he could make use of 

 in effecting many of his purposes : building a house or place 

 of shelter, fencing cultivated spots to keep off the beasts 

 of the field, and making implements for which he had 

 occasion, and weapons which he could make use of in 

 hunting, or in defending himself and his family, if not also 

 in committing injury and wrong ; but who even then may 

 have begun to find these sheltering forests a cumbrance, 

 preventing him from artificially cultivating, so extensively 

 as he desired, other plants which were good for food. 

 Then by fire and axe he may have sought the removal of 

 at least a portion of them ; and effecting this, he may have 

 found, though he may not have realised, or even under- 

 stood, or even perceived the fact, that in the centuries of 

 growth through which these trees had passed, they had 

 prepared a soil for such cultures as he wished to practise ; 

 and that the ashes remaining, after he had consumed them 

 by fire, promoted the growth of the plants he was culti- 

 vating. And in process of time, with increased experience 

 of this, and intensified energy, he may have proceeded 

 more and more extensively to fell and to destroy, till the 



