INTRODUCTION. 



THE desire to obtain a better knowledge of the 

 unknown is inborn in the human mind. The veriest 

 savage, ignorant of the causes of all phenomena, yet 

 ascribes an animating spirit to the force that the 

 waves exert, to the wind he feels, or to the swaying 

 branches of the trees he sees around him. To liken 

 the cause of their movements to that vitality which he 

 is dimly conscious of in himself is for him a sufficient 

 explanation. In the olden days of Greece the minds 

 of men peopled the woods, streams and ocean with 

 beings more or less like themselves, but more spiritual 

 in their nature. The Dryads, Nymphs or Demi- 

 gods dwelt therein, ruled the elementary forces, and 

 thus satisfactorily accounted for the phenomena of 

 nature. As men grew wiser they recognized that 

 these beings were only the objective creations of their 

 own thoughts ; they had given to "Airy nothings a 

 local habitation and a name/' yet they despised the 

 search into the phenomena of Nature, since they 



(xi) 



