THE SOUL OF A TREE 9 



wonder if there be consciousness in a tree! 

 But 'the reader has been given a guarantee 

 that he shall not be asked to go so far. Per- 

 haps we must say that there is soul in the 

 tree, even if we cannot literally speak of the 

 soul of a tree. Charles Darwin, in a letter to 

 Romanes, said that, if a theologian contended 

 that God must have given to force and matter 

 the attributes that culminate in life, he could 

 not answer him. Romanes put the question, 

 respecting natural causation : " Is it the mode 

 in which a Divine Being is everywhere simul- 

 taneously and eternally operating ? " Are 

 Huxley's thousands of delicate Ariels the 

 agents of such a Divine Being ? These are 

 questions not to be answered here ; but, were 

 we to answer them, it would not be with an 

 emphatic negative. So once again, as I turn 

 from writing to look at the trees, it is with 

 wonder as to what they are in their inmost 

 life. 



All the early part of this book is meant to 

 lead up to a study of the representation of 

 trees in art. But we shall not know what 

 to ask of the artist unless we set out with 

 wonder. We must not refuse to nature a 



