22 TREES IN NATURE, MYTH & ART 



than the mythology of ancient Greece. Tree- 

 worship, which obviously has interest for us 

 here, and which we find low down in, if not at 

 the base of, the structure of the ancient faiths, 

 is still in vogue to-day. In the course of its 

 history it has found remarkable expression in 

 art and literature. A most interesting chapter 

 of human thought is closed to us if we be not 

 acquainted with its history ; and the trees then 

 say far less to us than otherwise they would. 

 For many reasons we must study, if only 

 briefly, that belief in "something human in a 

 tree," something, indeed, more than human, 

 which is only less general now than it was 

 in earlier ages. 



We begin lower than this, amid ideas that 

 are hardly to be associated with religion, which, 

 in fact, are the first, or, at least, the earliest 

 known attempts at natural science. We might 

 almost say that man starts out as his own god, 

 believing in no other control of nature than his 

 own. He looks to no higher power than him- 

 self for help in bringing rain or making his 

 trees fruitful, or whatever else he needs or 

 wishes, that nature at the time is withholding 

 from him. It is a far cry from this belief to 



