TREE-WORSHIP 27 



In this connexion we must not forget how 

 different from what they are now, used to be 

 the nature around man and his relation to 

 it. The old saying that God made the 

 country and man made the town, can only 

 be accepted in a limited sense. Using the 

 old phraseology, we should rather say that 

 God made nature, and man has made both 

 town and country out of nature ; the country, 

 as we know it, being nature adapted by man 

 to his own use. Early man, in whom grew 

 up the beliefs we have to consider, lived 

 neither in town nor country; for neither of 

 them was in existence in his day. He lived, 

 a wild creature, amid wild nature, over which 

 he had no control; and he had to win a 

 precarious livelihood faced by the fierce com- 

 petition of other creatures wilder than himself 

 When we go into the woods to-day we may 

 be startled, but we do not expect to find 

 cause for fear. It is we who cause fear to 

 the rabbit, the pheasant or the wood-pigeon, 

 that startles us by its hasty flight on our 

 approach. But early man, not merely enter- 

 ing woods, but living amid vast forests which 

 he had had no hand in planting, had good 



