TREES 

 IN NATURE, MYTH AND ART 



CHAPTER I 

 THE SOUL OF A TREE 



LEST the reader should fear that, if he 

 venture forth along the pages of this 

 opening chapter, he may be asked to believe 

 in some modernised form of animism, let it be 

 said at once that no glimmering of conscious- 

 ness is here attributed to plant-life. It will be 

 maintained later that the absence of conscious- 

 ness distinctly marks off the emotion awakened 

 within us by the contemplation of such life from 

 that awakened by the animal world. In what 

 sense, then, can we speak of the soul of a tree ? 

 We shall best arrive at an answer to this question 

 by beginning in the inanimate world. 



Even in these rigidly scientific days we can- 

 not, and happily cannot, escape from thinking 



