INVOLUTION 409 



in the clay was no longer a water-weed. It was the 

 root of which Sigillaria was the stem, and the clay- 

 was the soil in which the great coal-plant grew. 



Through many chapters, often in the dark, every- 

 where hampered by the clay, we have been working 

 among roots. Of what are they the roots ? To 

 what order do they belong ? By what process 

 have they grown ? What connection have they 

 with the realm above, or the realm beneath ? Is 

 it a Stigmaria or a Sigillaria world ? 



Till yesterday Science did not recognize them 

 even as roots. They were classified apart. They 

 led to nothing. No organic connection was known 

 between lower Nature and that wholly separate 

 and all but antagonistic realm, the higher world of 

 Man. Atoms, cells, plants, animals were the mate- 

 rial products of a separate creation, the clay from 

 which Man took his clay-body, and no more. The 

 higher world, also, was a system by itself. It rose 

 out of nothing ; it rested upon nothing. Clay, 

 where the roots lay, was the product of inorganic 

 forces ; Coal, which enshrined the tree, was a 

 creation of the sunlight. What fellowship had 

 light with darkness ? What possible connection 

 could exist between that beautiful organism which 

 stood erect in the living, and that which lay 

 prone in the dead ? Yet, by a process doubly 



