338 THE AESTHETICS OF 



Mythology, so here, the side most fruitful and most full of 

 life has not yet been at all investigated ; nevertheless we 

 hold as a general proposition that there is no study, which 

 in any way soever relates to earthly relations, or is realized 

 in such, which is or can be more than a dead Word- 

 learnedness or untrue phantasy, if it have not its founda- 

 tions in the Science of Nature. Man does not understand 

 the human Soul without connexion with the Body, and 

 this not without its dependance on all Nature, and what 

 there may be besides, whatever can become an object of 

 Science. 



This influence, which gives the vegetable world an 

 especial value in the development of Mankind, is not 

 shown by the forms of plants by themselves, but rather 

 only in and through their combination into the already 

 named Plant-formations. Here again, no more can be 

 expected from me than a slight indication of the infinite 

 wealth of Nature, the narrow frame in which my pictures 

 are confined, forbids more. Nay if we intended completely 

 to exhaust the subject, we must even draw the Animal 

 world and Geological elements into the circle of our con- 

 templations. The natural Man lives not with this or that 

 natural body, but with All that surrounds him ; the land- 

 scape with all its inseparate elements acts upon his tone of 

 mind, and thus imperceptibly upon his entire inward 

 history ; only gradually, in advanced culture, does it become 

 possible to extricate the individual components out of the 

 picture and to analyze the general impression into its 

 separate influences. Not the Grass, but the Meadow, not 

 the Tree, but the Wood, not the Myrtle-bush, but the 

 whole surface covered with low, bushy, evergreen plants, 

 which draws itself like a girdle round the Greek mountains, 

 contrasted on one side with the blooming meadows, on the 



