94 Chapters in Modern Botany CHAP, v 



theories of Darwin, the world will always owe him thanks ; 

 for his books have a deeper use and significance. To 

 the dawning intelligence of the race, the forest is vaguely 

 astir with a life which man does not clearly separate from 

 his own a mystery of growth which has left its mark 

 deep in the history of all religions. A later and more 

 self-conscious mind moulds this omnipresent life into 

 anthropomorphic shapes ; so a Dryad hides in every tree, 

 while Pan roams through the glade. These anthropo- 

 morphic shapes are next formalised away from the living 

 realities they symbolise ; they become mere shadowy gods, 

 then fairies and fables. The tree (or what remains of it) 

 is now something economically useful ; it has also a 

 popular and a systematic name ; but to Utilitarian or 

 Linnasan alike, the form and substance seems the main 

 thing, not the life. " Great Pan is dead " ; the botanist 

 is as prosaic and unseeing as the woodcutter, in fact 

 essentially is one, at best with finer tools, and like him 

 does his best work away from the wild wood altogether. 

 But as the ages of fetishism, of Hellenic anthropomorphism 

 passed away, so now the formal and utilitarian and analytic 

 spirit is passing also in its turn. Science is entering a 

 new and brighter Hellas ; the Dryad, living and breathing, 

 moving and sensitive is again within her tree ; nay better, 

 the plant is herself the living Dryad, her naked beauty 

 radiant in the sun. And what of this old naturalist who 

 led us back into the forest sounding with the Protean 

 mystery-play of evolving Life? Now that his rugged face 

 has vanished, it grows more strange yet more familiar in 

 memory ; we have seen it of old we know it now for the 

 returning avatar of Pan. 



