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I N T K O D Q C T I O D .
H E analogy existing between the vegetable
and animal worlds, and the resemblances
between human and tree life, have been
observed by man from the most remote
periods of which we have any records.
Primitive man, watching the marvellous
changes in trees and plants, which accurately
marked not only the seasons of the
year, but even the periods of time in a day, could not fail to be
struck with a feeling of awe at the mysterious invisible power
which silently guided such wondrous and incomprehensible operations.
Hence it is not astonishing that the early inhabitants of
the earth should have invested with supernatural attributes the
tree, which in the gloom and chill of Winter stood gaunt, bare,
and sterile, but in the early Spring hastened to greet the welcome
warmth-giving Sun by investing itself with a brilliant canopy of
verdure, and in the scorching heat of Summer afforded a refreshing
shade beneath its leafy boughs. So we find these men
of old, who had learnt to reverence the mysteries of vegetation,
forming conceptions of vast cosmogonic world- or cloud-trees overshadowing
the universe; mystically typifying creation and regeneration,
and yielding the divine ambrosia or food of immortality,
the refreshing and life-inspiring rain, and the mystic fruit which
imparted knowledge and wisdom to those who partook of it. So,