with the Hebrew cherubim, and has had the most singular influence on the
Christian religion by giving its wings to render the conception of angels
mysterious and untenable, and check rational endeavor to determine the
nature of subordinate spiritual agency; while yet it has given to that
agency a vague poetical influence of the highest value in its own
imaginative way.

73. But with the early serpent-worship there was associated another,
that of the groves, of which you will also find the evidence exhaustively
collected in Mr. Fergussen's work. This tree-worship may have taken a
dark form when associated with the Draconian one; or opposed, as in
Judea, to a purer faith; but in itself, I believe, it was always healthy,
and though it retains little definite hieroglyphic power in subsequent
religion, it becomes, instead of symbolic, real; the flowers and trees
are themselves beheld and beloved with a half-worshipping delight, which
is always noble and healthful.

And it is among the most notable indications of the volition of the
animating power that we find the ethical signs of good and evil set on
these also, as well as upon animals; the venom of the serpent, and in
some respects its image also, being associated even with the passionless
growth of the leaf out of the ground; while the distinctions of species
seem appointed with more definite ethical address to the intelligence of
man as their material products become more useful to him.

74. I can easily show this, and, at the same time, make clear the
relation to other plants of the flowers which especially belong to
Athena, by examining the natural myths in the groups of the plants which
would be used at any country dinner, over which Athena would, in her
simplest household authority, cheerfully rule here in England. Suppose