Our pagan forefathers believed the oak to be a sacred tree and that the marks in the bark revealed the presence of a dryad.
In this account of the development of an independent, active and intelligent being from the stage where man like the Dryad is a portion of the natural life around him, Hegel has combined what may be termed a physiology and pathology of the mind - a subject far wider than that of ordinary psychologies, and one of vast intrinsic importance.
From 1868 to 1870 he commanded the "Dryad," and was engaged in the suppression of the slave trade.