If to regard this passage as merely an artistic ornament of the poem would be unjust to the sincerity of Lucretius as a thinker, to regard it merely as a piece of elaborate symbolism would be still more unjust to his genius as a poet. It is a truth both of thought and of imaginative feeling that there is a pervading and puissant energy in the world, manifesting itself most powerfully in animate and inanimate creation, when the deadness of winter gives place to the genial warmth of spring,-- Tibi rident aequora ponti Placatumque nitet diffuso lumine caelum;-- manifesting itself also in the human spirit in the form of genius, calling into life new feelings and fancies of the poet, and shaping them into forms of imperishable beauty. Whether consistently or inconsistently with the ultimate tenets of his philosophy, the poet, in this invocation, seems to recognise, behind these manifestations of unconscious energy, the presence of a conscious Being with which his own spirit can hold communion, and from which it draws inspiration. With similar inconsistency or consistency a modern physicist speaks of 'the impression of joy given in the unfolding of leaf and the spreading of plant as irresistibly suggesting the thought of a great Being conscious of this joy.' But this puissant and joy-giving energy, personified in the 'Alma Venus genetrix,' is only one of the aspects which the 'Natura daedala rerum' of Lucretius presents to man. She seems to stand to him rather in the position of a task-mistress than of a beneficent Being, ministering to his wants. The Gods receive all things from her bounty,-- Omnia suppeditat porro Natura,[443]-- and the lower animals who 'wage no foolish strife with her' have their wants also abundantly satisfied:-- Quando omnibus omnia large Tellus ipsa parit Naturaque daedala rerum.[444] But to man she is the cause of evil as well as of good; of shipwrecks, earthquakes, pestilence, and untimely death, as well as of all beauty and delight. Sometimes he seems to hear her speaking to him in the tones of stern reproof,-- Denique si vocem rerum Natura repente, etc.[445] Again he sees her rising up before him like the old Nemesis of Greek religion, and trampling with secret irony on the pride and pomp of human affairs,-- Usque adeo res humanas vis abdita quaedam Opterit et pulchros fascis saevasque secures Proculcare ac ludibrio sibi habere videtur.[446]