belief, yet as it shows, on the one hand, an unconscious survival of the state of mind which gave birth to mythology, so it seems to be the unconscious awakening of a spiritual conception of a creative and sustaining power in the universe. This new and more vital conception which supersedes the old mythological modes of thought is not altogether independent of them. Lucretius still interprets the world by analogies and illustrations which attach personal attributes to different phases and forces of Nature. Thus he speaks of Aether as the fructifying father, of Earth as the great mother of all living things. But the survival of the mythological conception of the universe, blended indeed with other modes of imaginative thought, appears most conspicuously in the famous invocation to the poem,-- Aeneadum genetrix, hominum divomque voluptas, Alma Venus. The mysterious power there addressed is identified with the Alma Venus of Italian worship,--the abstract conception of the life-giving impulse, the operations of which are most visible in the new birth of the early spring,--and with the Aphrodite of Greek art and poetry,--the concrete and passionate conception of the beauty and charm which most fascinate the senses. But if nothing more was meant in the opening lines of the poem than a fanciful appeal to one of the Deities of the popular belief, it might with justice be said that some of the finest poetry in Lucretius directly contradicted his sincerest convictions. But the language in which she is addressed clearly proves that the 'Alma Venus' of the invocation is not an independent capricious power, separate from the orderly action of Nature. She is emphatically addressed as a Power, present through all the world,-- Caeli subter labentia signa Quae mare navigerum quae terras frugiferentis Concelebras. She is not only omnipresent, but all-creative,-- Per te quoniam genus omne animantum Concipitur,-- and all-regulative-- Quae quoniam rerum naturam sola gubernas, etc. Thus under the name, and with some of the attributes of the Goddess of Mythology, the genial force of Nature,--'Natura Naturans' as distinct from the 'rerum summa,' or 'Natura Naturata,'--is apprehended as a living, all-pervading energy, the cause of all life, joy, beauty, and order in the world, the cause too of all grace and accomplishment in man. To this mysterious Power, from which all joy and loveliness are silently emanating, the poet, (remembering at the same time that the friend to whom he dedicates his poem claims especially to be under the protection of that Goddess with whom she is identified), prays for inspiration,-- Quo magis aeternum da dictis, diva, leporem[66]. Here, as in earlier invocations of the Muse, there is a recognition of the truth that the feeling, the imagery, and the words of the poet come to him in a way which he does not understand,-- [Greek: hemeis de kleos oion akouomen, oude ti idmen,]--