we recognise the Lucretian explanation of the constitution of the earth, of the material elements of the mind, of the physical influence of love. Other passages again, such as i. 247, etc.,
Illic ut perhibent aut intempesta silet nox,
and iv. 219–227,
His quidam signis, etc.,
are in harmony with the Stoical doctrines and in direct opposition to the Epicurean science. Some of these apparent inconsistencies of opinion may be explained on the supposition that Virgil changed his allegiance from one school to another during the composition of the Georgics. But probably the truer explanation is that he was
Nullius addictus iurare in verba magistri[329],
and that he accepted certain results of science which impressed his imagination, without caring for their consistency with others which he equally accepts. There is a constant tendency in him to allow his belief in the miraculous to interfere with his belief in natural law; as for instance in the account he gives of the birth of bees (iv. 200), and again of their spontaneous generation from the blood of slain bullocks (iv. 285). He has not the firm faith in natural agency which Lucretius had. Phenomena are [pg 214]still regarded by him as isolated, not interdependent. The ordinary course of Nature he supposes to be interrupted by marvels and portents. The signs of coming things are represented, not as Lucretius would have represented them, as natural antecedents or concomitants of the things portended, but as arbitrary indications appointed for the guidance of man.
III.
For the technical execution of his poem Virgil could gain little help from his Greek models. The mass of materials which he had to reduce to order was much larger and more miscellaneous than the special topics selected for their art by the Alexandrians. The subject treated in the Georgics would have afforded scope for several poems treated on the principle on which Aratus and Nicander treated their subjects; and not only was the mass of materials larger and more varied, but the whole purpose of the Georgics was more complex. Virgil’s artistic aim was not only to combine into one work the topics which he treats successively in the four books of the Georgics, but to interweave with them the poetry of personal and national feeling, of speculative ideas, of ethical and religious teaching, of science, of the living world of Nature. In Lucretius, on the other hand, he found an example of the systematic treatment of a vaster range of topics,—a range so vast, indeed, that the principal topics of Virgil’s art enter as subsidiary elements into one part of his representation. Lucretius too had shown how to combine with the systematic exposition of his abstract theme a strong personal interest and a strong ethical purpose. He had shown how, out of the treatment of this abstract theme, opportunities naturally arose for uttering the poetry and pathos of human life, and for delineating in all its beauty and majesty the outward face and revealing the inner secret of Nature. He thus supplied the general plan which Virgil might follow, with modifications suited to his narrower range of subject and his more purely didactic office. We see how Virgil adopts this [pg 215]plan, modified to suit his own ideas, in the personal dedication; in the Invocation and short introduction to his various books; in his manner of arranging, connecting, and illustrating the successive stages of his exposition; and, lastly, in the use which he makes of episodes, chiefly at the end of various books, with the view of enabling his readers to feel the intimate connexion of his subject with the most valued interests of life,—with religion and morality, with family affection, with peace, prosperity, and national greatness.