Invariably, its rule of "follow nature" had to be defined in terms
that proved its distrust of what the world called nature. As a matter of
fact the Stoic had only scorn for naturalism. Physical man was to him a
creature to be chained. Trust not the "scelerata pulpa; peccat et haec,
peccat!" cries Persius in terror.
The earlier naive animism of Greece and Rome had contained more of
aesthetic value, for it was the very spring from which had flowed all the
wealth of ancient myths. But the nymphs of that stream were dead, slain
by philosophical questioning. The new poetic myth-making that still
showed the influence of an old habit of mind was apt to be rather
self-conscious and diffident, ending in something resembling the pathetic
fallacy.
Epicureanism on the other hand by employing the theory of evolution was
able to unite man and nature once more. And since man is so self-centered
that his imagination refuses to extend sympathetic treatment to nature
unless he can feel a vital bond of fellowship with it, the poetry of
romance became possible only upon the discovery of that unity. This is
doubtless why Lucretius, first of all the Romans, could in his prooemium
bring back to nature that sensuousness which through the songs of the
troubadours has become the central theme of romantic poetry even to our
day.
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