Note 129 — Chapter VI · The Era of Handicraft122

The imputation of the feminine in this personification of Nature is probably nothing more than a carrying over of the Latin gender of the word, but there is commonly involved in this quasi-personal conception of Nature a notable imputation of kindliness and gentle solicitude that well comports with her putative womanhood. By extraordinarily easy gradation Natura naturans passes over into Mother Nature. The contrast in this respect, simply on its sentimental side, between the conception of Nature, say in the eighteenth century, on the one hand, and the patriarchal Heavenly King, remote and austere, of the Mediæval cult on the other hand is striking enough. In point of sentimental content this conception of Nature is more nearly in touch with the mediæval Mother of God than with the Heavenly King.