Each Daemon is drawn to whatever man or, if its nature is more general, to
whatever nation it most differs from, and it shapes into its own image
the antithetical dream of man or nation. The Jews had already shown by the
precious metals, by the ostentatious wealth of Solomon's temple, the
passion that has made them the money-lenders of the modern world. If they
had not been rapacious, lustful, narrow and persecuting beyond the people
of their time, the incarnation had been impossible; but it was an
intellectual impulse from the Condition of Fire that shaped their
antithetical self into that of the classic world. So always it is an
impulse from some Daemon that gives to our vague, unsatisfied desire,
beauty, a meaning and a form all can accept.