In proceeding further to examine this fundamental aspect of our present

subject I must at once give utterance to the preliminary caution that

the historic investigation of the varied and multifold conceptions of

Greek mythology lies outside our present task. All we are concerned to

inquire into here are the essential phasal steps of this process of

reconstruction, in so far as the same notify themselves as phases of

universal import in the new artistic configuration and its content.

As for that infinite mass of particular myths, narrations, histories,

things referable to a local origin and symbolism, which collectively

still assert their predominance in the world of later gods, and

incidentally appear in artistic production, but for all that do not

belong to the vital point of interest to which our own effort is

directed--we must necessarily leave all this broad field of material

on one side, and can merely refer to an example or two by way of

illustration. Speaking generally we may compare this road, on which

we now move forwards, to the course of the history of sculpture. For

inasmuch as sculpture places before the observation of sense the gods

in their real form it constitutes the peculiar _centrum_ of classical

art, albeit also the better to make it wholly understood poetry

expresses itself upon gods and mankind, or passes in review the worlds

of gods and men in their activity and movement in direct contrast to

that objectivity self-contained in repose. Just as, then, in sculpture

the moment of all importance in the beginning is the transformation of

the formless, the stone or block of wood that has fallen from heaven

(διoπετὴς)--as the the great goddess of Pessinus in Asia Minor actually

was, which the Romans directed by means of a solemn embassy to be

transferred to Rome--into the human form and so makes the statue, so

too we have here to make a beginning from the formless, uncouth powers

of Nature, and while doing so merely to indicate the stages, in their

passage through which they are exalted into spiritual individuality and

are finally concentrated in shapes of fixity.

We may in this connection distinguish three separable aspects as of

most importance.

The _first_, which arrests our attention, are the _oracles_ in which

the knowledge and volition of gods, still under a formless mode, gives

witness to their presence through natural existences.

The _second_ point of view to be noted is concerned with the universal

forms of Nature, no less than the abstractions of Right and so forth,

which lie at the root of the genuine spiritual and individual deities,

which are, so to speak, their birth-cradles and furnish us with the

necessary conditions of their origin and activity: they are the old

gods in contradistinction to the new.

_Thirdly_, and finally, we are made aware of the essentially necessary

progress to the Ideal in the fact that the primarily superficial

personifications of the activities of Nature and the most abstract

spiritual conditions are contested and thrust from their prominence

as something essentially subordinate and negative and, by virtue of

this debasement the self-sufficient spiritual individuality and its

human form and action, is suffered to attain an unchallenged masterdom.

This revolution, which constitutes the real central position in the

historical origins of the classic gods, is in Greek mythology placed

before our imagination in the conflict--a mode of presentation as naïve

as it is astonishingly direct--between the old and new gods, in the

headlong fall of the Titans, and in the victory which the divine race

of Zeus secures.

(_a_) To take, then, first in order the _oracles_, it will not be

necessary for us now to dilate on them to any considerable extent. The

essential point which concerns us here is merely due to this fact,

that in classical art the phenomena of Nature are no longer revered

as such--in the way that the Parsees, for example, pray to naphthetic

regions or fire, or as among the Egyptians, gods remain inscrutable,

mysterious, and mute riddles--but that the gods, being themselves

subjects of knowledge and volition, do verily give to man by means

of natural phenomena indications of their wisdom. In this sense the

ancient Hellenes made inquiry at the oracle of Dodona[155], whether

they should accept the names of gods, which have come to them from

barbarians, and the oracle replied: "Use them."

(_α_) The signs by means of which the gods thus made their revelations

are for the most part of the simplest description. At Dodona such

were the rustle and whisper of the sacred oak, the murmur of the

spring, the tones of the brazen vessel, which the wind made thus to

reverberate. In like manner at Delos it was the laurel which rustled

and at Delphi, too, the sound of the wind on the brazen tripod was full

of significance[156]. Over and above, however, such immediately natural

sounds man is also the voice-piece of the oracle in so far as he is

rendered deaf to and whirled away from the alert commonsense of his

ordinary mind to a natural condition of enthusiasm; as, for example,

the Pythia at Delphi was wont, stupefied by exhalations, to deliver

the oracular words, or in the cave of Trophonius the inquirer of the

oracle met with faces, from the interpretation of which an answer was

delivered him.

(_β_) There is, however, another aspect which we should set alongside

of the purely external sign. For in the oracles God is, it is true,

accepted as He who _knows_, and the oracle of most famed repute is

dedicate to Apollo, the god of wisdom. The form, however, in which he

reveals his will, remains the wholly indefinite voice of Nature, either

a natural sound, that is, or the unconnected tones of words. In this

obscurity of form the spiritual content is itself equally obscure and

requires _interpretation_ and explanation.

(_γ_) This explanation, albeit it brings under a mode of spiritual life

the deliverance of the god which in the first instance is presented

purely in the form of Nature's own voice, remains despite this fact

obscure and equivocal. For the god is in his knowledge and volition

concrete universality. And of the same type also must the advice or

command unavoidably be which the oracle declares. The universal,

however, is not one-sided and abstract, but as concrete universal

contains the one side no less than the other. Inasmuch, then, as

man stands over against the knowing god as one unknowing he accepts

the oracular word itself in ignorance. In other words, the concrete

universality of the same is not open to his intelligence, and he can

merely select from the equivocal word of the god, assuming that he

decides to act upon it, _one_ aspect thereof, for the reason that

every action under particular circumstances is unavoidably _definite_,

only, that is to say, giving a decisive impulse in _one_ direction

and shutting off another. His action is barely accomplished, and the

deed--which consequently has become his own and for which he must

now be answerable--really carried through when he finds a collision

confronting him. All in a moment he is aware that the other side, which

lay already folded in the oracular sentence, is turned against himself

and the fatality of his deed, his knowledge and will notwithstanding,

has him in the toils; a fatality which he may not know, but of which

we must suppose the gods are aware. Conversely again the gods are

determinate potencies and their expressed will, when it carries this

character of essential determinacy, as, for example, the bidding of

Apollo, which drives Orestes forward to his revenge, brings about a

collision of forces in the selfsame way. For the reason, then, that in

one aspect of it the form, which the spiritual knowledge of the god

assumes in the oracle, is the wholly undefined external expression

or the abstract ideality of the word, and the form itself through

the equivocal sense it contains includes the possibility of discord,

we find that in classical art it is not sculpture, but poetry, and

pre-eminently dramatic poetry, in which oracles contribute their share

of the content and are of importance. In _classical_ art, however, they

do essentially maintain a place, because in it human individuality has

not forced its way to the full height of spiritual attainment, where

the subject draws the determination of his actions without infringement

from his own resources. What we in our modern sense of the term call

conscience, has not as here secured its rightful place. The Greek acts

often, it is true, at the beck of his passion, bad no less than good;

the genuine pathos, however, which is here held to quicken him, and

does in fact so quicken him, proceeds from the gods, whose content

and might is the universal of such a pathos; and the heroes are either

immediately instinct with the same, or they interrogate oracles for

advice, when the gods do not present themselves openly to their vision,

by way of quickening the deed to be done.

(_b_) Moreover, as in the oracle the _content_ is to be found in

the gods that _know_ and _willy_ while the form of the external

phenomenon is the external which is abstract and a part of _Nature_,

from the other point of view that which is _natural_, if we look at

it relatively to its universal forces and the activities which belong

to these, becomes the _content_, from out of which the independent

individuality has first to force its way up, and receives as its

original form merely the formal and superficial personification. The

thrusting back of these purely natural forces, the opposition and

contention through which they are overcome is just the significant

centre, for which we are indebted primarily to classical art, and which

we must consequently submit to a closer examination.

(_α_) The first thing we would remark in this connection is

attributable to the circumstance that we are not here concerned--as in

that view of the world which belongs to the Sublime, or in part even

that appropriate to Hindoo doctrines--with God already essentially

devoid of any relation to sense, when regarded as the starting point of

all creation, but rather with that in which Nature's gods, and we may

add in the first instance the more universal forces of Nature such as

Chaos, Tartarus, Erebus, the entire savage and subterranean substance,

and, furthermore, Uranos, Gaia, the Titan Eros, Kronos, and the rest,

supply the beginning[157]. It is from out of these, then, that the

better defined powers, such as Helios, Oceanos, and others like them

first have their being; while they, in their turn, become the natural

cradle for the later spiritual and individualized divinities. We find,

therefore, again here another theogony and cosmogony which is the work

of the imagination, whose earliest gods, however, still remain for the

observer under one aspect of an undefined character, or vaguely extend

beyond all reasonable limit; and, if viewed from another standpoint,

still carry with them much that is essentially symbolical.

(_β_) The more detailed distinctions among these Titan potencies may be

thus indicated:

(_αα_) First, we have those powers of the Earth and the stars, without

spiritual and ethical content, consequently dissolute, a raw, savage

race, gigantic and formless, as though they were scions of Hindoo or

Egyptian imagination. They are to be classed with other individualities

of Nature such as Brontes, Steropes, and again with the hundred-handed

Kottos, Briareus, and Gyges, the giants and the rest standing in the

first instance beneath the lordship of Uranos, then of Kronos, that

chief of the Titans, who obviously is a kind of personified _Time_,

devouring all his children, just as Time eventually annihilates

everything that it has brought to birth. This myth is not without a

symbolical significance. For the life of Nature is, in fact, subjugate

to Time, and brings only the Past into existence, just as in the same

way the prehistoric times of some people, which is only one nation,

one stock, yet constitutes no genuine State, and pursues no definite

objects essentially made clear to itself, becomes the sport of the

power of a Time, which is destitute of history. We touch solid ground

for the first time when we come to law, morality, and the State,

something permanent which remains though races pass away, as it is said

that the Muses give permanence and a defence to everything, which, as

the life of Nature and present action, had only vanished swept away

with Time.

(_ββ_) But, further, it is not only that the forces of Nature belong

to this sphere of the old gods, but also the forces noted as earliest

over the elements. In particular the first active agency upon metal

through the force of what is still raw, and elementary Nature, that

is air, water, fire, is of importance. We may mention in illustration

the Corybantes, the Telchines, demons of both beneficent and evil

influence, the Pataeci, pygmies, dwarfs, cunning in the woodman's

craft, small, with big paunches.[158]

More prominent notice should be taken of Prometheus, as illustrating

in the chief place a fundamental point of new departure. Prometheus

is a Titan of exceptional type and deserves exceptional attention.

Together with his brother Epimetheus he appears in the first instance

as favourable to the young gods; then he stands out as the benefactor

of men, who in other respects have no defined relation with the new

gods or the Titans. He brings fire to man, and thereby supplies them

with the means of satisfying their needs and working the technical

arts, which are no longer, however, regarded as natural products, and

consequently it would appear do not stand in any closer association

with Titan workmanship. For this interference Zeus punishes Prometheus

until Hercules finally releases him from suffering. At the first

glance there would appear to be nothing strictly Titanesque in these

main features of the story; nay, it would not be difficult to point

out an inconsequence in the fact that Prometheus, just as Ceres, is

a benefactor of mankind, and is none the less numbered among the old

Titanic potencies. If we look at the matter more closely, however,

this inconsequence will at once disappear. In this connection several

passages from Plato's works will help us sufficiently to clear the

difficulty. There is the myth in which the guest-friend recites to

the younger Socrates that in the time of Kronos men originated from

the Earth, while the god, on his part, devoted his attention to the

whole[159]. After this step a movement of opposite tendency sprang up,

and the Earth was left to itself[160], so that now the beasts became

savage, and mankind, whose means of nourishment and all their other

needs had hitherto passed immediately into their hands, were left alone

without advice or assistance. Well, according to this myth, it was in

such a condition[161] that fire was brought to mankind by Prometheus,

all other accessories of craftsmanship being communicated by Hephaestos

and his companion in craftsmanship, Athene.

Here we have notified expressly a distinction between fire and the

thing which artistic ability produces by working on the raw material;

and only the gift of fire is ascribed to Prometheus. Plato narrates

the myth of Prometheus at greater length in the "Protagoras." There we

read[162]: "There was once a time when gods indeed existed, but mortal

beings had not appeared. When the foreordained time of their birth

also had come, the gods created them in the inward parts of the Earth,

composing their substance of Earth and fire and that which is the union

of both these elements. When the gods were desirous of bringing them

into the light, they handed them over to Prometheus and Epimetheus

to apportion and arrange the energies of each singly as was right.

Epimetheus, however, requested of Prometheus that the apportionment

might be left to him. After I have done this, quoth he, you may mark

and express an opinion. Epimetheus, however, by a blunder apportioned

everything worth having to the animal world, so that there was nothing

left over for mankind; and when Prometheus made his inspection he found

that though all other living things were wisely provided with all their

needs mankind remained naked, unprotected, without covering or weapons.

But already the appointed day had appeared in which it was necessary

that man should pass from the bowels of the Earth into the light. In

the embarrassment in which he was placed to procure some assistance

for mankind Prometheus stole the wisdom that is shared by Hephaestos

and Athene by taking fire--for without fire it would be impossible to

possess it or make it of use--and made a present of this to men. Man

now, it is true, possessed the wisdom necessary for the support of his

life, but he was still _without political wisdom_, for this was still

lodged with Zeus. Entry, however, to the stronghold of Zeus was no

longer permitted Prometheus, and apart from this the awful watchers

of Zeus barred the way. He passed, however, secretly into the chamber

which Hephaestos and Athene shared in the practice of their art, and

having secured the forging-art of Hephaestos he pilfered that other art

(the art of weaving) which was possessed by Athene and presented this

to mankind. Out of these possessions the means of satisfying the needs

of Life is provided for man (ἐυπoρία τoῦ βίoυ)." Prometheus receives,

however, as already narrated, punishment for the thefts he commits

owing to the blunders of Epimetheus.

Plato further tells us in a passage which immediately follows the

above that mankind was still destitute of the art of war for their

protection against the animal world, which was merely a part of the

art of politics, and consequently were collected into cities, and would

have so outraged each other and finally broken up such asylums for the

reason that they were without all political organization, that Zeus

found it necessary to send down to them under the escort of Hermes

Shame and Right.

In these passages the distinction between the immediate objects of

life, which are related to physical comfort, that is, the provision

for the satisfaction of the most primary necessaries and political

organization, such as sets before itself as its object what is

spiritual, custom, law, right of property, freedom, and communal

existence is expressly emphasized. This principle of ethical life and

right[163], Prometheus did not give to men, he merely taught them the

cunning by means of which they might overcome natural objects and make

them serviceable to their needs. Fire and the craftsmanship which makes

use of fire have nothing ethical about them in themselves; and it is

just the same with the art of weaving; in the first instance they are

devoted to the exclusive service of private individuals, without coming

into any relation with that which is shared in human existence or with

Life in its public character. For the reason, then, that Prometheus was

unable to furnish mankind with anything more spiritual or ethical, he

also does not belong to the race of new gods, but to the Titans[164].

Hephaestos, it is true, also possessed fire and the particular crafts

to which it is essential as an instrument for his field of activity,

and is none the less accredited as a new god: but Zeus cast him from

Olympus, and he continued to limp ever after. Just as little is it,

therefore, an inconsequence when we find Ceres placed among the younger

gods, who proved herself a benefactor of mankind just as Prometheus

did. For that which Ceres taught was agriculture, with which at the

same time property, and yet more, marriage, social custom, and law

stand in close association.

(_γγ_) A third class of the ancient gods contains, it is true, neither

personified potencies of Nature, as such, nor the might which next

follows as lord over the particular elements of Nature in the service

of the more subordinate human necessities, but is already contestant

with that which is essentially in itself ideal, universal, and

spiritual. What, however, is none the less lacking in the powers we

have here to reckon with is spiritual individuality and its appropriate

form and manifestation, so that they also more or less relatively to

their operations keep a position which is more nearly akin to the

necessity and essential being of Nature. In illustration of this type

we may recall the conception of Nemesis, Dike, the Erinnyes, Eumenides,

and Moirai. No doubt we find associated with these figures the

determinate notions of right and justice; but this inevitable right,

instead of being conceived and clothed in the essentially spiritual and

substantive medium of social morality[165], remains either persistent

in the universal abstract notion, or is related to the obscure right of

that which is natural within the circle of spiritual connections, the

love of kindred, for example, and its paramount claim, which does not

appertain to Spirit in the open freedom of itself self-recognized; and

consequently also does not appear as lawful right, but in opposition to

this as the irreconcilable right of revenge.

To bring the view of the above nearer I will merely draw attention to

one or two ideas bound up with it. Nemesis, for example, is the might

to humiliate the exalted, and to cast down the man all too fortunate

from his lofty seat, and consequently to restore equilibrium. The

claim or right of equilibrium is the purely abstract and external

right, which, it is true, certifies itself as operative in the range of

spiritual circumstances, and conditions, without, however, making the

ethical organization of the same the content of justice. Another aspect

of importance attaches to this circumstance, that the right of the

family-condition is apportioned by the ancient gods, in so far as these

repose on a condition of Nature, and thereby are in antagonism with the

public right and law of the community. We may adduce the Eumenides

of Aeschylus as the clearest illustration of this point. The direful

maidens pursue Orestes on account of the murder of his mother, a murder

which Apollo, the younger god, had directed, in order that Agamemnon,

the slaughtered spouse and king, should not remain unavenged. The

entire drama consequently is concentrated in a conflict between these

divine Powers, which confront each other in person. On the one side

we have the goddesses of revenge, the Eumenides; but they are called

here the beneficent, and our ordinary conception of the Furies, into

which we convert them, is set before us as rude and uncouth. For they

possess an essential right thus to persecute, and are therefore not

merely hateful, wild, and ferocious in the torments which they impose.

The right, however, which they enforce as against Orestes is only the

family-right in so far as this is rooted in the blood relation. The

profoundest association of son and mother is the substantive fact

which they represent. Apollo opposes to this natural ethical relation,

rooted as it is already both on the physical side and in feeling, the

right of the spouse and the chieftain who has been violated in respect

to the highest right he can claim. This distinction is in the first

instance brought to our notice in an external way since both parties

are champions for morality within one and the same sphere, namely

the family. The sterling[166] imagination of Aeschylus has, however,

here--and we cannot sufficiently value it on this score--discovered for

us a contradiction, which is not by any means a superficial one, but

of fundamental significance. That is to say, the relation of children

to parents reposes on the unity of the natural nexus; the association

of man and wife on the contrary must be accepted as marriage, which

does not merely proceed from purely natural love, that is from

the blood or natural affinity, but originates out of a conscious

inclination, and for this reason belongs to the free ethical sphere of

the self-conscious will. However much, therefore, marriage is bound

up with love and feeling it is none the less to be distinguished from

the purely natural emotion of love, because it also freely recognizes

definite obligations quite independent of the same, which persist when

that feeling of love may have ceased. The notion, in short, and the

knowledge of the substantiality of marital life is something later

and more profound than the purely natural connection between mother

and son, and constitutes the beginning of the State as the realization

of the free and rational will. In like manner we shall find resident

in the relation of prince to citizen the association of a similar

political right, law, and the self-conscious freedom and spirituality

of similar social aims. This is the reason why the Eumenides, the

ancient goddesses, pursue Orestes with punishment, whereas Apollo--the

clear, knowing and self-consciously knowing ethical sense--defends the

right of the spouse and the chief, justly opposing the Eumenides: "If

the crime of Clytemnestra were not scented out I should be in verity

without honour and despised as nought by the consummator Here and the

Councils of Zeus[167]."

Of still greater interest, albeit wholly involved in human feeling

and action, is the contradiction which we have set before us in

the "Antigone," one of the most sublime, and in every respect most

consummate work of art human effort ever produced. Not a detail in

this tragedy but is of consequence. The public law of the State and

the instinctive family-love and duty towards a brother are here set

in conflict. Antigone, the woman, is pathetically possessed by the

interest of family; Kreon, the man, by the welfare of the community.

Polynices, in war with his own father-city, had fallen before the

gates of Thebes, and Kreon, the lord thereof, had by means of a public

proclamation threatened everyone with death who should give this enemy

of the city the right of burial. Antigone, however, refused to accept

this command, which merely concerned the public weal, and, constrained

by her pious devotion for her brother, carried out as sister the sacred

duty of interment. In doing this she relied on the law of the gods.

The gods, however, whom she thus revered, are the _Dei inferi_ of

Hades[168], the instinctive Powers of feeling, Love and kinship, not

the daylight gods of free and self-conscious, social, and political

life.

(_γ_) The _third_ point, which we would advert to in connection with

the theogony of the outlook of artists in the classic period, has

reference to the difference between individuals of the older gods

relatively to their powers and the duration of their authority.

(_αα_) In the first place, the origin of these gods is a succession.

From Chaos, according to Hesiod, proceeds Gaia, Uranos, and others,

after that Kronos and his race, finally Zeus and his subjects. This

succession appears in one aspect of it as a rise from the more abstract

and formless to the more concrete and already fairly defined powers

of Nature; in another as the beginnings of the superiority of the

spiritual over the natural. Thus in his "Eumenides" Aeschylus makes the

Pythia in the temple of Delphi begin with the words: "First of all I

revere in my prayer her who first gave us oracles, Gaia, and after her

Themis, who as second after her mother had her prophetic seat in this

place." Pausanias, on the other hand, who also names the Earth first as

giver of oracles, says that Daphne was ordained by her afterwards in

the prophetic office. In another series again Pindar places Night in

the first place, after her he makes Themis follow, then comes Phoebe,

and finally he closes the succession with Phoebus. It would be of

interest to analyse more closely these particular differences; such an

inquiry, however, lies outside our present purpose.

(_ββ_) This succession further, in addition to its aspect of being

an extension into essentially profounder conceptions of godhead,

possessing, that is, a fuller content, also appears as the degradation

of the earlier and more abstract type within the range of the older

race of gods itself. The primary and most ancient powers are robbed of

their masterdom, just as we find Kronos dethroned Uranos, and the later

representatives are set up in their place.

(_γγ_) In this way the negative relation of the reformation[169],

which we settled at once to be the essence of this first stage of the

classic type of art, becomes the proper centre of the same. And it is

so for the reason that personification is here the universal form, in

which the gods are presented to the imagination, and the progressive

movement comes into opposition with human and spiritual individuality.

And although this appears in the first instance still in a form

indeterminate and formless, we necessarily find that the imagination

presents this negative attitude of the younger gods against the more

ancient under the image of conflict and war. The essential advance is,

however, from Nature to Spirit, implying by the latter the true content

and the real form appropriate to classical art. This progress and the

conflicts by means of which we perceive that it is carried forward,

belong no longer exclusively to the sphere of the old gods, but centre

in the war through which the new gods lay the foundation of their

enduring mastery over the ancient.

(_c_) The opposition between Nature and Spirit is in the nature of the

case inevitable. For the notion of Spirit, as in very truth totality,

is, as we have already seen, _essentially_ simply this, to split itself

in twain, that is into its intrinsic constituents as objectivity and as

subject, in order that by means of this opposition it may emerge from

Nature and confront the same forthwith free and jubilant as vanquisher

and superior might. This fundamental phase, rooted in the very essence

of Spirit, is consequently a material aspect in the conception which

it supplies to itself of that nature. Regarded historically, that is

on the plane of ordinary reality, this passage asserts itself as the

reconstruction through progressive steps of the natural man into the

condition where right, property, laws, constitution and political life

are paramount. Regarded under a mode which relates this process to gods

and _sub specie eternitatis_ it becomes the conception of the victory

over the natural Powers by means of the spiritual and individual

Divinities.

(_α_) This contest exposes an absolute catastrophe, and is the

essential deed of the gods, by virtue of which the fundamental

distinction between the old and new gods is first made visible.

Consequently we ought not to point to the war, which exposes this

distinction as a mythical story in the same way we should point to any

other myth; rather we should regard it as the mythos, which in fact

punctuates a great moment of transition, and expresses the creation of

the later theogony.

(_β_) The result of this violent strife among the gods is the ruin of

the Titans, the unique victory of the new gods, who forthwith receive

in their assured dominion a plenitude of gifts in every direction from

the imagination. The Titans, on the other hand, are banished, and

compelled to huddle in the hollows of the Earth, or, like Oceanos,

dally on the dark skirts of the clear, joyful world, or still endure

many grievous punishments. Prometheus, for example, is fettered on

the Scythian mountains, where an eagle insatiable devours the liver

that ever renews itself. In like manner an infinite and inexhaustible

thirst torments Tantalus in the lower world, and Sisyphus is for ever

constrained to roll up hill in vain the rock that for ever rolls back

again. These punishments are, in truth, the false type of infinity,

the yearning of the indefinite aspiration or the unsatisfied craving

of natural desires, which in their eternal repetition fail to discover

rest or final satisfaction. For the truly godlike intuition of the

Greeks regarded the mere extension into space and the region of the

indefinite, not, as some modern votaries of such longings do, as the

highest attainment of mankind, but as a damnation which it relegates to

Tartarus.

(_γ_) If we ask ourselves in a general way, what from this point must

for classical art fall into the background, failing, that is, to have

any right to figure as its final form and adequate content, we shall

find at the earliest point of departure the elements of Nature. With

them disappear from the world of the new gods all that is gloomy[170],

fantastical, void of clarity, every wild confusion between Nature

and Spirit, between significances essentially substantive and the

accidental incidents of externality. In a world such as this the

creations of an unrestricted imagination, which has not yet for its

principle the measure of spiritual proportion, have no place, and

are compelled and justly so to vanish before the clear light of day.

We may furbish up the monstrous Cabeiri[171], the Corybantes, these

representatives of procreative force as much as we choose, yet for

all that such presentations in every trait of them--to say nothing

of the ancient Baubo, whom Goethe sets careering over the Blocksberg

on an old sow--belong to a greater or less degree to the twilight of

consciousness. Only that which is spiritual imperatively demands the

light; and that which does not reveal itself and in itself expound its

own interpretation is the unspiritual, which fades again once more into

Night and obscurity. That which is of Spirit on the contrary reveals

itself, and purifies itself, by itself defining its external form, from

the caprice of the imagination, the flood of obstructing shapes, and

the otherwise perturbed accessories of symbolical sense.

For the same reasons we now find that human activity, in so far as it

is limited merely to Nature's wants and their satisfaction, falls into

the background. That old right, Themis, Dike and the rest, as one not

determinate through laws which originate in self-conscious Spirit,

loses its unimpaired validity, and in the same way, if conversely, that

which is purely local, albeit there is still room left for its play,

passes by incorporation into the universal figures of the gods; in

which we may still trace the lingering vestiges that remain of it. For

as in the Trojan war the Greeks fought and conquered as _one_ people,

so, too, the Homeric gods, who already have their conflict with the

Titans behind them in the past, are one essentially secure and defined

god-world, a world which is yet further with ever-increasing fulness

made definite and unassailable by later poetry and the plastic arts.

This invincible consistency[172] is in its relation to the content of

the Greek world of gods Spirit and only Spirit; but not Spirit in its

abstract ideality, but as identified with its external and adequate

existence, just as with Plato soul and body, as in union brought into

one nature and in this consolidation from one piece, is at once the

Divine and Eternal.

3. THE POSITIVE CONSERVATION OF THE CONDITIONS SET UP THROUGH NEGATION

Despite, then, the victory of the new gods that which came before them

still remains in the classical type of art partly preserved and revered

in the original form in which we have already recognized it, partly

under a transmuted mode. It is only the limited Jewish national god

which is unable to tolerate other gods in its company for the reason

that it purports as _the_ one god to include everything, although

in regard to the definition of its form it fails to pass beyond its

exclusiveness wherein the god is merely the God of His own people. Such

a god manifests his universality in fact only through his creation

of Nature and as Lord of the heavens and the earth. For the rest he

remains the god of Abraham, who led his people Israel out of Egypt,

gave them laws on Sinai, and divided the land of Canaan among the Jews.

And through this narrow identification of him with the Jewish nation

he is in a quite peculiar way the god of this folk; and consequently,

speaking generally, neither stands in positive consonance with

Nature, nor appears truly as absolute Spirit referable back from his

determinate character and objectivity to his universality. Consequently

this austere, national god is so jealous, and ordains in his jealousy

that men shall see elsewhere merely false idols. The Greeks, on the

contrary, discovered their gods among other nations and accepted

what was foreign among themselves. For the god of classical art has

spiritual and bodily individuality and is for this reason not the one

and only one, but merely a _particular_ godhead, which, as everything

else that shares particularity, has a circle of particularity which

surrounds it or in opposition to it as its Other, from which it is the

result, and which is qualified to preserve its validity and worth.

The process here is analogous to that of the particular divisions of

Nature. Although the world of vegetation is the truth of the geological

image of Nature, the animal again the higher truth of the vegetable,

yet the mountains and the flooded land persist as the solid basis of

trees, shrubs, and flowers, which in their turn do not lose their

existence alongside the world of animals.

(_a_) The earliest form under which among the Greeks we come upon

this ancient residue, are the _Mysteries._ The Greek Mysteries were

nothing secret in the sense that the Greek nation was not in a general

way aware of their content. On the contrary, the majority of the

Athenians and a large number of foreigners were among the initiated

in the Eleusinian mysteries; but they were not permitted to speak of

that in which they had been instructed through initiation. In our

own times people have been at great pains to discover more nearly

the type of conceptions which prevailed in these mysteries, and to

investigate the kind of religious services which were used in their

celebration. It appears, however, that on the whole there was no

extensive wisdom or profound knowledge concealed in the Mysteries. They

merely preserved the old traditions, the basis, that is, of what was

latterly reconstructed by the genuine type of art, and consequently,

so far from containing the true, higher, and more valuable content,

rather unfolded that which was of less significance and of inferior

rank. Whatever it was, this holiness was not clearly expressed in the

mysteries, but merely handed down in its symbolical features. And in

fact this character of secrecy and reticence is bound up with the old

telluric, sidereal, and Titanic deposit; Spirit alone is the revealed

and the self-revealer. Consonant, too, with this it is the symbolical

mode of expression which constitutes the other aspect of secrecy

in the mysteries, because in symbolism the interpretation remains

obscure, and contains a something other than the external image, which

it purports to display, in fact offers to the view. In this sense,

for example, the mysteries of Demeter and Bacchus were, it is true,

spiritually interpreted, and contained a profounder sense. The form of

the same remained quite externally isolate from this content, so that

it was impossible clearly to disengage it from it. Consequently the

Mysteries had very little influence over art; for though we are told

of Aeschylus, that he willfully betrayed something which attached to

the Demeter mysteries, this merely amounts to an assertion on his part

that Artemis had been the daughter of Ceres, which is not very profound

wisdom after all.

(_b_) But, _secondly_, we find that the reverence and preservation

of the old _régime_ is yet more clearly indicated in actual artistic

representation. We have already referred to Prometheus as the

chastised Titan who appears in the stage immediately prior to that

of genuine art. We meet with him however again as delivered. For as

the Earth and as the Sun, so also the fire, which Prometheus brought

down to men, that is, the eating of flesh, which he taught them, is

an essential feature of human life, a necessary condition for the

satisfaction of their needs; and consequently Prometheus is honoured

with an enduring recognition[173]. In the Oedipus Colonos of Sophocles

we have the words:

/$

χῶρoς μὲν ἱερὸς πᾶς ὅδ ἔστ· ἔχει δέ νιν

σεμνὸς Πoσειδῶν· ἐν δ' ὁ πoρφόρoς θeὸς

Tιτὰν Πρoμηθὲυς[174]

$/

and the scholiast adds that Prometheus was revered in the Academy along

with Athene, as Hephaestos was, and a temple was shown in a grove of

the goddess, and an ancient pedestal near the entrance, where there

was not only an image of Hephaestos, but also one of Prometheus.

Prometheus, however, according to the statement of Lysimachides, was

represented as primary and more ancient, and he held in his hand a

sceptre; Hephaestos as the younger and in the second place, and the

altar on the pedestal was shared by both. Prometheus, then, according

to the tale, was not obliged to endure his chastisement for ever,

but was released from his fetters by Hercules. In this story of his

liberation we come across certain remarkable traits. In other words,

Prometheus is delivered from his agony because he informs Zeus of

the danger which threatens his empire at the hands of the thirteenth

descendant. This descendant is Hercules, to whom, we may add in

illustration, Poseidon exclaims in the "Birds" of Aristophanes[175],

"he will do himself an injury, if he strike a bargain with reference

to the transference of the divine headship, for all that Zeus leaves

behind him on his decease will most assuredly take place." And, in

fact, Hercules is the only man who passed over into Olympus, became a

god after being a man, and stands higher than Prometheus, who remained

a Titan. Moreover, the overturning of the old race of tyrants is

intimately connected with the name of Hercules and the Heraklidae. The

Heraklidae break up the power of the old dynasties and royal houses,

in which we may remark the selfish desire of personal aggrandizement

and lawlessness no less than disregard for their subjects admitted no

judicial restraint, and consequently was responsible for the grossest

cruelties. Hercules, though himself in the service of a superior lord,

overcame the savagery of this despotism.

In a similar way we may, to linger once more for a moment by the

illustrations we adduced on a former page, recall again to our readers

the "Eumenides" of Aeschylus. The conflict between Apollo and the

Eumenides is to be settled by the intervention of the Areopagus. In

other words, a human tribunal, as a whole, at whose head stands Athene,

stands forth as the concrete spirit of the folk, and is as such to

terminate the collision. The judges, however, give an equal number of

votes for condemnation and acquittal, having an equal reverence both

for the Eumenides and Apollo; the white pebble of Athene, however,

decides the conflict in favour of Apollo. The Eumenides break out in

indignation against this decision of Athene; she, however, allays

their wrath by promising them worship and altars in the famous grove

of Colonos. What the Eumenides have to give in return to her people

is a protection against the evils[176] which result from the elements

of _Nature_, the earth, the heavens, the sea, and the winds; they

have further to ward off unfruitfulness in the fields, the failure of

living seed, and misbirths in all else that is procreated. Pallas, on

her part, takes beneath her protection the strife of wars and sacred

contests. Ina similar way Sophocles[177], in his "Antigone," not only

makes Antigone suffer and die, but to a like extent we find that Kreon

is punished by the loss of his wife and the death of Haemon, both of

whom perish through the death of Antigone.

(_c_) _Thirdly_, the ancient gods do not merely preserve their place

in juxtaposition to the new, but, what is of more importance, the

natural basis itself is maintained by the new gods, and receives,

continuing to made its echo sound in them, if in conformity with the

spiritual individuality of classical art, a reverential acceptance.

(_α_) And for this reason people are not unfrequently led into the

error of conceiving the Greek gods, in respect to their human character

and form, as mere _allegories_ of such natural elements. This is not

so. In this sense we frequently hear it stated that Helios is the

god of the sun, Diana the goddess of the moon, or Neptune the god of

the sea. Such a separation, however, between the natural element, as

content, and the humanly shaped personification, as form, no less than

the external association of both, regarded merely as the masterdom of

the god over the natural fact, as we are accustomed to it in the Old

Testament, is quite inapplicable to Greek conceptions. We never find

among the Greeks such an expression as ὁ θεὸς τoῦ ἡλίoυ, τῆς θαλάσσης,

and so forth, though it is quite certain they would have used with

others such an expression for the relation in question, had it been

compatible with their point of view. Helios is the sun as god.

(_β_) We must, however, at once insist on the further fact that the

Greeks never regarded mere Nature as itself divine. On the contrary,

they retained the definite conception that what was purely natural

was not divine. This is partly contained, if unexpressed, in what

their gods actually are, in part also it is expressly stated so by

themselves. Plutarch, for example, in his essay upon Isis and Osiris,

refers incidentally to the modes of interpretation current of myths

and divinities. Osiris and Isis belong to the Egyptian theogony, and

had yet more of the natural element for their content than the Greek

gods, who correspond to them; they merely express the longing and

conflict to escape out of the circle of Nature to that of Spirit. In

later times they were very highly honoured in Rome, and the mysteries

allied with them were of great importance. Yet for all that it is

Plutarch's view that it would be an interpretation beneath the level

of the subject to think of explaining them as sun, earth, or water.

Only that which in the sun, Earth, and so forth, is without measure or

co-ordination, defective or superfluous, can strictly be referred to

the natural elements, and all that is good and conformable to order is

as exclusively a work of Isis, and the rational principle, the λόγoς,

a work of Osiris. It is not, therefore, the natural as such which is

adduced as the substantive content of these gods, but the spiritual

principle, the universal, λόγoς, reason, conformity to law.

By virtue of this insight into the spiritual nature of the gods, the

more definite elements of Nature, then, had also among the Greeks

been differentiated from the later gods. We have, it is true, grown

accustomed to associate Helios and Selene, to take two examples, with

Apollo and Diana: in Homer, however, they are presented as distinct.

The same remark applies to Oceanos and others.

(_γ_) But in the _third_ place an echo still lingers in the new gods

of the natural powers, whose operative energies themselves belong to

the spiritual individuality of the gods. We have already indicated,

at an earlier stage, the basis of this positive connection of the

spiritual and natural in the ideal of classical art, and may limit our

observations here to a few illustrations.

(_αα_) In Poseidon resides, as in Pontus and Oceanus, the might of

the world-encircling sea, but his power and activity extends further.

He built Ilium and was a shield of Athens. Generally he is revered

as the founder of cities, in so far as the sea is the element of

sea-faring, of commerce, and a bond between mankind. Apollo, in like

manner, is the light of knowledge, of oracular speech, and preserves,

moreover, a distant relation with Helios, as the natural light of the

sun. Critics differ, no doubt--take Voss and Creuzer for examples--as

to whether Apollo is referable to the sun. One may, however, in fact,

assert that he both is and is not the sun, since he is not limited to

its natural content, but is raised thereby to the significance of a

spiritual import. It is impossible to escape the inevitable connection

in which knowledge and light, the light of Nature and that of Spirit,

if we regard their fundamental characteristics, stand relatively to

one another. Light regarded as a element of Nature is that which

manifests. Without our seeing Light itself it makes visible to us the

illuminated objects around. By means of Light everything grows on

the plane of contemplation for something else. Spirit, that is the

free light of consciousness, knowledge, and cognition, possesses just

the same character of manifestation. The distinction, apart from the

differences of the respective spheres, in which these two modes of

manifestation reveal themselves, consists simply in this, that Spirit

reveals itself, and in that which it brings us, or which it assimilates

as content[178], remains constant to itself. Light, however, does not

make itself apprehensible to itself, but, on the contrary, makes that

which is other and external to itself apprehensible; and though, no

doubt, we may say this is done from its own resources, yet it cannot,

as the Spirit can, once more retire into itself. For this reason it

does not win the higher unity which finds itself constant by itself in

another. Just as, then, light and knowledge are closely associated, we

find in Apollo, as spiritual god, still a recollection of the light of

the sun. For this reason Homer, for example, ascribes the plague in

the camp of the Greeks to Apollo, which, in such a locality is in the

summer solstice ascribable to the operation of the sun. We may add that

his deadly arrows have unquestionably a symbolical reference to the

solar rays. In the external representation it is external signs which

more closely determine under what specific interpretation the god shall

be mainly accepted.

More particularly when we follow up the origins of the later gods

we are able to recognize the natural element, which the gods of the

classic ideal retain in themselves. This is a point which Creuzer in

particular has made clear. For example, in the conception of Jupiter

there are many features which indicate a solar source. The twelve

labours of Hercules, the expedition, for example, in which he carries

off the apples of the Hesperides, have relation both to the sun and

the twelve months. At the root of the conception of Diana we have the

distinct suggestion of the mother of Nature, just as the Ephesian

Diana, for example, which floats between the old world and the new,

has for her fundamental content Nature generally, procreation and

nutrition; which latter feature is clearly indicated in a part of her

external form, namely the breasts. If we consider the Greek Artemis, on

the other hand, the huntress, who slays wild animals, we find that in

her humanly beautiful and maiden form and self-continency, this aspect

falls entirely into the background, although the half moon and the

arrows still distinctly recall to us Selene. To take Aphrodite in the

same way, the more we follow her back to her original source in Asia

the more she approaches a force of Nature. Once arrived in Greece, the

spiritual and more individual aspect of her grace, charm, and love,

passion is more emphasized, albeit here, too, the natural basis is by

no means entirely absent. In the same way the productivity of Nature

is, no doubt, the original cradle which gives us Ceres. Starting from

that we proceed to the spiritual content, whose relations are developed

from agriculture, property, etc. The source in Nature of the Muses

is the murmur of the spring-water; and Zeus himself may be accepted

under one aspect as the universal Power of Nature, and is revered as

the Thunderer, as with Homer already thunder is the sign of misfortune

or assistance, is, in short, an omen, and as such is relative to that

which is human and spiritual. Juno, too, implies a natural association

with the firmament of cloud and the heavenly sphere in which the gods

move to and fro. So we are told, for example, that Zeus laid Hercules

on the breast of Juno, and from the milk which spouted thereout flashed

into being the Milky Way.

(_ββ_) Just as, then, in the later gods, from one point of view the

universal elements of Nature are dethroned, while from another they are

maintained, we have the same process repeated in that which is, more

strictly speaking, animal, which we merely regarded in a former passage

on the side of its degradation. We are now able to point out a more

positive aspect under which such may be considered. Since, however,

in the classic gods the symbolic mode of configuration is abolished,

and they secure as their content the spirit that is self-luminous,

the symbolical _significance_ of animals must tend to pass away

precisely in proportion as the animal form has taken to itself the

right to mingle with the human under a mode naturally alien to it.

It will therefore appear merely as a significant attribute, and is

established in juxtaposition to the human form of the gods. Thus we

find the eagle as attendant on Jupiter, the peacock on Juno, the doves

as accompanying Aphrodite, the hound, Anubis, as watch-dog of the

lower world, and so forth. If, therefore, there is still a symbolical

aspect which attaches to the ideals of the spiritual gods, yet, if

contrasted with the original significance, it will appear of little

importance; and the natural significance, if strictly regarded, which

previously constituted the essential content, will merely persist as

a residue, and mere particular mode of externality, which, on account

of its accidental character, more often than not has a grotesque

appearance, for the reason that the former significance is no longer

there. Inasmuch as the ideal content of these gods is that which

partakes of Spirit and humanity, the externality pertinent to them

approximates to a _human_ contingency and weakness. In this connection

we may once more recall to memory the numerous love affairs of Zeus.

According to their original symbolic significance, they are related, as

we already have seen, to the universal activity of generation, that is,

the vitality of Nature. As the love affairs of Zeus, however, which,

in so far as his marriage with Here is to be regarded as the permanent

and substantive sexual relation, appear in the light of an infidelity

towards his spouse, they have the complexion of accidental adventures,

and exchange their symbolical sense for unconnected tales which possess

the character of purely capricious invention.

With this degradation of the powers which are purely natural and of the

animal aspect no less than of the abstract universality of spiritual

relations, and with the re-acceptance of the same within the spiritual

individuality, permeated and Suffused as it is with Nature, we leave

behind us the origins of classical art which are stamped with necessity

and are presupposed by its essence, inasmuch as it is on this path

that the Ideal evolves itself by its own agency with that which it is

according to its notion. This reality of the spiritual gods adequate to

its notion carries us on to the genuine Ideals of the classical type of

art, which, in contrast to the old _régime_ which has been vanquished,

represent immortality[179], for mortality generally resides in the

incompatibility of the notion to its determinate existence.

[Footnote 139: _Als eine Unwürdigkeit_. As something unworthy of the

full notion of its gods.]

[Footnote 140: That is, the relegation of it to a position of

inferiority.]

[Footnote 141: This is the German word. By genius I presume Hegel means

"the familiar spirit" of a particular animal. Apparently this rather

than "kind." "Iliad," II, 308; XII, 208.]

[Footnote 142: "Odyss." XIV, 414; XXIV, 215.]

[Footnote 143: "Metam." I, vv. 150-243.]

[Footnote 144: "Metam." VI, vv. 440-676.]

[Footnote 145: "Metam." I, vv. 451-567.]

[Footnote 146: _Ibid._, IX, vv. 454-64.]

[Footnote 147: _Ibid.,_ V, v. 302.]

[Footnote 148: _Ibid._, vv. 319-31.]

[Footnote 149: "Herod." II, 46.]

[Footnote 150: Creuzer, "Symb." I, 477.]

[Footnote 151: That is, the sphere of fauns as a part of Nature.]

[Footnote 152: _Praktisch._ The contrast is between the philosophic

contemplation and the world regarded as the sphere of human activity.]

[Footnote 153: By _Umkehr_ Hegel probably means a "return" in the

direction of the art of the Sublime.]

[Footnote 154: _Einen bestimmten Kreis._ The meaning seems to be that

the circle of examples is here a clearly defined and limited one as

contrasted with the vagueness of Oriental Pantheism.]

[Footnote 155: "Herod." II, 52.]

[Footnote 156: _War ein entscheidendes Moment._ That is, was part of

the oracular reply.]

[Footnote 157: Both wording and punctuation of this sentence are at

fault, but I give the sense no doubt intended.]

[Footnote 158: I am not sure what is referred to here by _Telchinen_

and _Pätaken._]

[Footnote 159: _Das Ganze_, means here, I think, the whole of Creation.]

[Footnote 160: That is, took no further active interest in human life.]

[Footnote 161: Politicus ex rec. Bekk. II, 2, p. 283; Steph. 274.]

[Footnote 162: "Protag." I, 1, pp. 170-4; Steph. 320-3.]

[Footnote 163: I have just above translated _Sitte_ with the word

"custom," that is, ethical custom. But the contrast here is, I

think, between morality generally (_sittlich_) and juridical right

(_Rechtliche_).]

[Footnote 164: The argument of Hegel is ingenious. It must be admitted,

however, that in several accounts of Prometheus, notably that of

Aeschylus, Zeus is represented as hostile to human progress. And it

is rather a strain on the facts to trace, in the case of Ceres, so

much that is of an ethical colour to agriculture, and limit the use of

fire simply to the crafts of Hephaestos, ignoring, that is to say, its

domestic use altogether.]

[Footnote 165: _Der Sittlichkeit._]

[Footnote 166: _Gehaltvolle._ That is, intrinsically sound and

substantial.]

[Footnote 167: "Eum." vv. 206-9.]

[Footnote 168: Soph., "Ant." v. 451: ἡ ξὐνoικoς τῶν κάτω θεῶν Δἰκη.]

[Footnote 169: _Umgestaltung._ Remodelling, reorganization. Reformation

in literal sense.]

[Footnote 170: _Trübe._ "Troubled" perhaps is better.]

[Footnote 171: The Cabeiri were mystic Powers. Aeschylus wrote a drama

under this title. The ancients differ greatly as to their origin and

nature, Herodotus assumes an Egyptian origin.]

[Footnote 172: _Feste_ is as a substantive a stronghold, and this may

be Hegel's meaning, but I think he uses it here for _Festigkeit_,

consistency, compact security.]

[Footnote 173: The sentence is not very clear. The sense is that

Prometheus is honoured as the Earth and Sun are honoured by his

assistance of human needs.]

[Footnote 174: Vv. 54-6. "This entire spot is sacred; awful Poseidon

holds it, and therein is the fire bringing god, the Titan Prometheus."]

[Footnote 175: Vv. 1645-8.]

[Footnote 176: Vv. 901 _et seq._]

[Footnote 177: Hegel means that in the suffering of Kleon Sophocles

treats the natural law of Antigone and the higher law of the king on

the same terms.]

[Footnote 178: Lit., "what is made for it," _e.g._, the detail of

objective experience.]

[Footnote 179: _Unvergänglichkeit._ Hegel no doubt refers to the

epithet always applied by Homer and other, Greek poets to the gods of

Olympus, immortal.]

CHAPTER II

THE IDEAL OF THE CLASSICAL TYPE OF ART

We have already seen what the essence of the Ideal is in our general

consideration of the beauty of art. Here we are to take it merely in

the special sense appropriate to the _classic_ Ideal, whose notion has

already presented itself in its general features in its association

with the notion of the _classical_ art-type. For the Ideal, of which

we have now to speak, consists simply in this, that classical art in

very truth attains to and sets before us that which exposes its most

intimate notion. As content it grasps on this particular plane the

spiritual, in so far as this Spirit attracts Nature and her powers to

its own appropriate realm, and sets itself before us in exposition not

as mere inwardness and dominion over Nature, but furthermore accepts

as its proper form, human shape, deed, and action, through which

the spiritual shines forth clearly in perfect freedom, and the form

penetrates with its life into the sensuous material not merely as into

a mode of externality symbolically significant, but as actually into a

determinate existence, which is the adequate existence of Spirit.

We may divide up, then, the present chapter into the following sections:

We have in the _first_ place to consider the _general_ character of

the classic Ideal, which possesses what is pertinent to humanity

in its form no less than its content, and elaborates both sides in

the completest consistency one with the other. _Secondly_, however,

forasmuch as here the human is absorbed wholly into the bodily shape

and external appearance, it becomes the _definite_ external shape,

which in its conformity is merely a defined content. Since, therefore,

we have the Ideal before us at the same time as _particularity_, there

arises a definite number of _particular_ gods and powers in the shape

of human existence. _Thirdly_, this particularity does not persist in

the abstraction of _one_ type of definition, whose essential character

would constitute the entire content and the one-sided principle for its

representation; but rather it is quite as much essentially a totality

and the _individual_ unity and congruity which is applicable to such.

Without this repletion such particularity would remain cold and empty;

the vitality of Life would fail it, a contingency which is impossible

to the Ideal in any relation whatever.

We have now to consider more narrowly the Ideal of classical art

according to these three aspects of universality, particularity, and

individual singularity.

1. THE IDEAL OF CLASSICAL ART GENERALLY

The questions which arise relatively to the origins of the Greek gods,

in so far as the real centre for ideal reproduction results from

them, we have already touched upon, and seen that they belong to the

elaborated tradition of art. The modification that is incidental to

that treatment can only proceed by means of the twofold degradation,

on the one hand, of the universal powers of Nature and their

personification, and, on the other, of the animal constituents and

its form, in order that thereby it may win the spiritual as its true

determinate substance, and also the human mode of appearance as its

true form.

(_a_) We have described how the classical Ideal first really becomes

actual through such a remodelling of that which came before the

earliest aspect of it. Along with this we have above all to draw

attention to just this fact, that it is generated from mind (Spirit),

and consequently has originated in the most intimate and personal

resources of the poets and artists, who brought it into the presence

of conscious life with the aid of a thoughtful consideration as

clear as it was unfettered and with the distinct object of artistic

production. In opposition to this creation we have, however, apparently

the fact that Greek mythology reposes on earlier traditions, and

contains distinct references to foreign, that is Oriental, matter.

Herodotus, for example, although specifically asserting in the passage

already cited that Homer and Hesiod created for the Greeks their

gods, nevertheless in other passages associates closely these very

Greek gods with other divinities such as those of Egypt. For in the

second book[180] he expressly narrates that Melampus gave the name of

Dionysos to the Greeks, further introduced the Phallus and the entire

sacrificial festival, adding, however, this discrepant detail, that

Melampus had learnt the religious service from the Tyrian Kadmus and

the Phoenicians, who came with Kadmus to Boeotia. These contradictory

statements have roused interest in our own times, more particularly

as associated with Creuzer's researches, who endeavours to discover

in Homer, for example, ancient mysteries and the sources which flowed

in together towards Greece, whether they be Asiatic, Pelasgian,

Dodonian, Thracian, Samothracian, Phrygian, Indian, Buddhistic,

Phoenician, Egyptian, or Orphic, to say nothing of the infinitely

varied peculiarities of specific localities and other details. No doubt

it appears at first sight wholly inconsistent with these many sources

of tradition that those poets should have supplied either the names or

the substantial form of the gods. It is possible, however, to harmonize

entirely both factors, tradition, and individual creation. The

tradition comes first; it is the point of departure, which hands down

the mere ingredients; but for all that it does not contribute the real

content and the genuine form of the gods. This substantive presence is

the product of the genius of those poets, who discovered by a process

of free elaboration the true substantive form of these very gods and

are consequently in fact become the creators of that mythology which

awakes our admiration of Greek art. Yet for this reason the Homeric

gods, in one aspect of them, are not to be taken as the result merely

of the poetic phantasy, or nothing more than capricious invention. They

have their roots in the genius and beliefs of the Greek folk and the

religious basis of that nation. They are the absolute potencies and

powers, the highest stretch of the Greek conception, the central point

of the beautiful regarded universally, presented, so to speak, by the

Muses themselves to the poet.

In this free handling, then, the artist takes up an entirely different

position from that he occupies in the East. The Hindoo poets and

sages have also to begin with material ready to work upon, such as the

elements of Nature, the heavens, animals, streams, and so forth, or

the pure abstraction of the formless and contentless Brahman. Their

enthusiasm, however, is a confusion of the ideal character[181] of

the subjectivity which accepts the difficult task of elaborating such

an external material to it, an enthusiasm which, in the unmeasured

expansion of its imagination, which excludes every secure and

absolute[182] direction, is unable to mould its creations conformably

to genuine freedom of expression and beauty, and remains the slave

of that material in uncontrolled and roving productive activity. It

resembles, in fact, a master-builder who has no firm foundation beneath

him. Ancient ruins of half dismantled walls, mounds, and projecting

rocks fetter him, quite apart from the particular aims according to

which he desires to construct his building; and he can only create

a wild, inharmonious, and fantastical fabric. In other words, that

which he produces is not the result of his imagination freely acting

under its own plastic genius. Conversely the Hebrew poets present

us with revelations which, it is said, they deliver as the Lord's

voice, so that here again the creative source is an enthusiasm not

fully self-conscious; it is separated, that is, and distinct from

individuality and the productive genius of the artist, as in the wisdom

of the Sublime generally it is the abstract and eternal, essentially

in its relation to something other than it and external, which is

consciously or imaginatively conceived.

In classical art artists and poets are, it is true, also prophets and

teachers, who declare and reveal to mankind the nature of the Absolute

and Divine. But we must emphasize here the following distinctions:

(_α_) In the _first_ place the content of their gods is neither that

appearance of Nature which is external to humanity nor the mere

abstraction of one Godhead, whereby merely a superficial formulation

or an inwardness that is without content is preserved. Their content

is, on the contrary, deduced from human life and existence, and for

this reason is that which is peculiar to the human breast; a content,

in short, with which man himself can freely coalesce as at home with

himself, while that which he thus produces is the fairest product of

his own activity.

(_β_) _Secondly_, these artists are at the same time _poets_, that is,

men of creative talent who work the aforesaid material and its content

into a free and substantially independent form. As thus regarded Greek

artists are in all essential respects creative poets. They have brought

together all the varied original ingredients into the melting-pot,

but they have produced thereby no mere broth, such as might come from

a witches' cauldron; rather they did away with all that is troubled,

purely natural, unclean, foreign, and without rational measure in the

pure flame of this more profound spirit; they made all glow together

and permitted the form to appear at last purified, albeit it still

retained a distant accord with the ruder material from which it was

fashioned. What mainly concerned them in this work consisted partly

in the winnowing away of all that was in their inherited material

destitute of form and beauty, distorted and symbolical, and partly in

the prominence they gave to what was really spiritual, which they set

themselves to render under modes of individuality, and in the interest

of which they had to discover gradually the external appearance most

appropriate. Here for the first time we find that it is the human form

and human actions and events, not merely made use of under the mode

of personification, which, as we have already seen, necessarily stand

forth as the uniquely adequate reality. No doubt the artist discovers

these forms, too, in the real world; but he has at the same time to

eradicate all that is accidental and incongruent in them, before they

are entitled to appear as commensurable with that humanity, which, as

essentially apprehended, shall offer to us the image of the eternal

powers and gods. And this is what we call the free and spiritual, and

not merely capricious production of the artist.

(_γ_) And, _thirdly_, for the reason that the gods are not merely

stable existences in their own world, but also are active within the

concrete reality of Nature and human, events, the poet is further

concerned to recognize the presence and activity of the gods in this

relation to human, fact, to interpret, that is, the particularity of

natural event and human actions and destiny wherein the divine powers

are apparently interfused, and to share thus the duties of the priest

and the seer. We, from the point of view of our everyday prosaic

reflection, explain the phenomena of Nature according to universal laws

and forces, and interpret the actions of mankind as the product of

their subjective intentions and self-proposed aims. The Greek poets,

however, have their eyes everywhere directed toward the Divine, and

create, by giving to human activities the loftier colour and habit

of divine actions, and by means of such interpretation, the various

aspects under which the power of the gods is made visible. For a number

of such interpretations results in a number of actions, in which we

are made aware of the character of this or that god. We have but to

open, for example, the Homeric poems, and we shall scarcely meet with

a single event of importance which is not more closely elucidated as

proceeding from the volition or actual assistance of the gods. These

expositions are, in fact, the insight, the independently created

belief, the intuitive conceptions of the poet, just as Homer often,

too, gives expression to them in his own name, and in part also places

such in the mouth of his characters, whether priest or hero. Quite at

the opening of the "Iliad," for example, he has himself explained the

pestilence in the Greek camp as the result of the indignation of Apollo

over Agamemnon, who refused to release to Chryses his daughters[183];

and, in a passage that follows, he makes Calchas transmit this very

interpretation to the Greeks[184].

In a similar way Homer informs us in the concluding canto of the

"Odyssey"--on the occasion when Hermes conducted the shades of the

inanimate suitors to the meadows of Asphodel, and they find there

Achilles and the other deceased heroes, who fought before Troy, and

finally, too, Agamemnon joins them--how the last-mentioned describes

the death of Achilles[185]:

"The whole day long had the Greeks fought; and when at last Zeus

separated the combatants, they carried the noble body to the ships,

and washed it, weeping often the while, and embalmed it. Then there

arose a divine uproar on the sea, and the affrighted Achaeans would

have been flung headlong into their hollow ships, had not an aged and

much knowing man, Nestor to wit, restrained them, whose advice had

also proved the wisest on former occasion." Nestor then interprets for

them the phenomenon in the following terms: "The _mother_[186] comes

forth from the sea with the immortal sea-goddesses, in order to meet

her deceased son. And the great-hearted Achaeans at this word let

their fear depart from them." That is to say, they knew then of what

kind it was--of human origin--the mother in her grief comes toward

him; what they shall see and hear is that which finds its response

in themselves. Achilles is her son, she is herself full of grief.

And in this vein Agamemnon, turning towards Achilles, continues his

narrative with a description of the universal sorrow: "And around thee

stood the daughters of the ancient of the sea, lamenting, and they

robed themselves in ambrosial garments; and the Muses also, the nine

in conclave, wailed by turns in beautiful song; and there was I ween

no man of the Argives to be seen without tears, so greatly did the

clear-toned song move all."

It is, however, another divine apparition in the "Odyssey" which has

always in this connection most particularly fascinated me in my study

of it. Odysseus in his sea-wanderings, insulted among the Phaeacians

during the sports over which Euryalos presides, because he refused to

take part in the rival throwing of the discus, makes answer indignantly

with dark looks and hard words. He then stands up, seizes a disk,

larger and heavier than the rest, and hurls it far and away over the

mark. One of the Phaeacians marks down the throw and calls out: "Even

a blind man could see the stone; it does not lie within the medley of

the rest, but far beyond. Thou hast nothing to fear in this contest;

there is no Phaeacian who will reach or surpass such a throw as thine

is. So he spake; but the much-enduring divine Odysseus rejoiced to see

a well-disposed friend in the lists." And this word, this friendly nod

of the Phaeacian Homer interprets as the friendly apparition of Athene.

(_b_) Of what kind, then, we may further ask, are the _products_ of

this classical mode of artistic activity, of what type are the new gods

of Greek art?

(_α_) It is their concentrated individuality which presents to us the

most general and at the same time most complete idea of their intrinsic

character, in so far, that is, as this individuality is brought

together out of the variety of accidental traits, isolated actions, and

events into the one focus of their simple and self-exclusive unity.

(_αα_) What appeals to us in these gods is first of all the spiritual

and _substantive_ individuality, which, withdrawn into itself as it

is out of the motley show of the particular medium of necessity, and,

the many-purposed unrest of the finite condition, reposes on its own

inviolable universality, as on an eternal and intelligible foundation.

It is only thus that the gods appear as the imperishable powers, whose

untroubled rule is made visible to us not in the particular event in

its evolution with somewhat else and external to it, but freely in its

own unchangeableness and intrinsic worth.

(_ββ_) Conversely, however, they are not by any means the bare

abstraction of spiritual generalities, and thereby so-called general

Ideals, but in so far as they are individuals they appear as one Ideal,

an essentially of itself determinate existence, and consequently

one that is defined, in other words one that as Spirit possesses

_characterization._ Without character we can have no individuality.

From this point of view we find, as we have already indicated

previously, that there is at the root of these spiritual gods a

definite natural force, with which a definite ethical consistency[187]

is blended, such as imposes on every particular god distinct bounds to

the sphere of his activity. The manifold aspects and traits which are

forthcoming by reason of this characterization as particular persons,

being in this way concentrated in the point of a true self-identity,

constitute the characters of the gods.

(_γγ_) In the true Ideal, however, this definition ought just as little

to terminate in the blunt restriction of pure _one sidedness_, but

must at the same time appear as withdrawn into the universality of the

godhead. In just such a way, then, every god, by carrying in his own

person this defined character as divine and as bound up with that as

universal individuality, is in part of a definite type, and in part

is all in all, and floats, as it were, precisely midway between mere

universality and equally abstract singularity. And this is what gives

to the genuine Ideal of classical art its infinite security and repose,

its untroubled blessedness and unimpaired freedom.

(_β_) Add to this that as beauty of classical art the essentially

self-articulate divine character is not only spiritual, but fully as

much plastic form which appears externally in its bodily presence to

the eye no less than to the mind.

(_αα_) This beauty, inasmuch as it possesses not merely the natural or

animal aspect in its spiritual personification, but includes as its

content that which is spiritual in its adequate mode of existence,

can only take up what is _symbolical_ in its incidental aspect and

under those relations in which it appears as purely natural. Its real

external expression is the form that is peculiar to mind and only mind,

in so far as its ideal character reveals itself as existent truth, and

pours itself wholly through that form.

(_ββ_) From another point of view classical beauty is debarred

from giving expression to the _Sublime._ For it is only the

abstract universal, which attaches to itself no inclusion such as

is self-defined, but merely a negative determinacy relatively to

particularity in general, and along with this is resolute in its

antagonism to every form of embodiment which presents us with the

aspect of the Sublime. Classical beauty, on the contrary, carries

spiritual individuality into the very heart of what is at the same time

its natural existence, and elucidates the ideal content wholly in the

material of its external appearance.

(_γγ_) For this very reason, however, it is essential that the

external form quite as much as the spiritual, which creates for

itself therein its home and dwelling, should be liberated from all

dependence on Nature and derangement, all finitude, all that is of

fleeting character, all that is exclusively concerned with the sensuous

presence, and should purify and exalt that definition of it which

discloses affinity with the determinate character of the god into free

commerce with the universal forms of the human figure. The stainless

externality alone, from which every hint of weakness and relativity has

been removed, and every flick of capricious particularity wiped off, is

able to represent the Spirit's ideality, which should sink itself in it

and secure an embodiment from it.

(_γ_) For the reason, however, that the gods are forced once more

from the defined limits of character into the universal wave, the

self-subsistency of Spirit as repose on itself, and as the security of

itself in its external form has to discover a real reflection also in

its manifestation.

(_αα_) Consequently we observe in the concrete individuality of the

gods--when we have before us the genuine classic Ideal, on equal

terms with all else--this nobility and loftiness of Spirit, in which,

despite the entire absorption within the bodily and sensuous presence,

we are made conscious of the absolute removal of all the indigence

of what is wholly finite. Pure self-absorption[188] and the abstract

liberation from every kind of determinacy is the highway to the Ideal

of the Sublime. The classical Ideal, on the contrary, is made visible

in an existence which entirely is its own, that is, the specific

manifestation of Spirit itself; yet for all that we shall find that

here, too, the Sublimity of the same is blended with the beauty, and

that the one aspect passes over immediately into the other. And this

it is which constitutes the expression of loftiness in these figures

of the gods, making inevitable the Sublime of classical beauty. An

immortal seriousness[189] makes its throne on the forehead of these

gods, and is poured forth over their entire presentment.

(_ββ_) In their beauty these gods appear, therefore, as exalted

over their individual bodily shape; we have consequently a kind

contradiction or contention between their lofty blessedness, which is,

in fact, their spiritual self-exclusiveness and their beauty, which

pertains to their external bodily presence. Spirit appears wholly

lost in its external form, and yet for all that appears quite as much

absorbed in itself from out that form. It is precisely as though we had

the moving to and fro of an immortal god among mortal men.

In this relation the Greek gods make on us an impression which, despite

all difference, resembles that which the bust of Goethe by Rauch made

upon me when I first saw it. Many will have doubtless seen it, the high

brow, the powerful, commanding nose, the free eye, the round chin,

the affable, finely-cut lips, the pose of the head, so suggestive of

genius, with its glance a bit on one side and uplifted: add to this

the entire fulness and breadth of an emotional and genial humanity,

and further, those carefully articulated muscles of the forehead, of

the entire countenance, of all that gives evidence of passion and

emotion; and in all this house of Life, the repose, stillness, and

loftiness of advanced age; and we may add withal the fading ebb of the

lips, which retreat back into the teethless mouth, the slackness of

the neck and cheeks, whereby the bridge of the nose appears yet more

dominant, and the reach of the forehead yet more towering. The force

of this firmly set figure, which to an extraordinary degree brings

before us the notion of immutability, appears all the more so in the

loose environment which surrounds it[190], just as the sublime head and

form of the Oriental in his wide turban, but flapping over-garment and

trailing slippers. It is the secure, powerful, timeless spirit, which,

in the mask of encircling mortality, is just ready to let this husk

fall away, and yet suffers it to linger around it freely and without

restraint.

In much the same way the gods appear to us in their aspect of lofty

freedom and spiritual repose to be exalted over their bodily presence,

so that they seem to feel their form, their limbs, despite all the

beauty that is there, as at the same time a superfluous appanage. And

yet withal the entire presentment is suffused with vitality, identical

with their spiritual being, inseparable, without the disunion of what

is essentially subsistent, and those parts which are more loosely put

together, the spirit in short neither escaping nor coming forth from

the body, but both firmly moulded together into a whole, out of which,

and in no other way, the self-absorption of Spirit looks forth in

silence in its amazing and secure self-possession.

(_γγ_) For the reason, then, that the contention we have indicated is

present, without appearing, however, as a difference or separation of

the ideal spirituality from its external form, the negative which is

therein contained, is for this very reason immanent in this inseparable

totality and is thereby expressed. This is within the sphere of this

spiritual loftiness the breath and atmosphere of melancholy, which

men of genius have felt in the godlike figures of antique art even

where the beauty of the external presentment is consummate. The

repose of divine blessedness[191] is unable to split itself up into

the passions of joy, pleasure, and satisfaction, and the _peace_ of

immortality stands aloof from the smile of self-satisfaction and genial

contentedness. Contentment is the emotion of the agreement of our

singular subjectivity with the condition of that environment which is

defined for or given to us or brought about through our own agency.

Napoleon, for example, never expressed more thorough contentment than

when he happened to obtain some success at the cost of making all

the world discontented. For contentment is only the approval of my

own being, action, and engagements, and the extreme of it is readily

recognizable in that state of feeling of the Philistine to which every

man of practical ability necessarily extends it. This feeling and its

expression is, however, no expression appropriate to the prefigured

immortal gods. Free and perfected beauty is not satisfied with joining

the concordant temper of a particular finite existence; rather its

individuality, in its aspect as Spirit no less than in that of form,

albeit it is self-defined with characterization, only finds itself

fully in union with its true nature when it is at the same time free

universality and spirituality in repose upon itself. This universality

is just that which people are wont to point to as the frigidity of

the Greek gods. They are only cold, however, to our modern intimacy

with the temporal. Independently regarded they possess warmth and

life; that peaceful blessedness, which is reflected in their external

presentment, is essentially an abstraction from particularity, a

mode of being indifferent to the Past, a surrender of that which is

external, a giving up which, albeit neither full of trouble nor pain,

is for all that a giving up of what is earthly and evanescent, just as

their cheerfulness of spirit looks far away and over death, the grave,

loss and temporality, and for the very reason that it is profound

inherently contains this negative we are discussing. And the more this

earnestness and spiritual freedom is prominent in the vision of these

godlike figures the more we feel the contrast between this loftiness

and the determinate corporality in which they are enclosed. The

blessed gods mourn quite as much over their blessedness as their bodily

environment. In the letters of their form we read the destiny which

lies before them, and whose development, as actual manifestation of

that contradiction between this very loftiness and that particularity,

spirituality, and sensuous existence classical art itself sets face to

face with its final overthrow.

(_c_) If we ask ourselves, then, _thirdly_, what is the nature of

the external representation, which is adequate to this notion of the

classic Ideal we have just indicated, we shall find in this connection,

too, that the essential points of view have already in our general

consideration of the Ideal been furnished us with considerable detail.

We have consequently here only further to remark, that in the genuine

classic Ideal the spiritual individuality of the gods is not conceived

in their relation to something else, or brought about by virtue of

their particularity in conflict, and battle, but rather is made visible

in their eternal self-tranquillity, in this painfulness of the godlike

peace itself. The determinate character is not, therefore, made active

in the way that it stimulated the gods to the sense of particular

emotions and passions, or compelled them to adopt specific aims of

conduct. On the contrary, it is precisely out of that collision and

development, nay, out of that very relation to the finite and all that

is essentially discordant that they are brought back to that condition

of pure self-absorption. This repose in its most austere severity, not

inflexible, cold, or dead, but sensitive and immutable, is the highest

and most adequate form of representation for the classic gods. When

they make their appearance consequently in specific situations, it is

not necessary that there should be conditions or actions which give

rise to conflicts, but rather such which, as themselves harmless, so,

too, leave the gods in a like condition. It is, therefore, sculpture

which among the arts is above all adapted to portray the classic Ideal

in its simple self-possession, in which what is rather the universal

divinity receives more obvious emphasis than the particular character.

Chiefly it is the more ancient and more austere type of sculpture which

maintains its firm hold of this aspect of the Ideal, and only in the

later forms we find a movement towards increased dramatic vividness

of situations and characterization. Poetry, on the contrary, ranges

the gods in vigorous action, that is, in an attitude of negation to

a definite mode of life, and brings them thereby into conflict and

strife. The repose of plastic art, where it remains in the sphere which

is uniquely its own, can only express the aforesaid negative phase of

spirit face to face with particular facts in that serious strain of

melancholy, which we have already attempted to define more nearly.

2. THE SPHERE OF THE PARTICULAR GODS

As individuality in visible form, represented under the mode of

immediate existence, and withal both definite and particular, godhead

necessarily is divided into a number of figures. In other words,

Polytheism is unquestionably essential as the principle of classical

art, and it would be the undertaking of a fool to think of embodying

the one God of the Sublime and of Pantheism or the absolute religion,

which comprehends God purely as Spirit and essential personality, in

the plastic type of beauty, or to entertain the idea that the classical

forms could have arisen among the Jews, Mohammedans, or Christians,

as adapted to the content of their religious beliefs, from their own

original views of the world, as they did in the case of the Greeks.

(_a_) In this multiplicity the divine universe[192] at this stage

is broken up into a sphere of particular gods, of which each

individual stands by himself alone in contrast to all the others.

These individualities are not, however, of the kind that they can be

taken merely as allegorical presentations of universal qualities, as

if Apollo, for example, were the god of wisdom, Zeus of dominion.

Zeus is also quite as much wisdom, and in the "Eumenides" Apollo, as

we have seen, protects Orestes, the son and the royal son to boot,

whom he himself has stimulated to an act of vengeance. The sphere

of the Greek gods is a multiplicity of individuals, of which every

particular god, albeit also in the specific character of a particular

person, is at the same time a self-exclusive totality, which itself

possesses essentially also the quality of another god. For every such

presentment, viewed as divine, is always, too, a whole. It is only by

this means that the divine personalities of Greek religion include an

abundance of traits; and although their blessedness consists in their

universal and spiritual self-repose no less than in their abstraction

from the direct movement which Time is for ever defeating in the sphere

of the disintegrating manifold of natural fact and condition, yet for

all that they possess the power in a like degree to assert themselves

as energetic and active in many of its aspects. They are neither the

abstract particular nor the abstract universal, but the universal which

is the source of particularity.

(_b_) On account of this type of individuality, however, Greek

polytheism is unable to make up an essentially systematic and

self-integrated totality. At the first glance, it is true, it appears

imperative to require of the Olympus of the gods, that the numerous

gods that are there assembled, should, as thus collected together,

and if their separable unities have real truth in them, and their

content is to be classic in the true sense, also express essentially

the totality of the Idea, should exhaust the entire sphere of the

necessary forces of Nature and Spirit, and give to themselves therefore

constructive completeness, in other words, manifest themselves as

subject to a principle of necessity. This demand, however, would be

liable from the first to the qualification that those forces present

in the emotions and, generally speaking, assertive in the sphere

of spiritual life in the absolute significance[193] which becomes

operative first in the later and higher religion, must remain excluded

from the sphere of the classic gods, so that the range of content, the

particular aspects of which succeed in making an appearance in Greek

mythology, would be already thereby curtailed. Moreover, apart from

this, we have also on the one hand, necessarily introduced by virtue of

the essentially varied character of this individuality, the accidental

incidents of a definition, which avoids the rigorous articulation

of the differences inherent in the notion, and does not suffer

these divinities to maintain the abstraction of merely _one_ mode

of determination. And, on the other hand, the universality, in the

elemental medium of which the divine personalities secure their blessed

state, abolishes any hard and fast particularity, and the loftiness of

the eternal powers exalts itself jubilant over the cold seriousness of

finite fact, wherein, if this inconsequence did not prevail, the divine

presences would be evolved through the medium of their limitations.

However much, therefore, even the principal forces of the world, as the

totality of Nature and Spirit, are reproduced in Greek mythology, this

aggregation, quite as much in the interests of the universal Divine as

in those of the individuality of particular gods, cannot assert itself

as a _systematic_ whole. If this were not so, instead of _individual_

characters the gods would approximate rather to allegorical beings,

and instead of being _divine_ personalities would be characters wholly

limited to finite and abstract modes.

(_c_) When we consequently consider the circle of the Greek

divinities--that is all within the range of the so-called presiding

divinities--more nearly according to their fundamental character,

inquiring how that character appears firmly delineated by sculpture

in its most general and at the same time sensuously concrete

presentment, we find no doubt the essential distinctions and their

totality explicitly set before us, but also in their detail also

ever again obliterated, and the severity of the execution tempered

to a result which is inconsistent with either their beauty or their

individuality. So for example Zeus bears in his hands the dominion

over gods and men, without, however, thereby essentially endangering

the free independence of the other gods. He is the supreme god; his

power, however, does not absorb that of the others. We find in the

conception of him no doubt an association with the heavens, with

lightning and thunder, and the generative vitality of Nature; but he

is yet more truly the might of the State, of the order of fact which

is conformable to law, the binding nexus in contracts, oaths, and

hospitality, and generally the substantial bond that gives subsistence

to the human condition, whether in its practical or ethical aspect,

the potency, in short, both of knowledge and spirit. The dominion of

his brothers is directed toward the sea or the lower world. Apollo is

known as the god of knowledge, as the mouthpiece and fair presentment

of spiritual interests, as the teacher of the Muses. "Know thyself"

is the inscription over his temple at Delphi, a behest which is not

so much concerned with the failings and defects, as the essential

import of spirit, that is with art and the truth of consciousness.

Subtlety and eloquence, mediation in fact generally as we also find

it in subordinate spheres, which, albeit immoral elements are therein

commingled, nevertheless are appurtenant to the complete range of

spiritual life--such is the most important province of the activity

of Hermes, who also leads the shades of the dead to the underworld.

The might of war is what mainly distinguishes Ares. Hephaestos is

conspicuously capable in the technical crafts. The enthusiasm which

still carries with it a natural element, the strong emotions which

wine, sport, and dramatic performances naturally produce are the native

province of Dionysos. The spheres allotted to the feminine divinities

very much correspond to the above series. In Here the ethical bond of

marriage is the most dominant trait. Ceres is the instructress and

developer of agriculture, and as such has presented mankind with both

those adjuncts to its cultivation, that is to say, first, the care for

the nurture of natural products, which satisfy man's immediate wants,

and, secondly, the spiritual accessories of property, marriage, right,

the beginnings of civilization and moral order. In the same way Athene

is the representative of moderation, good sense[194], legality, the

power of wisdom, technical capacity in the arts and courageousness, and

comprises within her intelligent and warlike maidenhood the concrete

spirit of the folk, the free and substantive spirit which uniquely

belongs to the Athenian state, and places the same before us in

positive shape as sovereign and godlike power to be revered. Artemis on

the contrary, wholly distinct from the Ephesian Diana, possesses the

more inflexible independence of maiden modesty for her most essential

characteristic. She loves the chase, and is generally not so much the

quietly pensive, as the severe and eager-striving maiden. Aphrodite,

together with the charming Cupid, who in his descent from the ancient

Titan Eros became a boy, is the interpreter of all that the attractions

and sexual passion effect in our humanity. This, then, is the kind

of content of the spiritually informed individual gods. In so far

as we are concerned with their external representation we can only

repeat that sculpture is the most important art in this respect, and

it is carried to the point of this detail of their particularity. If,

however, it is permitted to express that individuality in its more

specific determination, it at once passes beyond its primary severe

loftiness, although even in that case it unites the variety and wealth

of such individuality under _one_ mode of definition, namely that

which we distinguish as character, and establishes this character in

its more simple clarity for the envisagement of the senses, in other

words for the completest and most final determination of the external

presentment of these divinities. For the imagination always remains

relatively to the external and real existence less distinct, when it

elaborates, as it also does, as poetry the same content in a number

of tales, occurrences, and events which concern the gods. For this

reason sculpture is on the one hand more ideal, while on the other

it individualizes the character of the gods in perfectly clear human

outlines, and perfects the anthropomorphism of the classic Ideal. As

this presentation of the Ideal in its mode of externality, entirely

adequate as it unquestionably is to the essentially ideal content it

declares, these figures of Greek sculpture are the Ideals in their

absolutely explicit realization; they are the self-subsistent, eternal

forms, the centre of the plastic beauty of classical art, whose type

persists as the foundation, even there too, where these figures step

forth on the planes of definite activity, and appear as affected by the

revolutions of particular events.

3. THE PARTICULAR INDIVIDUALITY OF THE GODS

Individuality and its representation is, however, unable to acquiesce

in that which is still an ever relative and abstract articulation

of character. A star is exhaustively summarized in the simple laws

that control it. A few definite traits may sufficiently characterize

the external formation of the world of rocks; but already in the

vegetable world we are aware of an infinite variety of manifold

structure, transition, interfusion, and anomaly. Animal organizations

are distinguished by a still greater range of difference, and

constantly shifting interaction with the external environment to which

they are related. And finally, as we rise to the spiritual realm

and its manifestation, we are conscious of a yet more infinitely

embracing multiplicity, both of its internal and external existence.

Inasmuch, then, as the classic Ideal does not rest content with purely

self-possessed individuality, but is further concerned to place the

same in motion, to bring the same into relation with something else,

and to exhibit it as active in such relation--for these reasons the

character of the gods does not rest stationary in the possession

of what itself is an essentially still substantive determination,

but secures further particular traits of wider extension. The

self-exclusive movement in the direction of external existence, and

the change which is inseparable from it supplies the more intimate

traits that constitute the singularity of any particular god, as is

meet and fit and withal necessary to complete a living personality. The

accidental nature of these particular traits is, however, associated

at the same time with such a type of _singularity_, traits, that is,

we are no longer able to refer back to the universal aspect of the

substantive significance. For this reason this particular aspect of

the separate divinities approximates to something positive, which can

consequently also merely stand about it and continue to resound as an

external accessory.

(_a_) We are therefore at once confronted with the question: "From

what source is the _material_ secured for this mode of the appearance

of singularity, and in what manner is this forward process of

particularization maintained?" For the ordinary individual man, for

his character out of which he brings his actions to a conclusion, for

the events in which he is involved, for the destiny which awaits him,

this closest and more positive material is supplied by his external

conditions, such as the date of his birth, the situation he inherits,

parents, education, environment, temporal relations, the entire

province, that is, of the conditions of his life as they affect his

spiritual nature or bodily existence. The present world contains this

material, and the records of life furnished by different individuals

are from this point of view characterized by every conceivable

difference. It is another matter altogether, however, with the free

shapes of godlike individuality, which possess no determinate

existence in the concrete world of Nature, but have their birth in

the cradle of the imagination. For this very reason it is an obvious

assumption that poets and artists, who, speaking in general terms,

have created the Ideal out of their free spiritual bounty, have merely

borrowed the material for these accidental particular traits from the

caprice of their own innate powers of imagination. This assumption is,

however, false. For we assigned in general terms to classical art, the

position that its construction in the first instance is, by means of

the reaction active in its opposition to the assumptions necessarily

requisite to its own peculiar province, carried forward to that which

as genuine Ideal it is. It is from these presuppositions as their

source that the specific traits of particularity are to be looked

for, which supply to the gods their closer individual vitality. The

fundamental features of these assumptions have already been submitted,

and we have only here to remind our readers shortly of what has been

already advanced.

(_α_) It is the symbolical natural religions which constitute in the

first instance the abundant source which supplies Greek mythology

with the primary substratum that we find then modified within it. But

inasmuch as the traits that are borrowed from such a source have to be

distributed among gods that are represented as individuals possessing

the life of Spirit, they inevitably lose the essential feature of

their character, in which they passed as symbolical; they have now no

longer to retain a significance, which would differ from that which the

individual himself presents and makes visible. The previous symbolical

content becomes now, therefore, converted into the content of a divine

subject itself, and for the reason that it implies no substantive

relation of the god, but is merely an incidental feature, material of

this sort falls together into an external tale, some deed or event,

which is ascribed to the gods in this or that particular situation.

Consequently we find under this head all the symbolical traditions of

the earlier sacred poems, which receive, under the modified shape of

actions proper to a truly self-conscious individuality, the form of

human events and histories, which purport to be accomplished in concert

with the gods, and are not merely the inventions of poets as the mood

dictates. When Homer tells us, for instance, that the gods went off on

a journey to feast for twelve days among the blameless Ethiopians, such

would be a poor enough example of inventiveness regarded as the poet's

invention alone. It is much the same with the tale of the birth of

Zeus. Kronos, we are told, had devoured all his sons; for this reason

Rhea, his spouse, when she was big with her youngest child Zeus, went

off to Crete, where she brought forth her son, presenting to Kronos a

stone to devour instead of her child, whom she swaddled in fur. Later

on Kronos brought up again all his children, his daughters, and along

with them Poseidon. This story, regarded as mere invention, would be

foolish enough. The remnants of symbolical significance still peer,

however, through it, albeit on account of their having lost their

original character, they come down to us in the guise of external

history. The history of Ceres and Proserpina is on similar lines.

Here we have the ancient symbolic significance of the disappearance

and budding forth of the seed of corn. The myth presents this to us

under the image as though Proserpina played one day in a valley with

flowers, and plucked the fragrant narcissus, which from one root opened

in a hundred blossoms. Then the Earth thunders; Pluto ascends from the

depths, lifts the lamenting maiden into his golden car, and bears her

off to the underworld. Thereon Ceres wandered over the Earth for a

long time vainly stricken with a mother's sorrow. Finally Proserpina

returned to the upper world; Zeus, however, had only suffered her to do

this subject to the command that she must never partake of the food of

the gods. Unfortunately she had on one occasion tasted a pomegranate,

and was therefore only able to remain in the upper world during spring

and summer. In this tale, too, we find that the symbolical content has

not been retained, but has been converted into a human event, which

suffers only the more general sense to penetrate through many external

traits. In the same way the supplementary names of the gods point

frequently to symbolical ground-strata of a similar character, from

which, however, the symbolical form has vanished, and which only serve

now to give individuality a more complete characterization.

(_β_) Local conditions supply a further source for the positive

particularities of individual divinities, no less by presenting us with

the origin of the conceptions of godhead, than by pointing to the modes

under which their services were originally obtained and secured, and

the particular places which were in a special sense devoted to their

worship.

(_αα_) Although, however, the demonstration of the Ideal and its

universal beauty is exalted over the particular locality and its

unique claims for recognition, and, moreover, has drawn together the

specific external aspects in the more general range of the artistic

imagination into one comprehensive picture which is throughout adequate

to the substantive significance, yet for all that, when the art of

sculpture associates the gods, regarded as individuals, with isolated

relations and conditions, these particular traits and local colours

come frequently also to the fore, in order to reproduce something

of that individuality, although it is only thus more defined in

its external aspect. An illustration of this is the way Pausanias

adduces a mass of ideas, images, pictures, and myths, which he met

with in temples, public places, temple treasuries, in any place where

anything of importance was to be found or otherwise was in the range

of his experience. In the same way and on the same lines the ancient

traditions and local suggestions which have been borrowed from foreign

sources run along with the home ones in Greek myth; and to all of

them more or less a relation has been attached which unites them to

the history, creation, and foundations of States, more particularly

by means of colonization. Forasmuch, however, as this many-sided

and specific material in the universality of the gods has lost its

original significance, we necessarily come across stories, which

in their motley and intricate character fail to convey any meaning

whatever. As an example we may instance the case where Aeschylus in

his "Prometheus" presents to us the wanderings of Io in all their

severity and external garb without admitting the least suggestion of an

ethical or traditional story, or a natural significance. We find just

the same difficulty when we approach the stories of Perseus, Dionysos,

and others. The most varied and confused kind of material is also run

into the tales about Hercules, which forthwith, in such tales, assume

an entirely human aspect under the guise of chance events, exploits,

passions, misfortunes, and other untoward occurrences.

(_ββ_) In addition to all this the eternal powers of classical art

are the universal constituents of the actual embodiment of the

existence and actions of Greek _humanity_, from whose national origins

consequently in their earliest form, that is, out of the heroic times

and other traditions, still a very considerable residue of detail

remains appendant to the gods even in later days. In this way, too,

many characteristic features in the intricate tales of their gods

unquestionably must be referred to historic personages, heroes, older

folk-races, natural facts and circumstances attributable to wars,

battles, and other matters of a public character. And just as the

family and the distinction of clans is the point of departure of the

State, the Greeks possessed also their family gods, penates, clan-gods,

and furthermore the guardian divinities of particular cities and

states. In this excessive leaning towards the point of view of history

the thesis, however, is apt to be maintained that the origin of the

Greek gods generally is deducible from such historical facts, heroes,

and earlier kings. This is a plausible but none the less superficial

view. Heyne quite in recent times has also given currency to it. In

a way analogous to this a Frenchman, by name Nicholas Fréret, has,

for example, accepted the quarrels of different priestly guilds as

the general principle underlying the war of the gods. That such a

historical phase in the life of a people may contribute something,

that definite clans may have given some effect to their peculiar

notions of deity, that likewise different local aspects may have

afforded further matter in the process of divine individualization--all

this may be admitted, no doubt. The real origin of the gods is for

all that not to be traced to such external material of history, but

resides in the spiritual potencies of Life, under the guise of which

they were conceived. We are consequently only entitled to accept the

more extensive play of all that is positive, local, and historical,

in so far as it makes more definite the formal presentation of each

particular individuality.

(_γγ_) Inasmuch as, further, the god passes into the sphere of the

human imagination, and, still more important, is represented in real

bodily shape, into close relations with which again man is placed by

his _cultus_ in the activities of divine worship, a fresh material is

here, too, presented by such relations for the extension of all that

is positive and accidental. What animals have to be sacrificed to any

god, what vestments the priesthood or the worshipper must appear in,

what particular sequence must be adopted in any ceremonial--by all such

matters the most varied and particular incidents are accumulated. For

every activity of this kind implies an indefinite number of aspects and

modes of arrangement, which may accidentally fall out in this way or

that, but which, as appurtenant to a sacred rite, should be something

settled, and not fixed by caprice, and which necessarily tend to

pass into the sphere of symbolism. The colour of the vestments is an

example of this; in the ritual of Bacchus we have the colour of wine,

in like manner the doe-skin in which those initiated in the mysteries

were enwrapped. The same thing applies to the drapery and attributes

of the gods, the bow of Pythian Apollo, the whip, the staff, and

numberless other accessories. Such things become, however, gradually

a custom and nothing more; no one in the practice of the same thinks

any longer of their birth history; and all that we now by dint of

our research point out as their significance, has in the performance

of them grown to something quite external, which mankind associates

himself with on account of the immediate interest, that is, from mere

sense of fun, delight in the present, devotion, or simply because it

is just a custom and is so fixed for his active senses, and is done

in like manner by others. As an example from our own life, when we

see our German youth light the Johannis fire in summer time, or play

antics elsewhere, and throw it at the windows, such is for us a purely

formal custom, in which the original significance fades as much into

the background as at the festal dances of Greek youths and maidens

the revolutions of the dance do in their imitative (like the twists

and turns of some labyrinth) significance of the spiral motions of

the planets. Youth does not dance in order to entertain ideas of such

things, but the interest limits itself naturally to the dancing and the

tasteful and graceful festivity of its beautiful motion. The entire

significance, which was created by the original stimulus, and of which

the reproduction was for the imagination and sensuous perception of

symbolical character, is throughout an imaginative conception, whose

singular traits we suffer to pass from us like a fairy story, or as in

historical narrative as external detail relative to Time and Space,

and of which we can only say: "It is so," or, "Such is the tale," and

so forth. The interest of art can consequently only consist in this,

namely, that it borrow one aspect from the material which has passed

into the condition of positive externality, and make the best of

this one for an example, which sets the gods before us as concrete,

living individuals, merely retaining a distant echo of any profounder

significance.