Page:Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion volume 1.djvu/162

 in the conception that we very soon come to perceive that the fruit is no sensuous fruit, and that the tree is not to be taken in the strict sense.

b. What is not merely to be taken as a figure, but rather in the sense of something historical as such, belongs also, in respect to the sensuous element in it, to the mode of the general idea. Something may be stated in a historical way, but we do not take it seriously as such, we do not ask if it is meant to be taken seriously. Such, for instance, is our attitude toward what Homer tells us of Jupiter and the other gods.

But then besides this there is something historical which is a divine history, and of such a nature that it is regarded as in the strict sense a history, the history of Jesus Christ. This is not taken merely as a myth in a figurative way, but as something perfectly historical. That accordingly is something which belongs to be sphere of general ideas, but it has another side as well. It has the Divine for its content, divine action, divine timeless events, a mode of working that is absolutely divine. And this is the inward, the true, the substantial element of this history, and it is just this that is the object of reason. In every narrative, in fact, there is this double element; a myth, too, has a meaning in itself. There are, it is true, myths in which the external form in which they appear is of the most importance, but usually such a myth contains an allegory, like the myths of Plato.

Every narrative in fact contains this external series of occurrences and actions, but these are occurrences it must be remembered in the life of a man, a spirit. The history of a state is that of the mode of working, the actions, the fate of a universal spirit, the spirit of a people. Anything of this kind has already on its own account and in itself a universal element. Looking at the matter in a superficial sense, it may be said that it is possible to draw a moral out of every bit of history.