Page:Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion volume 2.djvu/249

 belong to men, but to a spiritual power, i.e., men formerly ate no flesh. He, however, took the whole offering from Zeus, that is to say, he made two heaps, one of bones, over which he threw the skin of the animal, and another of the flesh, and Zeus laid hold of the first.

Sacrifice thus became a feast in which the gods had the entrails and the bones. This same Prometheus taught men to seize animals and use them as their means of sustenance; animals, it was formerly thought, should not be disturbed by men, and were held in high respect by them. Even in Homer mention is made of the suncattle of Helios, which were not to be interfered with by men. Amongst the Hindus and the Egyptians it was forbidden to slaughter animals. Prometheus taught men to eat flesh themselves and to leave to Jupiter only skin and bones.

But Prometheus is a Titan. He is chained to the Caucasus, and a vulture constantly gnaws at his liver, which always grows again—a pain which never ceases. What Prometheus taught men had reference only to such acquirements as conduce to the satisfaction of natural wants. In the mere satisfaction of these wants there is never any sense of satiety; on the contrary, the need is always growing and care is ever new. This is what is signified by this myth. In a passage in Plato it is said that Prometheus could not bring Politics to men, because the science of politics was preserved in the citadel of Zeus. The idea is thus here expressed that this science belonged to Zeus as his own peculiar property.

It is, indeed, gratefully mentioned that Prometheus makes life easier for men by introducing arts and handicrafts; but, spite of the fact that these are connected with the powers of the human mind, he still belongs to the Titans, for these arts are not in any sense laws, nor have they any moral force.

If the gods represent spiritual particularity looked at from the side of Substance, which breaks itself up so as to