Page:Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion volume 2.djvu/251

 rule of Zeus, to be accomplished through the manifested unity of the divine and the human which belongs to the heroes, is expressed also by Aristophanes; for Bacchus says to Hercules, “When Zeus dies and goes, thou wilt succeed him.”

(b.) Formless Necessity.

The unity which binds together the plurality of the particular gods is at first superficial only. Zeus rules them in fatherly, patriarchal fashion, which implies that the ruler does in the end what the others on the whole wish, while these give their assent to all that occurs. But this sovereignty is not serious. The higher absolute unity, in the form of absolute Power, stands over them as their pure and absolute power. This power is Fate or Destiny, simple necessity.

This unity, as being absolute necessity, has universal determinateness within it. It is the fulness of all determinations; but it is not developed in itself, the fact rather being that the content is divided in a particular way among the many gods who issue forth from this unity. It is itself empty and without content, despises all fellowship and outward embodiment, and rules in dread fashion over everything as blind, irrational, unintelligible power. It is unintelligible because it is the concrete alone of which we can form an intelligent conception; but this necessity is still abstract, and has not yet developed so as to have the conception of an end, has not yet reached definite determinations.

Necessity, accordingly, essentially relates itself to the world. For determinateness is a moment in necessity itself, and the concrete world is developed determinateness, the kingdom of finitude, of definite existence generally. Necessity has at first a merely abstract relation to the concrete world, and this relation is the external unity of the world, equality or uniformity simply, which is without any further determination in itself, and is