Page:Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion volume 2.djvu/257

 right to search for so-called philosophemes or philosophical ideas in the actions of these gods, must be freely granted. For instance, Zeus feasted with the gods for twelve days amongst the Ethiopians; Juno hung between heaven and earth, and so on. Ideas such as these, as also the endless number of amours ascribed to Zeus, have undoubtedly their primary source in an abstract conception which had reference to natural relations, natural forces, and to the regular and essential element in these, and thus we have the right to search after the conceptions aforesaid. These natural relations are, however, at the same time degraded to the rank of contingent things, since they have not retained their original purity, but are changed into forms which are in conformity with subjective human modes of thought. Free self-consciousness no longer concerns itself about such natural characteristics.

Another source of contingent determinations is the Spiritual itself, spiritual individuality and its historical development. The god is revealed to man in what befalls himself or in the fate of a state, and this becomes an event which is regarded as an action of the god, as revealing the goodwill or enmity of the god. We get an infinitely manifold, but at the same time a contingent content, when any event, such as good fortune or bad fortune, is elevated to being the action of a god, and serves to determine more definitely and in individual instances, the actions of the god. As the God of the Jews gave a particular land to the people and led their fathers out of Egypt, so a Greek god is conceived of as having done this or the other thing which happens to a people, and which they look on as divine or as a self-determination of the divine.

We have further to take into consideration also the locality in which, and the time at which, the consciousness of a god first began. This element of origin within defined limits, united with the joyousness of the Greek character, is the source of a number of delightful stories.