Page:Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion volume 2.djvu/262

 When the Greeks heard the roaring of the sea at the funeral of Achilles, Nestor came forward and explained it as meaning that Thetis was taking part in the mourning. Thus, too, in the case of the pestilence, Calchas says that Apollo had brought it about because he was angry with the Greeks. This interpretation just means that an embodiment is given to natural phenomena, that they get the form of a divine act. What takes place within the mind is similarly explained. According to Homer, for instance, Achilles would like to draw his sword, but he calms himself and restrains his anger. This inward prudence is Pallas, who represses anger. In this interpretation originated those innumerable charming tales and the endless number of Greek myths which we possess.

From whatever side we consider the Greek principle, the sensuous and natural element is seen to force its way into it. The gods as they issue out of necessity are limited, and they have also still traces of the natural element in them, just because they reveal the fact that they have sprung from the struggle with the forces of Nature. The manifestation by which they announce themselves to self-consciousness is still external, and the imagination which gives shape and form to this manifestation does not yet elevate their starting-point into the region of pure thought. We have now to see how this natural moment is wholly transfigured into a beautiful form.

(#.) The beautiful form of the divine powers.—In absolute necessity determinateness is reduced to the unity of immediacy, “it is so.” But this means that the determinateness, the content, is rejected, and the stability and freedom of the feeling which keeps to this sensuous perception consists only in the fact that it abides firmly by the empty “is.” But definitely existing necessity is for immediate perception, and indeed exists for it in its character as natural determinate existence which in its determinateness takes itself back into its simplicity, and