Page:Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion volume 2.djvu/278

 misfortune endured is perfectly clear; here there is nothing blind and unconscious. To such clearness of insight and of artistic presentation did Greece attain at her highest stage of culture. Yet there remains here something unsolved in that the higher element does not appear as the infinitely spiritual power; we still have here an unsatisfied sorrow arising from the fact that an individual perishes.

The higher form of reconciliation would be that the attitude of one-sidedness should be done away with in the Subject, that the subject should have the consciousness of his wrong-doing, and that he should in his own heart put away his wrong-doing. To recognise this his guilt, his one-sidedness, and to discard them, is not, however, natural to this sphere of thought. This higher point of view makes the outward punishment, namely, natural death, superfluous. Beginnings, faint echoes of this reconciliation, do undoubtedly make their appearance here, but nevertheless this inward change or conversion appears more as outward purification. A son of Minos was slain in Athens, and its purification was thus rendered necessary. This deed was declared to be undone. It is Spirit which seeks to render what has been done undone.

In the Eumenides Orestes is acquitted by the Areopagus; here we have, on the one hand, the greatest possible crime against filial piety, while on the other we see that he did justice to his father, for he was not only head of the family, but also of the State. In one action he both committed a crime and at the same time acted in accordance with perfect and essential necessity. Acquittal just means that something is made undone, made as though it had not happened.

In the case of Œdipus Coloneus reconciliation is hinted at, and more particularly the Christian idea of reconciliation. He is taken into favour by the gods, the gods call him to themselves. In the present day we