Page:Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion volume 2.djvu/285

 too as this idea is made visible through action and is allowed to appear outwardly in his conduct.

Now since the nation in the productions of art, in the honour paid in songs and festivals, allows the idea of the divine to appear in itself, it has its worship in itself, i.e., it directly shows what is really its own excellence; it shows the best it has, that which it has been capable of making itself. Men adorn themselves; pageantry, dress, adornment, dance, song, battle—all are connected with the desire to show honour to the gods. Man shows his spiritual and bodily ability and skill, his riches; he exhibits himself in all the glory of God, and thus enjoys the manifestation of God in the individual himself. This characterises festivals even yet. This general description may suffice to show that man allows the idea of the gods to appear to him through himself, and that he represents himself in the most splendid possible way, and thus shows his reverential recognition of the gods. High honour was ascribed to the victors in battle; they were the most honoured of the nation; on festive occasions they sat beside the Archons, and it even happened that in their lifetime they were revered as gods, inasmuch as they had given outward manifestation to the divine in themselves through the skill which they had shown. In this way individuals make the divine manifest in themselves. In practice individuals honour the gods, are moral—that which is the will of the gods is what is moral—and thus they bring the divine into the sphere of actual reality. The people of Athens, for example, who held a procession at the festival of Pallas, represented the presence of Athene, the spirit of the people, and this people is the living spirit which represents and exhibits in itself all the skill of Athene and all that is done by her.

3. But man may be ever so certain of his immediate identity with the essential powers, and may thoroughly appropriate divinity to himself and rejoice in its presence