Page:Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion volume 2.djvu/298

 fire-world, and is again brought into existence; but he is also a symbol of the sun, a universal life-giving power of Nature. Osiris finally is also a spiritual figure, and in this case the Nile and the sun are in turn symbols of the spiritual. Such symbols are naturally mysterious. The inward element is not clear as yet; it exists first as meaning, signification, which has not yet attained to true outward representation. The outward form does not perfectly express the content, so that the latter remains in a partially expressed shape at the basis of the whole without coming forth into existence. Hence it came about that the mysteries could not give to the self-consciousness of the Greeks true reconciliation. Socrates was declared by the oracle to be the wisest of the Greeks, and to him is to be traced the real revolution which took place in the Greek self-consciousness. This pivot, so to speak, of self-consciousness was not, however, himself initiated into the mysteries; they stand far below what he brought into the consciousness of the thinking world. All this has to do with the first form of reconciliation.

2. The other negative element is misfortune in general, sickness, dearth, or any other mishaps. This negative element is explained by the prophets, and brought into connection with some guilty act or transgression. A negative of this kind first appears in the physical world in the shape, for example, of an unfavourable wind. The physical condition is then explained as having a spiritual connection, and as involving in itself the ill-will and wrath of the gods—that ill-will and wrath which are brought upon men by some crime and by some offence against the divine. Or it may be that lightning, thunder, an earthquake, the appearance of snakes, and such-like are interpreted to mean something negative which essentially attaches to a spiritual and moral Power. In this case the injury has to be done away with through sacrifice, and in such a way that he who has shown himself