Page:Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion volume 2.djvu/311

 it the earnestness which clings firmly to this end, in opposition to a great deal else which is present in feeling or in external circumstances.

In the religion which comes before this one, the religion of abstract necessity and of particular individual beings who are beautiful and divine, it is freedom which constitutes the fundamental character of the gods and which gives to them their joyousness and bliss. They are not exclusively attached to any single form of existence, but are essential powers, and represent at the same time the irony which governs all that they seek to do; what is particular and empirical has no importance for them.

The joyousness of the Greek religion, which is the fundamental trait of the sentiment pervading it, is based on the circumstance that although an end certainly exists and is regarded with reverence, as holy, still there is present at the same time this freedom from the end, and it is directly based on the fact that the Greek gods are many in number. Each Greek god has more or less substantial attributes, moral substantiality; but just because there are many particular attributes, consciousness or Spirit is something above and beyond this manifold element, and exists outside of its particular forms. It abandons what is characterised as substantial and which can also be considered as end, and is itself the irony referred to.

The ideal beauty of these gods, and their universal character itself, is something higher than their particular character; thus Mars can find pleasure in peace as well as in war. They are gods of fancy existing for the moment, without consistency, now appearing on their own account, independently, and now returning again to Olympus.

Where, on the contrary, one principle, one supreme principle and one higher end exist, there can be no room for this joyousness or serenity.

Further, the Greek god is a concrete individuality, and each of these many particular individuals has itself again