Page:Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion volume 2.djvu/313

 can roam about in a light-hearted way through everything, and it remains what it is. The stories which appear to be unworthy of gods have reference to the general aspects of the nature of things, the creation of the world, &c.; they have their origin in old traditions, in abstract views regarding the processes of the elements. The universal element in these views is obscured, but it is hinted at; and in this external way of regarding things, and in this want of order amongst things, a glimpse is first got of the universal nature of the intelligence which shows itself in them. In a religion, on the other hand, in which a definite end is present, all reference to theoretical points of view from which intelligence may be regarded disappears. No theories, and in fact nothing universal, are to be found in the Religion of Utility. The deity has here a definite character or content, namely, the sovereignty of the world. The universality here is empirical, not moral or spiritual, but is rather a real, actual universality.

The Roman god representing this sovereignty is to be looked for in Fortuna publica, the necessity which for others is a cold unsympathetic necessity; the particular necessity which contains the end concerned with Rome itself is Roma, sovereignty, a holy and divine Being, and this sovereign Roma in the form of a god who exercises sovereignty is Jupiter Capitolinus, a particular Jupiter—for there are many Jupiters, three hundred Joves in fact.

This Jupiter Capitolinus is not Zeus, who is the father of gods and men; but rather, he simply stands for the idea of sovereignty, and has his end in the world, and it is for the Roman people that he carries out this end. The Roman people is the universal family, while in the Religion of Beauty the divine end was represented by many families, and in the religion of the One, on the other hand, by one family only.

2. This god is not the truly spiritual One, and just because of this the Particular lies outside of this unity