Page:Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion volume 2.djvu/314

 of sovereignty. The Power is merely abstract, merely Power, and is not a rational organisation, a totality in itself, and just because of this the Particular appears as something which lies outside of the One, outside of the sovereign power.

This particular element appears partly, too, in the form taken by the Greek gods, or else we find that later on it was put side by side with them by the Romans themselves. Thus the Greeks, too, find their gods in Persia, Syria, and Babylonia, though, at the same time, this represents something different from the peculiar way in which they regarded their gods, and from the definite character of these gods, and it is only a superficial universality.

Looked at in a general way, the particular Roman deities, or at least many of them, are the same as the Greek. But still they have not the beautiful free individuality of the Greek gods; they seem to be grey, so to speak. We do not know where they come from, or else we know that they have been introduced in connection with some definite occasions. And besides, we must distinguish the real Roman gods from those Greek gods which the later poets such as Virgil and Horace have introduced into their artificial poetry in the form of lifeless imitations.

We do not find in them that consciousness, that humanity which is the substantial element in men as in the gods, and in the gods as in men. They appear like machines with nothing spiritual in them, and show themselves to be gods of the understanding which have no connection with a free beautiful spirit, with a free beautiful fancy. So, too, in those modern botches done by the French, they have the appearance of wooden figures or machines. It is, in fact, for this reason that the forms in which the Romans represent their gods have appealed more strongly to the moderns than those of the Greek gods, because the former have more the appearance of empty gods of the understanding which have no