in him, and in the presence of himself in it; he may continue to absorb those natural gods, and represent the moral gods in morality and in the life of the State, or he may in practice live a godly life and bring into view the outward embodiment and manifestation of divinity in festivals in his own subjectivity; still there yet remains for consciousness a “Beyond,” that is to say, the entire particular element in action and in the circumstances and relations of the individual, and the connection of these relations with God. Our belief that Providence in its action reaches even to the individual, finds its confirmation in the fact that God has become man, and this in the actual and temporal mode within which consequently all particular individuality is comprehended, for it is owing to this that subjectivity has received the absolute moral justification by which it is subjectivity of the infinite self-consciousness. In the beautiful form given to the gods, in the images, stories, and local representations connected with them, the element of infinite individuality, of particularity in its most extreme form, is doubtless directly contained and expressed, still it is a particularity which in one aspect of it is one of the chief defects charged against the mythology of Homer and Hesiod, while in another aspect these stories belong so specially to the gods represented that they have no reference to other gods or to men, just as amongst men each individual has his own particular experiences, doings, circumstances, and history, which belong wholly and entirely to his particular life. The moment of subjectivity does not appear as infinite subjectivity, it is not Spirit as such which is contemplated in the objective forms given to the divine; and wisdom is what must constitute the fundamental characteristic of the divine. This, as working in accordance with ends, must be comprised within one infinite wisdom, within one subjectivity. The truth that human things are ruled over by the gods is thus no doubt involved in that
