appears wherever the doctrine of Theism is taught in a
crude, objective form, and which seems the self-defence
of man against this untruth, namely a discontent with
the believed fact that a God exists, and a feeling
that the obligation of reverence is onerous. It would
steal if it could the fire of the Creator, and live
apart from him and independent of him. The Prometheus
Vinctus is the romance of skepticism. Not less true to
all time are the details of that stately apologue.
Apollo kept the flocks of Admetus, said the poets.
When the gods come among men, they are not known.
Jesus was not; Socrates and Shakspeare were not.
Antaeus was suffocated by the gripe of Hercules, but
every time he touched his mother earth his strength
was renewed. Man is the broken giant, and in all his
weakness both his body and his mind are invigorated
by habits of conversation with nature. The power of
music, the power of poetry, to unfix and as it were
clap wings to solid nature, interprets the riddle of
Orpheus. The philosophical perception of identity
through endless mutations of form makes him know the
Proteus. What else am I who laughed or wept yesterday,
who slept last night like a corpse, and this morning
stood and ran? And what see I on any side but the
transmigrations of Proteus? I can symbolize my thought
by using the name of any creature, of any fact, because
every creature is man agent or patient. Tantalus is
but a name for you and me. Tantalus means the
impossibility of drinking the waters of thought which
are always gleaming and waving within sight of the soul.