3. And stolen 'from Heaven,'—to mark its superiority in kind, as well as its essential diversity:
4. And it was a 'spark,'—to mark that it is not subject to any modifying reaction from that on which it immediately acts; that it suffers no change, and receives no accession, from the inferior, but multiplies it-self by conversion, without being alloyed by, or amalgamated with, that which it potentiates, ennobles, and transmutes:
5. And lastly, (in order to imply the homogeneity of the donor and of the gift) it was stolen by a 'god,' and a god of the race before the dynasty of Jove,—Jove the binder of reluctant powers, the coercer arid entrancer of free spirits under the fetters of shape, and mass, and passive mobility; but likewise by a god of the same race and essence with Jove, and linked of yore in closest and friendliest intimacy with him. This, to mark the pre-existence, in order of thought, of the 'nous', as spiritual, both to the objects of sense, and to their products, formed as it were, by the precipitation, or, if I may dare adopt the bold language of Leibnitz, by a coagulation of spirit. In other words this derivation of the spark from above, and from a god anterior to the Jovial dynasty—(that is, to the submersion of spirits in material forms),—was intended to mark the transcendancy of the 'nous', the contra-distinctive faculty of man, as timeless, {Greek (transliterated): achronon ti,} and, in this negative sense, eternal. It signified, I say, its superiority to, and its diversity from, all things that subsist in space and time, nay, even those which, though spaceless, yet partake of time, namely, souls or understandings. For the soul, or understanding, if it be defined physiologically as the principle of sensibility, irritability, and growth, together with the functions of the organs, which are at once the representatives and the instruments of these, must be considered 'in genere', though not in degree or dignity, common to man and the inferior animals. It was the spirit, the 'nous', which man alone possessed. And I must be permitted to suggest that this notion deserves some respect, were it only that it can shew a semblance, at least, of sanction from a far higher authority.
The Greeks agreed with the cosmogonies of the East in deriving all sensible forms from the indistinguishable. The latter we find designated as the {Greek: to amorphon}, the {Greek: hudor prokosmikon}, the {Greek: chaos}, as the essentially unintelligible, yet necessarily presumed, basis or sub-position of all positions. That it is, scientifically considered, an indispensable idea for the human mind, just as the mathematical point, &c. for the geometrician;—of this the various systems of our geologists and cosmogonists, from Burnet to La Place, afford strong presumption. As an idea, it must be interpreted as a striving of the mind to distinguish being from existence,—or potential being, the ground of being containing the possibility of existence, from being actualized. In the language of the mysteries, it was the 'esurience', the {Greek: pothos} or 'desideratum', the unfuelled fire, the Ceres, the ever-seeking maternal goddess, the origin and interpretation of whose name is found in the Hebrew root signifying hunger, and thence capacity. It was, in short, an effort to represent the universal ground of all differences distinct or opposite, but in relation to which all 'antithesis' as well as all 'antitheta', existed only potentially. This was the container and withholder, (such is the primitive sense of the Hebrew word rendered darkness (Gen. 1. 2.)) out of which light, that is, the 'lux lucifica', as distinguished from 'lumen seu lux phænomenalis', was produced;—say, rather, that which, producing itself into light as the one pole or antagonist power, remained in the other pole as darkness, that is, gravity, or the principle of mass, or wholeness without distinction of parts.
And here the peculiar, the philosophic, genius of Greece began its f¦tal throb. Here it individualized itself in contra-distinction from the Hebrew archology, on the one side, and from the Ph¦nician, on the other. The Ph¦nician confounded the indistinguishable with the absolute, the 'Alpha' and 'Omega', the ineffable 'causa sui'. It confounded, I say, the multeity below intellect, that is, unintelligible from defect of the subject, with the absolute identity above all intellect, that is, transcending comprehension by the plenitude of its excellence. With the Phoenician sages the cosmogony was their theogony and 'vice versa'. Hence, too, flowed their theurgic rites, their magic, their worship ('cultus et apotheosis') of the plastic forces, chemical and vital, and these, or their notions respecting these, formed the hidden meaning, the soul, as it were, of which the popular and civil worship was the body with its drapery.
The Hebrew wisdom imperatively asserts an unbeginning creative One, who neither became the world; nor is the world eternally; nor made the world out of himself by emanation, or evolution;—but who willed it, and it was! {Greek: Ta athea egeneto, kai egeneto chaos,}—and this chaos, the eternal will, by the spirit and the word, or express 'fiat',—again acting as the impregnant, distinctive, and ordonnant power,—enabled to become a world—{Greek: kosmeisthai.} So must it be when a religion, that shall preclude superstition on the one hand, and brute indifference on the other, is to be true for the meditative sage, yet intelligible, or at least apprehensible, for all but the fools in heart.
The Greek philosopheme, preserved for us in the Æschylean Prometheus, stands midway betwixt both, yet is distinct in kind from either. With the Hebrew or purer Semitic, it assumes an X Y Z,—(I take these letters in their algebraic application)—an indeterminate 'Elohim', antecedent to the matter of the world, {Greek: hulae akosmos}—no less than to the {Greek: hulae kekosmaemenae.} In this point, likewise, the Greek accorded with the Semitic, and differed from the Phoenician—that it held the antecedent X Y Z to be super-sensuous and divine. But on the other hand, it coincides with the Ph¦nician in considering this antecedent ground of corporeal matter,—{Greek: ton somaton kai tou somatikou,}—not so properly the cause of the latter, as the occasion and the still continuing substance. 'Maleria substat adliuc'. The corporeal was supposed co-essential with the antecedent of its corporeity. Matter, as distinguished from body, was a 'non ens', a simple apparition, 'id quod mere videtur'; but to body the elder physico-theology of the Greeks allowed a participation in entity. It was 'spiritus ipse, oppressus, dormiens, et diversis modis somnians'. In short, body was the productive power suspended, and as it were, quenched in the product. This may be rendered plainer by reflecting, that, in the pure Semitic scheme there are four terms introduced in the solution of the problem,
1. the beginning, self-sufficing, and immutable Creator;
2. the antecedent night as the identity, or including germ, of the light and darkness, that is, gravity;
3. the chaos; and