But to return and conclude this preliminary explanation. We have only to substitute the term will, and the term constitutive power, for nomos or law, and the process is the same. Permit me to represent the identity or 'prothesis' by the letter Z and the 'thesis' and 'antithesis' by X and Y respectively. Then I say X by not being Y, but in consequence of being the correlative opposite of Y, is will; and Y, by not being X, but the correlative and opposite of X, is nature,—'natura naturans', {Greek: nomos physikos}. Hence we may see the necessity of contemplating the idea now as identical with the reason, and now as one with the will, and now as both in one, in which last case I shall, for convenience sake, employ the term 'Nous', the rational will, the practical reason.
We are now out of the holy jungle of transcendental mataphysics; if indeed, the reader's patience shall have had strength and persistency enough to allow me to exclaim—
Ivimus ambo
Per densas umbras: at tenet umbra Deum.
Not that I regard the foregoing as articles of faith, or as all true;—I have implied the contrary by contrasting it with, at least, by shewing its disparateness from, the Mosaic, which, 'bona fide', I do regard as the truth. But I believe there is much, and profound, truth in it, 'supra captum {Greek: psilosoph'on}, qui non agnoscunt divinum, ideoque nec naturam, nisi nomine, agnoscunt; sed res cunctas ex sensuali corporeo cogitant, quibus hac ex causa interiora clausa manent, et simul cum illis exteriora quæ proxima interioribus sunt'! And with no less confidence do I believe that the positions above given, true or false, are contained in the Promethean 'mythus'.
In this 'mythus', Jove is the impersonated representation or symbol of the 'nomos'—'Jupiter est quodcunque vides'. He is the 'mens agitans molem', but at the same time, the 'molem corpoream ponens et constituens'. And so far the Greek philosopheme does not differ essentially from the cosmotheism, or identification of God with the universe, in which consisted the first apostacy of mankind after the flood, when they combined to raise a temple to the heavens, and which is still the favored religion of the Chinese. Prometheus, in like manner, is the impersonated representative of Idea, or of the same power as Jove, but contemplated as independent and not immersed in the product,—as law 'minus' the productive energy. As such it is next to be seen what the several significances of each must or may be according to the philosophic conception; and of which significances, therefore, should we find in the philosopheme a correspondent to each, we shall be entitled to assert that such are the meanings of the fable. And first of Jove:—
Jove represents
1. 'Nomos' generally, as opposed to Idea or 'Nous':
2. 'Nomos archinomos', now as the father, now as the sovereign, and now as the includer and representative of the 'nomoi ouoanioi kosmikoi', or 'dii majores', who, had joined or come over to Jove in the first schism:
3. 'Nomos damnaetaes'—the subjugator of the spirits, of the {Greek: ideai pronomoi}, who, thus subjugated, became '{Greek: nomoi huponomioi hupospondoi}, Titanes pacati, dii minores', that is, the elements considered as powers reduced to obedience under yet higher powers than themselves:
4. 'Nomos {Greek: politikos}', law in the Pauline sense, '{Greek: nomos allotrionomos}' in antithesis to '{Greek: nomos autonomos}'.