9. Nature, or 'Zeus' as the {Greek: nomos en nomizomenois}, knows herself only, can only come to a knowledge of herself, in man! And even in man, only as man is supernatural, above nature, noetic. But this knowledge man refuses to communicate; that is, the human understanding alone is at once self-conscious and conscious of nature. And this high prerogative it owes exclusively to its being an assessor of the reason. Yet even the human understanding in its height of place seeks vainly to appropriate the ideas of the pure reason, which it can only represent by 'idola'. Here, then, the 'Nous' stands as Prometheus {Greek: antipalos}, 'renuens'—in hostile opposition to Jupitor 'Inquisitor'.
10. Yet finally, against the obstacles and even under the fostering influences of the 'Nomos', {Greek: tou nomimou}, a son of Jove himself, but a descendant from Io, the mundane religion, as contra-distinguished from the sacerdotal 'cultus', or religion of the state, an Alcides 'Liberator' will arise, and the 'Nous', or divine principle in man, will be Prometheus {Greek: heleutheromenos}.
Did my limits or time permit me to trace the persecutions, wanderings, and migrations of the Io, the mundane religion, through the whole map marked out by the tragic poet, the coincidences would bring the truth, the unarbitrariness, of the preceding exposition as near to demonstration as can rationally be required on a question of history, that must, for the greater part, be answered by combination of scattered facts. But this part of my subject, together with a particular exemplification of the light which my theory throws both on the sense and the beauty of numerous passages of this stupendous poem, I must reserve for a future communication.
NOTES. {3}
v. 15. {Greek: pharaggi}:—'in a coomb, or combe.' v. 17. {Greek: ex'oriazein gar patros logous baru}. {Greek: euoriazein}, as the editor confesses, is a word introduced into the text against the authority of all editions and manuscripts. I should prefer {Greek: ex'oriazein}, notwithstanding its being a {Greek: hapax legomenon}. The {Greek: eu}—seems to my tact too free and easy a word;—and yet our 'to trifle with' appears the exact meaning.
{Footnote 1: I scarcely need say, that I use the word {Greek: allotrionomos} as a participle active, as exercising law on another, not as receiving law from another, though the latter is the classical force (I suppose) of the word.}
{Footnote 2: Rhea (from {Greek: rheo}, 'fluo'), that is, the earth as the transitory, the ever-flowing nature, the flux and sum of 'phenomena', or objects of the outward sense, in contradistinction from the earth as Vesta, as the firmamental law that sustains and disposes the apparent world! The Satyrs represent the sports and appetences of the sensuous nature ({Greek: phronaema sarkos})—Pan, or the total life of the earth, the presence of all in each, the universal 'organismus' of bodies and bodily energy.}
{Footnote 3: Written in Bp. Blomfield's edition, and communicated by Mr. Cary. Ed.}