Million Book Collection - The Fishers of Men Ministries

THE GREEK PHILOSOPHY.381But this natural religion of the Greeks differedfrom that of others in that neither outward natureas such, nor the sensuous being of man as such,but human nature in its beauty, as illumined bymind, is its point of excellence. The Greek didnot, like the Eastern, lose his independence beforethe powers of nature, nor revel like the northernsavage in boundless liberty, but in the full consciousnessof his freedom saw its highest fulfilmentin obedience to the general order as the law of hisown nature. And as the purely Grecian deitiesare the ideals of human activity, he thus standsto them in a calm and free relation, such as noother nation of antiquity felt, because they arethe mirror of his own being, but his being exalted,so that he is drawn to them without purchasingthis at the cost of the pain and toil of an inwardstruggle.6How the features of his own land served toimage out to his fancy the Greek's religious attitudea poet has told us in exquisite verses, worthyof the beauty which they describe ; the apotheosisof nature." Where are the Islands of the Blest ?They stud the J3gean sea ;And where the deep Elysian rest ?It haunts the vale where Peneus strongPours his incessant stream along,While craggy ridge and mountain bareCut keenly through the liquid air,6 Zeller, i, p. 38.