or the presiding nymph of a fountain. The impression which he
receives is pretty much like that from the monumental figure of some
allegoric being, such as Faith or Hope, Fame or Truth. He hardly
believes that the most superstitious Grecian seriously believed
in such a being as a distinct personality. He feels convinced that
the sort of personal existence ascribed to such an abstraction,
as well as the human shape, are merely modes of representing and
drawing into unity a variety of phenomena and agencies that seem
_one_, by means of their unintermitting continuity, and because
they tend to one common purpose. Now, from such a symbolic god as
this, let him pass to Jupiter or Mercury, and instantly he becomes
aware of a revolting individuality. He sees before him the opposite
pole of deity. The river-god had too little of a concrete character.
Jupiter has nothing else. In Jupiter you read no incarnation of
any abstract quality whatever: he represents nothing whatever in
the metaphysics of the universe. Except for the accident of his
power, he is merely a man. He has a _character_, that is,
a tendency or determination to this quality or that, in excess;
whereas a nature truly divine must be _in equilibrio_ as to all
qualities, and comprehend them all, in the way that a _genus_
comprehends the subordinate _species_. He has even a personal
history: he has passed through certain adventures, faced certain
dangers, and survived hostilities that, at one time, were doubtful
in their issue. No trace, in short, appears, in any Grecian god, of
the generic. Whereas we, in our Christian ideas of God, unconsciously,
and without thinking of Sir Isaac Newton, realize Sir Isaac's
conceptions. We think of him as having a sort of allegoric generality,
liberated from the bonds of the individual; and yet, also, as the
most awful among natures, having a conscious personality. He is
diffused through all things, present everywhere, and yet not the