Following the directions of Tagore and Gandhi to look to the philosophy of the people, Chapter II concerned a major paradox in human understanding. It suggested, with Heidegger, that the way for philosophy to go forward was to take a step backward. For radical newness is to be found, not in doing more of the same, but in reaching more deeply into our heritage. To do so it was essential to mine the long totemic experience of life and to draw out what has not been, and perhaps cannot be, thematized and treated with the analytic tools of science. In doing this, Chapter II led to the totem as the principle of plenitude, or in Iqbal’s terms, the total absolute, in terms of which humanity has understood its lives during the more than 99.8 percent of human experience which preceded the composition even of the Rg Veda.

The present chapter will concern a later period, that of myth, hymn and epic, as an evolution or transmographation of the totemic way, somewhat as a moth develops into the quite different form of the butterfly. Where the earlier nonverbal tradition of the totem illustrated how living in unity rather than in discord needed to be based on an absolute unity and plenitude, the verbal tradition of myth begins the progressive articulation of this proposition. The process will be followed in subsequent chapters to the initiation of philosophy and its development down to the present.

Epistemologically a new way of thinking came to be required. In the totemic phase of human existence each person or family did all that was required for their life. The intellect worked in terms of what was directly presented by the external senses and the totem was articulated according to a physical object such as a bird or fish, according to what could be seen in the locale. Now new needs confronted the human mind. With the specialization and the division of labor, more complex patterns of human relations with their broader possibilities and responsibilities become necessary.

In these circumstances it was not sufficient to think in terms only of what could be articulated in terms available from the senses. The capabilities Piaget described as abstract intellectual concepts reversible on concrete things would be needed. Even more, the principle of unity, previously thought of in terms of a totem named from a sensibly present object, must now be appreciated in its distinction from all immediately sensible nature. Both of these made it necessary for the intellect to free itself from the concrete terms of physical objects and to engage the distinctive capabilities of the imagination as an internal sense. Thereby, the mind can variously combine what it has received through the senses to construct images and models with which the intellect can work on complex patterns of human relations and meaning.

A very general but suggestive analogy is the move from dancing to figure skating. In skating one is freed from the short strides and relatively slow speeds of the person on foot: one’s body is endowed with the long graceful strokes along with the velocity which make possible moves quite out of the question even for the gymnast or ballerina. In literature the Iliad and Odyssey, written in terms of the gods, illustrate what this can mean for the human spirit.

The progression of Kant’s Critiques gives a more properly philosophical insight into the possibilities opened by thinking in terms available not to the external senses, but to the imagination. Often imagination is considered ephemeral, unreal and distractive. In his first Critique Kant points out the actual role played by the imagination in the development of science. In his third Critique he points out its role in working out the alternatives essential for creative choice and especially for the deeper roots of freedom. It seems helpful then to step out of our chronological sequence at this point and to turn to Kant for help in reflecting upon the work of the imagination in order to draw out its essential role in freedom from other tasks at performs in human knowledge. This progression is analyzed in some detail in chapter IX below.

It is unfortunate that this range of Kant’s work had been so little appreciated. Until recently, the rationalist impact of Descartes directed almost exclusive attention to the first of Kant’s Critiques, namely, the Critique of Pure Reason, concerned with the conditions of possibility of the physical sciences. Its rejection of metaphysics as a science was warmly greeted in positivist and other materialist circles as a dispensation from any search beyond what was reductively sensible and, hence, phenomenal in the sense of being inherently spatial and/or temporal.

Kant himself, however, quite insisted upon going further. If the terms of the sciences were inherently phenomenal, then his justification of the sciences was precisely to identify and to justify, through metaphysical and transcendental deductions respectively, the sets of categories which enable the phenomenal world characterized by space and time to have intelligibility and scientific meaning. But since sense experience is always limited and partial, the universality and necessity of the laws of science must come from the human mind. Such a priori categories then belong properly to the subject precisely inasmuch as it is not material or spatio-temporal.

We are here at the essential turning point for the modern mind. Kant takes the definitive step in identifying the subject as more than a wayfarer in a world which it encounters as a given and to which one can but react. Rather, he shows the subject to be an active force engaged in the creation even of the empirical world in which it lives. The meaning or intelligible order of things is due not only to their creation according to a divine intellect, but also to the work of the human intellect and its categories. If, however, the human is to have such a central role in the constitution of this world, then certain human elements will be required, and their requirement itself will certify their reality.

In sum, in the first Critique it is the task of the reproductive imagination to bring together the multiple elements of sense intuition in some unity or order capable of being informed by a concept or category of the intellect with a view to making a judgment. On the part of the subject, the imagination here is active, authentically one’s own and creative. Ultimately, however, its work is not free, but necessitated by the categories or concepts as integral to the work of sciences which are characterized by necessity and universality.

In the third Critique, that of Aesthetic Judgment, the imagination has a similar task of constructing the object, but not in a manner necessitated by universal categories or concepts. In contrast, here the imagination, in working toward an integrating unity, is not confined by the necessitating structures of categories and concepts. It ranges freely over the full sweep of reality in all its dimensions to see whether and wherein relatedness and purposiveness or teleology can emerge so that the world and our personal and social life can achieve thereby its meaning and value. Hence, in standing before a work of nature or of art, the imagination might focus upon light or form, sound or word, economic or interpersonal relations. It can combine any of these as a natural environment or a society, whether encountered concretely or expressed in symbols.

Throughout all of this, the ordering and reordering by the imagination can bring about numberless unities. Unrestricted by any a priori categories, it can nevertheless integrate necessary dialectical patterns within its own free and, therefore, creative production; it can engage scientific universals within its unique concrete harmonies. This is properly creative work. More than merely evaluating all according to a set pattern in one’s culture, it can choose the values and order reality accordingly. This is the very constitution of a culture itself.

It is a productive, rather than merely reproductive, work of the human person living in his or her physical world. Here, I use the possessive form advisedly. Without this capacity one would exist in the physical universe as another object, not only subjected to its laws but restricted and possessed by them. One would be not a free citizen of the material world, but its mere functionary or servant. In contrast, in his third Critique Kant unfolds how one can truly be master of one’s life in this world, not by being arbitrary or destructive, but precisely as a creative artist bringing being to new realization in ways which constitute new growth in freedom.

Developing the level of aesthetic sensitivity enables one to take into account ever greater dimensions of reality and creativity and to imagine responses which are more rich in purpose, more adapted to present circumstances and more creative in promise for the future. This is manifest in a good leader such as a Churchill or Roosevelt — and, supereminently, in a Confucius or Christ. Their power to mobilize a people lies especially in their rare ability to assess the overall situation, to express it in a manner which rings true to the great variety of persons, and, thereby, to evoke appropriate and varied responses from each according to his or her capabilities. The danger is that the example of such genius will be reduced to formulae, become an ideology and exclude innovation. In reality, as personable, free and creative, and as understood precisely in terms of the aesthetic judgment in contrast to pure and practical reason, their example is inclusive in content and application as well as in the new responses it continually evokes from others.

Kant’s third Critique points in another direction. Though it integrates scientific universal and necessary social relations it does not focus upon them, nor does it focus directly upon the beauty or ugliness of concrete relations, or even directly upon beauty or ugliness as things in themselves. Its focus is rather upon our contemplation of the integrating images of these which we imaginatively create, that is, our culture as manifesting the many facets of beauty and ugliness, actual and potential. As noted above, the aesthetic evaluation of these is in terms of the free and integrating response of pleasure or displeasure, the enjoyment or revulsion they generate most deeply within our whole person. Confucius probably would feel very comfortable with this if stated in terms of an appreciation or feeling of harmony.

In this way, freedom itself at the height of its sensibility is not merely an instrument of a moral life, but serves through the imagination as a lens or means for presenting the richness of reality in varied and intensified ways. Freedom, thus understood, is both spectroscope and kaleidoscope of being. As spectroscope it unfolds the full range of the possiblities of human freedom, so that all can be examined, evaluated and admired. As kaleidoscope, it continually works out the endless combinations and patterns of reality so that the beauty of each can be examined, reflected upon and chosen when desired. Freely, purposively and creatively, imagination weaves through reality focusing now upon certain dimensions, now reversing its flow, now making new connections and interrelations. In the process reality manifests not only scientific forms and their potential interrelations, but its power to evoke our free response of love and admiration or of hate and disgust.

In this manner freedom becomes at once the goal, the creative source, the manifestation, the criterion and the arbiter of all that imaginatively we can propose. It is goal, namely to realize life as rational and free in this world; and it is creative source, for with the imagination it unfolds the endless possibilities for such human expression. It is also manifestation, because it presents these to our consciousness in ways appropriate to our capabilities for knowledge of limited realities and in the circumstances of our life. Moreover, it is criterion, because its response manifests a possible mode of action to be variously desirable or not in terms of a total personal response of pleasure or displeasure, enjoyment or revulsion; and finally it is arbiter, because it chooses to affirm or reject, to realize or avoid this mode of self-realization. In this way, freedom emerges as the dynamic center of our human existence. It can really be expected then that this power of creative freedom, when sparked by a new level of activity on the part of the imagination, will open a new way for the person to God.

As noted in Chapter I Piaget describes the dynamism of development as a process of moving from an equilibrium in which the multiple internal and external factors of one’s life are integrated, through a disequilibrium caused by the introduction of new factors, to a higher equilibrium by the development of new capabilities where necessary.

This primitive insight is the most fundamental, and the heart of all that subsequently will be developed in religious life and practice. It is so essential to each way to God which subsequently will unfold that it cannot be forgotten without that ceasing to be a way to God. From this follows the importance of Piaget’s observation that any transition must not discard, but retain the essence of the prior state, and add thereto new capabilities and insights to form a new mode of thinking, feeling and acting. One begins from the equilibrium of the prior state of harmony in God, and moves through a disequilibrium to reestablish the equilibrium at a higher level of conscious awareness.

This chapter and those that follow then are not about the addition of a new way to God alongside that which was described in totemic terms. Rather they are an evolution of that way. In the present case the move is from the equilibrium of the totemic state in which unity was stressed, through the disequilibrium introduced with the differentiation and specialization of roles, to a new equilibrium. Unity is continued, but by employing the work of imagination engages the developing diversity in order to form a more integrated and stable union. The totem had been able to provide for unity and meaning while the lives of all members of the tribe remained similar. But its manner of expressing unity became insufficient as society became more specialized and differentiated. The tribe came to depend not merely upon similarity and sameness, but upon the differentiated capabilities of, e.g., hunters, fishers and eventually farmers.

Such a transcendent reality could no longer be stated in terms of such physical realities as parrot or lion corresponding to the external senses, but rather was figured by the imagination. The terms drawn originally from the senses now were reconfigured in forms that expressed life which was above the human and served as the principle of human life. Such higher principles, as knowing and having the power of will, were personal; as transcending persons in these capabilities they were called gods.

It would be incorrect to consider this, as did Freud and Marx, to be simply a projection of human characteristics. On the contrary, the development of the ability to think in terms shaped by the imagination released human appreciation of the principle of life from the limitations of animals, birds and other natural entities available to the external senses. These had always been special: to eat or sell them was taboo. Now the imagination was engaged to allow the transcendence of the principle of unity to be expressed in a more effective manner. This did not create the sense of transcendence, but allowed the unique and essential foundation of human meaning of which Iqbal spoke to find new and improved expression through an evolution of human capabilities.

As the imagination was essentially involved in this, the personal divine was pictured in the anthropomorphic forms of gods, and their interaction was the material of which myths were woven. If the totem had been proto-religious, the myth was religious for it opened the mind to transcendent, if anthropomorphic, principles of life and meaning.

In contrast to the taboos and the social unity based upon an unthinking totem, the unity founded in the gods could have elements of comprehension and command, of love and mercy; it could extend to all humans while being specific with regard to each person.

To ask of those in this stage of equilibrium how this could be so would be to suppose a later and philosophical type of thinking. What is important for the present is that, having attained the mythic level of development, the peoples were able to articulate with vastly greater complexity the unity which had been expressed as simple and direct identity in the totem. That unity could now be textured or woven, as it were, with the many rich threads of meaning available by the work of the imagination expressed in myths.

Immanence. Myth added a new appreciation of transcendence to remembrance of the unity stated so forcefully in the totem as that in terms of which all has its meaning. To this dimension of transcendence there corresponds an appreciation of the immanence of the divine, for these two characteristics of transcendence and immanence are not opposed one to the other, but correlative. This is true throughout our experience: the more transcendent a reality the more present it is. Thus, organic material such as a stone simply rests upon the earth, whereas the plant sinks its roots into the immediate soil to draw nutrition and eventually enriches the soil, while the animal finds its water and nutrition over a broad territory. With persons and their cognitive and affective life this relation is vastly intensified, as can be seen in the pervasive mutual influence between teacher and student, or lover and beloved. Continuing in this same direction, it is possible to see as correlative both the infinite transcendence of the supreme principle of unity and meaning and its immanence.

This religious insight entails in turn the rich and sacred dignity of each person and of the social interaction of persons. Conversely, our self respect and the respect and love we extend to others constitute an immanent context for the discovery of the divine and for our response thereto.

In no way is this an alternative to what was made possible by the totemic way. All of that however now emerges with much greater articulation both as regards the divine and as regards the human wayfarer. Henceforth, in mythic cultures all will be understood in terms of the gods. The classical literature of Greece would be written exclusively in these terms — indeed, they had no other — and Homer would produce the Iliad and Odyssey as an irreplaceable, because unsurpassable, cornerstone of Western Culture, similar to the great Mahabarata epic of the East. We shall look into the Theogony in order to see more concretely this way to God, but first we must look more in detail into the nature of myth.

- An imaginative Consciousness: As noted above this is not intellectual knowledge as such, nor is it simply sense knowledge, but the intellect working according to, or in the terms presented by, the internal senses of memory and imagination. The imagination draws from the external senses information which it variously combines to constitute new integrated pictures. These, in turn, represent the external world not only as it already exists in itself, but also as it can be reordered and recombined by the human consciousness.

- Spontaneous Conceptions: Sensible realities are not first grasped directly in their own terms and then expressed through a god as their sign; instead, all is grasped in, and as, personal forms. E.g. the sea is not first known in its own right and then re-presented by Poseidon, rather the sea is Poseidon and Poseidon is sea: there is no other appreciation of sea separate from Poseidon.

- Persons: This enables the expression not only of some abstract empirical or physical data as would a thermometer or weather vane, but a joint cognitive, affective and behavioral involve-ment in reality. Myths express the meaning, value, purpose and creative contribution of the object. This can be appreciated by contrasting a weather report of a storm at sea with Homer’s much richer if less technically exact description of the struggle between Poseidon and Zephyr or Vaughn Williams’ "Sea Symphony".

- Events: What is important is not merely an individual, but the story line of the person’s interaction with other persons and with all parts of nature. Thus, in the Bible what is important is less the individual figure or verse than the story line recounting the work of divine Providence.

- Symbol: This is not a sign which it joined arbitrarily to that which is signifies, as green and red indicate respectively "go" and "stop" in traffic lights but could have been the converse. In contrast, a symbol participates in, or shares, the reality it symbolizes, bespeaking a mode of immanence as, e.g., with the flag of a nation.

Myths constitute a rational, though not a critical inquiry. It is not critical because they do not state things by their proper names, but rather by the names of the gods: e.g. the sea by Poseidon. Consequently, there can be no strict critical control over the conclusions to be drawn from the evidence.

Nevertheless, their thought content is rational and coordinated. The Theogony as we shall see is not just a random gathering of the names of the gods, but a systematic ordering in order to constitute an overall pattern conveying a deep sense of reality. Like the "days" of creation in the Genesis account, the sequence of the names and events may not be entirely consistent according to the laws of physics. But the Theogony and Genesis were not works of scientific cosmology; science had not yet developed and at the time was not a human capability. Nevertheless, myths were meant to convey deep and perduring truths, and were intentionally and effectively ordered to do so. Thus, in his Works and Days, the first treatise on labor, Hesiod found it necessary to identify vicious competition, for which there was no symbol, in order to contrast it to productive emulation symbolized by Eris. To do so he developed a sister goddess to Eris, a bad Eris. The rational content of the myths can be seen also in the Greeks articulation in terms of myth of a world view integrating the cosmos and humans. This was rich in expressing meaning and values and enabled people to live a human life in their physical and social unities. Indeed, it remains so indispensable a part of the world cultural heritage that broadly throughout the world today the Iliad is often the first book assigned in secondary school literature courses. It is a good place to begin an effort to be more richly human.

In sum, one might describe myth as a picturing understanding of reality in personal terms.

In view of what has been said above, the Theogony, written by Hesiod (ca. 776 B. C.), is especially illustrative. Because the gods stated the reality of the various parts of nature, when Hesiod undertook to state the relationship which obtained between them he undertook in effect to articulate the theme of this study, namely, the way in which all things constitute a royal road to the divine. Indeed, whereas much of later thought so isolated the human from the rest of nature that it would leave the wayfarer as a beleaguered pilgrim in an alien and threatening land, the myth spoke of all in terms of divinity. In this it is closer to the totem as regards ways to God and reflects a recognition of the sacredness of earth and of nature which is one the most exciting of the recent sensitivities emerging in this post ideological period (see, e.g., Vaclav Havel’s remarks on Gaia).

a. Exhortation to the Muses.

Hail, children of Zeus! Grant lovely song and celebrate the holy race of the deathless gods who are for ever, those that were born of Earth and starry Heaven and gloomy Night and them that briny Sea did rear. Tell how at the first gods and earth came to be, and rivers, and the boundless sea with its raging swell, and the gleaming stars, and the wide heaven above, and the gods who were born of them, givers of good things, and how they divided their wealth, and how they shared their honors amongst them, and also how at the first they took many-folded Olympus. These things declare to me from the beginning, ye Muses who dwell in the house of Olympus, and tell me which of them first came to be.

 

b. First came Chaos, then Earth and Heaven, the first parents of the Titans or elder gods.

Verily at the first Chaos came to be, but next wide-bosomed Earth, the ever-sure foundation of all the deathless ones who hold the peaks of snowy Olympus, and dim Tartarus in the depth of the wide-pathed Earth, and Eros (Love), fairest among the deathless gods, who unnerves the limbs and overcomes the minds and wise counsels of all gods and all men within them. From Chaos came forth Erebus and black Night; but of Night were born Aether and Day, whom she conceived and bare from union in love with Erebus. And Earth first bare starry Heaven, equal to herself, to cover her on every side, and to be an ever-sure abiding-place for the blessed gods. And she brought forth long Hills, graceful haunts of the goddess-Nymphs who dwell amongst the glens of the hills. She bare also the fruitless deep with his raging swell, Pontus, without sweet union of love. But afterwards she lay with Heaven and bare deep-swirling Oceanus, Coeus and Crius and Hyperion and Iapetus, Theia and Rhea, Themis and Mnemosyne and gold-crowned Pheobe and lovely Tethys. After them was born Cronus the wily, youngest and most terrible of her children, and he hated his lusty sire.

Diversity in Unity. The order which Hesiod states in the Theogony is the following. The first to appear was Chaos: "Verily at the first Chaos came to be." Then came earth: "but next wide-bosomed Earth the ever sure foundation of all," and starry Heaven: "Earth first bare starry Heaven, equal to herself." From Earth, generally in unison with Heaven, were born Oceanus and the various races of Cyclopes and gods, from whom, in turn, were born still other gods such as Zeus and the races of men. In this manner, Hesiod articulates the sequence of the origin of all parts of the universe. Eros and the various modalities, such as Night and Day, Fate and Doom, also are pictured as arising from Chaos.

If, then, we ask what is the understanding of reality expressed by this poem, it will be noted that Hesiod expresses the very opposite of a random gathering of totally disparate and equally original units. On the contrary, the relation between the gods and between the parts of nature they bespeak is expressed in terms of procreation. As a result, every reality is related positively to all the others in its genetic sequence.

This relatedness does not depend upon a later and arbitrary decision; it is equally original with their very reality: they originate genetically from, and in, this unity. Neither does it involve only certain aspects of the components of the universe; it extends to their total actuality, including their actions. Rhea, for example, appeals to her parents for protection from the acts of her husband, Cronus, against their children. The understanding which the poem conveys, therefore, is that of a unity or relation which originates with their very being and on which the distinctive beings and their actions depend.

Indeed, unity is understood to be by nature prior to diversity. This is indicated by the genetic character of the structure in which each god proceeds from the union of an earlier pair of gods, while all such pairs are descendants of the one original pair, Earth and Heaven. Further, the procreation of the gods proceeds from each of these pairs precisely as united in love. Finally, this is done under the unitive power of Eros, who is equally original with heaven and earth.

Note that there is a sequence: the text says that the gods "came to be" or "first came to be". Further, this is not a merely temporal, external or atomic sequence, but a genetic one. They "came forth from", bare or were born from. This extends through all the gods, who stand for all the parts of nature. Thus, the parts of nature have a meaning and cohesiveness among themselves and with humans who also were born in these genetic lines.

From what has been said we can conclude that unity pervades gods and men: all is traced back to Earth and Heaven as the original pair from whose union, under the impetus of Eros, all is generated.

Unity as Absolute. But what is the relation between Heaven and Earth? As the genetic lines derive from these two original gods, if these gods are related between themselves then each thing in the universe is related to everything else. But if heaven and earth are not related then each thing is related only to its own line, but is alien to the other half of reality, which then would be indifferent or even antipathetic.

The Greek answer, which is foundational for the sense of unity in Western civilization lies in the mythical relation of Heaven and Earth. This can take us to a still deeper understanding in which the unity of all reality constitutes a path to God provided we return to the text and use the proper etymological tools.

Further, Chaos is a space to which boundaries are essential. These boundaries, it would seem, are the gods which the text states just after Chaos, namely, Earth and its equal, Heaven. These are not said to have existed prior to chaos and to have been brought into position in order to constitute the boundaries of the ‘gap’; rather, they are said somehow to be arranged as contraries on the basis of chaos.

For its intelligibility, this implies: (a) that an undifferentiated unity precedes the gap, and (b) that by opening or division of this unity the first contrasting realities, namely, Heaven and Earth, were constituted. That is, on the basis of the gap one boundary, Heaven, is differentiated from the other boundary, Earth. Hence, by the gap the boundaries are identically both constituted and differentiated as contraries. As all else are derivatives of Chaos, Earth and Heaven in the manner noted above, it can be concluded that the entire differentiated universe is derivative of an original undifferentiated unity which preceded Chaos.

It would be premature, however, to ask of the mythic mind whether this derivation took place by material, formal or efficient causality; that question must await the development of philosophy. But clearly the original reality itself is not differentiated; it is an undivided unity. As such it is without name, for the names we give reflect our sense perceptions which concern not what is constant and homogenous, but the differentiated bases of the various sense stimuli. What is undifferentiated is not only unspoken in fact, but unspeakable in principle by the language of myth, for this depends essentially upon the imagination.

Nonetheless, though it is unspeakable by the mythic mind itself, reflection can uncover or reveal something of that undiffer-entiated reality which the Theogony implies. We have, for instance, noted its reality and unity. Its lack of differentiation is not a deficiency, but a fullness of reality and meaning from which all particulars and contraries are derived. It is unspeakable because not bounded, limited and related after the fashion of one imaged contrary to another. This is the transcendent fullness that is at the heart of the Hindu advaita or nondual philosophy; it is also the total infinite to which Iqbal referred as that which makes finite thinking possible.

It is the source of that which is seen and spoken in our language, and which Hindu thought refers to as the world of names and forms. Further, it is the source, not only from which the differentiated realities are derived, but of the coming forth itself of these realities. This is reflected in two significant manners. Positively, Eros, which itself is said to come from chaos, is the power which joins together in procreative union the pairs of gods, thereby reflecting the dynamic manifestive and sharing character of the undifferentiated reality.

Negatively, this is indicated also by the acts which the Theogony describes as evil. For example, it says that "Heaven rejoiced in his evil doing", namely, hiding away his children in a secret place of Earth as soon as each was born, and not allowing them to come into the light. Cronus is termed "a wretch" for swallowing his children. In each case evil is described as impeding the process by which new realities are brought into existence. This implies that its opposite, the good, involves essentially bringing forth the real. The undifferentiated unity is the origin of the multiple and differentiated; in terms we shall encounter below, it is participative.

Unity as Sharing. It can now be seen that all the progeny, that is, all parts of the universe and all humans, are born into the unity of a family. They trace their origin, not to a pair of ultimately alien realities and certainly not to chaos as conflict, but to undifferentiated Unity. Just as there is no autogenesis, there is no unrelated reality or aspect of reality. It would seem, then, that verses 118-128 of the hymn imply a reality which is one, undifferentiated and therefore unspeakable, but nonetheless essentially generous, sharing and productive of the multiple. For the Greek mythic mind then, beings are more one than many, more related than divided, more complementary than contrasting.

Thus far we have focused on unity, as our concern is especially with ways to God. We begin, perhaps too egocentrically, in our separate realities and look for our relation to the One. But the path that leads us there is in reality two way. We have found that it is more basically a genetic pathway coming from the One; this is its deeper truth. Hence, concern with the multiple realities and hence with individuality is integral to the concern of the Theogony which indicates much that is important thereto. But the key is its picturing of the multiple, both persons and parts of nature, as generated from the One. This has a number of implications.

First, it shows the One which is the source of all reality and hence reality itself to be expansive and generative, i.e., good. Second, it bespeaks participation, i.e., that it is of the nature of reality to share itself with others, to bear other identities as offspring which, in turn, share and bear still others.

From this it follows that the key to a good life is not holding off or refusing to share. Indeed, this is precisely the way evil is depicted: not as strife, but rather as hiding the children had by heaven and earth, and as Cronus swallowing his children as they came forth from Rhea so that they would not assume his office of king. Strife is not the source of evil, but follows from evil deeds as, e.g., the children of Cronus castrate him for having acted evilly. Thus, even negatively, the character of being is manifest to be good and sharing.

From this appears the proper basis of individuality. It is not opposition or selfish hording; rather individuals are significant to the degree that they participate, share and show forth the goodness of their divine origin.

In addition this affirmation of the distinctiveness of individuals is not absolute, but derivative. Their generation is via separation in, and of, the originally undifferentiated unity, it is carried out under the impulse of Eros as a unifying factor bringing together the gods in procreative union. Hence, contrary to Hobbes and his sense of man as wolf to man in a war of all against all, or to pragmatic cooperation only for some external, e.g. economic, benefit, individuals are not isolated, much less opposed to one another. Rather, they are in principle positively related and unitive. Hence, in sacramental practice matrimony always has been considered a sign of the church, which is Christ.

In sum, the overall picture is that of an original unity with many gods which, as with the parts of nature thy bespeak, come from the One via generative unions of the gods. This constitutes an open unity, parallel to that of all in the totem, but capable of taking explicit account of the differences in reality and integrating them. Finally, the identity of each is had not by holding to what it is, but in proclaiming, through sharing, what it has from the Divine. There is a strong sense of this in African cultures and in the image of the Cross as dying in order to live.

As a transformation of the earlier totemic structure, mythic understanding continues the basic totemic insight regarding the related character of all things predicated upon one center for the meaning of all. By thinking in terms of the gods, however, myth is able to add a number of important factors. First, quantitatively, the myth can integrate, not only a certain tribe or number of tribes, but the entire universe. Second, qualitatively, it can take account of such intentional realities as purpose, fidelity love and care. Third, while still affirming the unitive principle which had been expressed in totemic thought with shocking directness ("I am lion"), it expresses or connotes rather its transcendent, unspeakable, undifferentiated and generous character.

But mortals believe the gods to be created by birth, and to have their own (mortals’) raiment, voice and body (Fr. 14, Clement, Stromateis, V, 109, 2).

 

Aethiopians have gods with snub noses and black hair, Thracians have gods with grey eyes and red hair (Fr. 16, ibid., VII, 22, 1).

 

But if oxen (and horses) and lions had hands or could draw with hands and create works of art like those made by men, horses would draw pictures of gods like horses, and oxen of gods like oxen, and they would make the bodies (of their gods) in accordance with the form that each species itself possesses (Fr. 15, ibid., V, 109, 3).

 

Both Homer and Hesiod have attributed to the gods all things that are shameful and a reproach among mankind: theft, adultery, and mutual deception (Fr. 11, Sextus, Adv. Math., IX, 193).

 

In effect, the very principles of meaning and value had come to point as well to their opposites.

There is one god, among gods and men the greatest, not at all like mortals in body or in mind (Fr. 23, Clement, Strom., V, 109, 1).

 

He sees as a whole, thinks as a whole, and hears as a whole (Fr. 24, Sextus, Adv. Math., IX, 144).

 

And he always remains in the same place, not moving at all, nor is it fitting for him to change his position at different times (Fr. 26, Simplicius, Phys., 23, 11, 20).

 

But without toil he sets everything in motion, by the thought of his mind (Fr. 25, ibid., 23, 23, 20).

 

Philosophy as a distinct and proper discipline had begun. Proceeding in terms proper to the intellect, in time philosophy would supplant, but never eliminate, myth as the main mode of human understanding. Multiple new ways to God could then be elaborated.

1. Authur A. MacDonell, A Vedic Reader (Oxford: At the Clarendon Press, 1917), pp. 207-211. Citations from Rg Veda X, 129 will be taken from this text.

2. Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, trans. N.K. Smith (London: Macmillan, 1929), A 112; cf. A 121.

3. Ibid., A 121.

4. Donald W. Crawford, Kant’s Aesthetic Theory (Madison: University of Wisconsin, 1974), pp. 87-90.

5. Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, A 192-93.

6. Ibid., A112, 121, 192-193. Crawford, pp. 83-84, 87-90.

7. See Kant’s development and solution to the autonomy of taste, Critique of Judgment, nn. 57-58, pp. 182-192, where he treats the need for a concept; Crawford, pp. 63-66.

8. See the paper of Wilhelm S. Wurzer "On the Art of Moral Imagination" in G. McLean, ed., Moral Imagination and Character Development (Washington: The Council for Research in Values and Philosophy, 1992) for an elaboration of the essential notions of the beautiful, the sublime and taste in Kant’s aesthetic theory.

9. Immanuel Kant, First Introduction to the Critique of Judgment, trans. J. Haden (New York: Bobbs-Merrill, 1965).

10. William James, Pragmatism (New York: Washington Square, 1963), Ch. I, pp. 3-40. For notes on the critical hermeneutics of J. Habermas see G. McLean, "Cultural Heritage, Social Critique and Future Construction" in Culture, Human Rights and Peace in Central America, R. Molina, T. Readdy and G. McLean, eds. (Washington: Council for Research in Values, 1988), Ch. I. Critical distance is an essential element and requires analysis by the social sciences of the historical social structures as a basis for liberation from determination and dependence upon unjust interests. The concrete psycho- and socio-pathologies deriving from such dependencies and the corresponding steps toward liberation are the subject of the chapters by J. Loiacono and H. Ferrand de Piazza in The Social Context and Values: Perspectives of the Americas, G. McLean and O. Pegoraro, eds. (Washington: Council for Research in Values and Philosophy, 1988), Chs. III and IV.

11. (New York: Washington Square Press, 1966).

12. Exodus 20.

13. Vedanta Sutras, I, 1, 2.

14. I John: IV, 20.

15. How Natives Think, ch. XII.

16. Ibid.

17. Paul Tillich, "Theology and Symbolism," in Religious Symbolism, ed. F. Ernest Johnson (New York: Harper and Row, 1955), p. 109.

18. C. Kunhan Raja, Asya Vamasya Hymn (The Riddle of the Universe), Rgveda I-164 (Madras: Ganesh, 1956), pp. 5-6; see also G. McLean, Plenitude and Participation; The Unity of Man and God (Madras: University of Madras, 1978), pp. 34-38.

19. George F. McLean and Patrick Aspell, Ancient Western Philosophy (New York: Appleton, Century, Croft, 1972), p. 8. See also by the same authors Readings in Ancient Western Philosophy (New York: Appleton, Century, Croft, 1971) and Ernst Cassirer, Mythical Thought, vol. II of Philosophy of Symbolic Forms (New Haven, Conn.: Yale, 1965), pp. 3-59.

20. Theogony, n. 114, in Readings in Ancient Western Philosophy, p. 4.

21. Ibid., n. 115.

22. Werner Jaeger, The Theology of the Early Greek Philosophers (London: Oxford University Press, 1967), pp. 12-13.

23. Readings in Ancient Western Philosophy, p. 4.

24. Hesiod, The Theogony, trans. Hugh G. Evelyn-White (Loeb Classical Library; Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1964), pp. 85-99, 107-151.

25. E.H. Erikson, Childhood and Society (New York: Norton, 1963), p. 247; and Identity, Youth and Crisis (New York: Noton, 1968).

26. Jaeger, p. 13.

27. G.S. Kirk and J.E. Raven, The PreSocratic Philosophers (Cambridge: At the University Press, 1960), pp. 26-32.

28. Physics IV, 1, 208b31.

29. Hesiod, the Homeric Hymns and Homerica, trans. by H.G. Evelyn-White (London: Heinemann, 1920), p. 86.

30. Readings in Ancient Western Philosophy, p. 5.

31. Ibid., p. 31.

32. Ibid.

33. Ibid.