Such are the ideas which are expressed with so much splendor, elevation and poetry, in the Psalms—classic examples of the truly sublime—in the Prophets, and the sacred books in general. This recognition of the nothingness of things, of the greatness and omnipotence of God, of the unworthiness of man in his presence, the complaints, the lamentations, the outcry of the soul towards God, constitute their pathos and their sublimity. Of the Reflex Symbol. _Fable, Apologue, Allegory, etc._—We have run over the different forms which symbolism presents among the different people of the East, and we have seen it disappear in the sublime, which places the infinite so far above the finite that it can no longer be represented by sensuous forms, but only celebrated in its grandeur and its power. Before passing to another epoch of art, Hegel points out, as a transition from the oriental symbol to the Greek ideal, a mixed form whose basis is _comparison_. This form, which also belongs principally to the East, is manifested in different kinds of poetry, such as _the fable_, _the apologue_, _the proverb_, _allegory_, and _comparison_, properly so-called. The author develops in the following manner the nature of this form and the place which he assigns to it in the development of art: In the symbol, properly so-called, the idea and the form, although distinct and even opposed, as in the sublime, are reunited by an essential and necessary tie; the two elements are not strangers to one another, and the spirit seizes the relation immediately. Now the separation of the two terms, which has already its beginning in the symbol, ought also to be clearly effected, and find its place in the development of art. And as spirit works no longer spontaneously, but with reflection, it is also in a reflective manner that it brings the two terms together. This form of art, whose basis is comparison, may be called the _reflexive symbolic_ in opposition to the _irreflexive_ symbolic, whose principal forms we have studied. Thus, in this form of art, the connection of the two elements is no more, as heretofore, a connection founded upon the nature of the idea; it is more or less the result of an artificial combination which depends upon the will of the poet, or his vigor of imagination, and on his genius, for invention. Sometimes it starts from a sensuous phenomenon to which he lends a spiritual meaning, an idea, by making use of some analogy. Sometimes it is an idea which he seeks to clothe with a sensuous form, or with an image, by a certain resemblance. This mode of conception is clear but superficial. In the East it plays a distinct part, or appears to prevail as one of the characteristic traits of oriental thought. Later, in the grand composition of classic or romantic poetry, it is subordinated; it furnishes ornaments and accessories, allegories, images and metaphors; it constitutes secondary varieties.