thought pure and simple, and instead of reducing the metaphysical antitheses to the transparent unity of comprehension, relapses into mere acceptance of a given reality. In some of these cases the full step into pure thought is never made. The creations of mythology, for example, display an unfinished and baffled attempt to rise from the separation of sense to the unity and organisation of thought. The gods of heathenism are only individuals--and individuals only _meant to be,_ and by the act of faith and devotion set forth as reality before the worshipper: but they are individuals in which imagination embodies a unified and centralised system of forces or principles. They _mean_ the powers of nature and of mind, but the sceptre in their hands is only a sign of power attributed by the believer; and far away, encompassing alike them and him, is the great relentless necessity. In other cases there is a relapse: when the higher stage of thought has been attained, it is instantaneously lost. Terms which are really thoughts are again reduced to the level of the things of sense, individualised in some object, which, though it is only a representation or sign, is allowed to usurp the place of the thought which it but partially and by extraneous institution embodies. The intuition of the sensuous imagination at every step throws its spells on the products of thought, and turns them into a representative picture, which in popular use and wont occupies the place of the notion. Instead of being retained in their native timelessness, the terms of the Idea are brought under the laws of Sense-perception, under the conditions of space and time.