In one word, so far as _content_ is here concerned, the Absolute itself, _the Lord of creation_, can no longer be conceived as the significance which Art seeks after. That this is so is rendered inevitable by the already obvious fact that on account of the severation of more concrete existence from the notion, and further, if only under the mode of comparison, the juxtaposition of both sides thus separated, the category of_finitude_ is there and then accepted by the artistic consciousness, in so far as it conceives this form as the real and ultimate one; and for this reason, moreover, the imagined significances, being selected wholly from the sphere of the finite, have no further association whatever with the Absolute as the fundamental significance of all created things. Sacred poetry stands out in entire contrast to this, for in this God is the exclusive significance of all things; as set over against Him, they have no stability at all, but vanish or are nothing. If, however, the significance is able to discover its image and parallel of resemblance in that which is itself essentially _restricted_ and finite, it follows that it must itself to that extent be limited in its range, as, in fact, it is in the type of symbolic conception which now occupies our attention, where that which is found is nothing more than an image, necessarily external to the content, selected purely at random by the poet for the sake of the _similarity_ it presents to the content, and as such regarded as relatively adequate thereto. For this reason there is but one trait left us in the comparative type of art, which is also shared by that of the Sublime, and it is this that every image, instead of embodying the fact and significance directly under a mode adequate to their full reality, is only taken to present an image and similitude of either. For these reasons this kind of symbolization is, if we conceive it apart as an independent whole, a generic class of subordinate rank. The form which it supplies is merely the descriptive selection of a portion of sensuous existence immediately perceived, or of a prosaic idea of the mind[79], in other words, the significance is expressly to be distinguished from it. And, further, in a measure such an employment of comparison in works of art, which are shaped out of homogeneous material, and in their specific form constitute an indivisible whole, can only assert itself as relatively valid, that is, as mere ornament and accessory, such as we find it, in fact, in the genuine products of classic and romantic art.