At any rate they were the work of an artist, and when we think of the
joy they must have spread among wondering mankind, we cannot wonder
that such an artist was made a god. It was an artist, too, who created
the unchanging thing;[45] who created every kind of permanency, _i.e._
Stability out of Evolution, and among other unchangeable things, the
soul of man, which was perhaps the greatest artistic achievement that
has ever been accomplished.
And this Man-God who created Being--that is to say, a stable world,
a world which can be reckoned with, and in which the incessant
kaleidoscopic character of things is entirely absent--this same
Man-God who found the earth "without form" and "void," and whose
magnificent Spirit "moved upon the face of the waters"; when people
grew too weak to look upon him as their brother and God at the same
time,[46] was relegated to his own world, and from a great distance they
now pray to him and worship him and say: "For Thine is the Kingdom, the
Power and the Glory, For ever and ever. Amen."
"For ever and ever;" this was something they could not say of the world
as it is; and the thought of stability and of Being was a delight to
them.
It may be difficult for us to picture how great the rejoicings must
have been which followed upon every fresh ordering and arranging of the
universe, every fresh interpretation of the world in the terms of man.
Perhaps only a few people to-day, who are beginning to cast dubious
glances at Life, and to question even the justification of man's
existence, may be able to form some conception of the thrill that must
have passed through an ancient community, when one of its higher men
uprose and ordered and adjusted Life for them, and, in so ordering it,
transfigured it.
How much richer they must have felt! And how inseparable the two
notions "artist" and "giver" must have appeared to them!
"If indeed this is Life," they must have said; "if Life is really as he
orders it"--and his voice and eye allowed them to prefix no such "if"
with genuine scepticism--"then of a truth it is a well of delight and
a fountain of blessedness."
Thus Art--this function which "is with us in order that we may not
perish through truth,"[47] this "enhancement of the feeling of Life and
Life's stimulant,"[48] which "acts as a tonic, increases strength and
kindles desire"[49]--became the "great seducer" to earth and to the world;[50]
and we can imagine the gratitude that swelled in the hearts of men
for him whose function it was. How could he help but become a god!
Even tradition was not necessary for this. For at the very moment when
his creative spirit lent its glory to the earth, man must have been
conscious of his divinity or of his use as a mouthpiece by a Divinity.[50]
"O, Lord Varuna, may this song go well to thy heart!" sang the
ancient Hindus.
"Thou who knowest the place of the birds that fly through the sky, who
on the waters knowest the ships.