over
the laws of time, by the figure of Zeus, which terminates the reign of
Saturn.

As long as man derives sensations from a contact with nature, he is her
slave; but as soon as he begins to reflect upon her objects and laws he
becomes her lawgiver. Nature, which previously ruled him as a power, now
expands before him as an object. What is objective to him can have no
power over him, for in order to become objective it has to experience his
own power. As far and as long as he impresses a form upon matter, he
cannot be injured by its effect; for a spirit can only be injured by that
which deprives it of its freedom. Whereas he proves his own freedom by
giving a form to the formless; where the mass rules heavily and without
shape, and its undefined outlines are for ever fluctuating between
uncertain boundaries, fear takes up its abode; but man rises above any
natural terror as soon as he knows how to mould it, and transform it into
an object of his art. As soon as he upholds his independence towards
phenomenal natures he maintains his dignity toward her as a thing of
power, and with a noble freedom he rises against his gods. They throw
aside the mask with which they had kept him in awe during his infancy,
and to his surprise his mind perceives the reflection of his own image.
The divine monster of the Oriental, which roams about changing the world
with the blind force of a beast of prey, dwindles to the charming outline
of humanity in Greek fable; the empire of the Titans is crushed, and
boundless force is tamed by infinite form.

But whilst I have been merely searching for an issue from the material
world, and a passage into the world of mind, the bold flight of my
imagination has already taken me into the very midst of the latter world.
The beauty of which we are in search we have left behind by passing from
the life of mere sensations to the pure form and to the pure object.
Such a leap exceeds the condition of human nature; in order to keep pace
with the latter we must return to the world of sense.

Beauty is indeed the sphere of unfettered contemplation and reflection;
beauty conducts us into the world of ideas, without however taking us
from the world of sense, as occurs when a truth is perceived and
acknowledged. This is the pure product of a process of abstraction from
everything material and accidental, a pure object free from every
subjective barrier, a pure state of self-activity without any admixture
of pa