one.

The Hellenic belief in deities was pandemonistic and cosmic;
Christianity, in its original tendency, anti-cosmic and hostile to
Nature. And Nature, like the world at large, only existed for it in
relation to its Creator, and was no longer 'the great mother of all
things,' but merely an instrument in the hands of Providence.

The Greek looked at phenomena in detail, in their inexhaustible
variety, rarely at things as a whole; the Christian considered Nature
as a work of God, full of wonderful order, in which detail had only
the importance of a link in a chain.

As Lotze says, 'The creative artistic impulse could be of no use to a
conception of life in which nothing retained independent
significance, but everything referred to or symbolized something
else.' But yet, the idea of individuality, of the importance of the
ego, gained ground as never before through this introspection and
merging of material in spiritual, this giving spirit the exclusive
sway; and Christianity, while it broke down the barriers of nation,
race, and position, and widened the cleft between Nature and spirit,
discovered at the same time the worth of the individual.

And this individuality was one of the chief steps towards an
artistic, that is, individual point of view about Nature, for it was
not possible to consider her freely and for her own sake alone, until
the unlimited independence of mind had been recognized.

But the full development of Christianity was only reached when it
blended with the Germanic spirit, with the German Gemueth (for which
no other language has a word), and intensified, by so doing, the
innately subjective temperament of the race.

The northern climate gives pause for the development of the inner
life; its long bleak winter, with the heavy atmosphere and slow
coming of spring, wake a craving for light and warmth, and throw man
back on himself. This inward inclination, which made itself felt very
early in the German race, by bringing out the contemplative and
independent sides of his character, and so disinclining him for
combined action with his fellows, forwarded the growth of the
over-ripe seeds of classic culture and vital Christianity.

The Romanic nations, with their brilliant, sharply-defined landscape
and serene skies, always retained something of the objective delight
in life which belonged to antiquity; they never felt that mysterious
impulse towards dreams and enthusiastic longing which the Norther