What is man before beauty liberates him from free pleasure, and the serenity of form tames down the savageness of life?  Eternally uniform in his aims, eternally changing in his judgments, self-seeking without being himself, unfettered without being free, a slave without serving any rule.  At this period, the world is to him only destiny, not yet an object; all has existence for him only in as far as it procures existence to him; a thing that neither seeks from nor gives to him is non-existent.  Every phenomenon stands out before him, separate and cut off, as he finds himself in the series of beings.  All that is, is to him through the bias of the moment; every change is to him an entirely fresh creation, because with the necessary in him, the necessary out of him is wanting, which binds together all the changing forms in the universe, and which holds fast the law on the theatre of his action, while the individual departs.  It is in vain that nature lets the rich variety of her forms pass before him; he sees in her glorious fulness nothing but his prey, in her power and greatness nothing but his enemy.  Either he encounters objects, and wishes to draw them to himself in desire, or the objects press in a destructive manner upon him, and he thrusts them away in dismay and terror.  In both cases his relation to the world of sense is immediate contact; and perpetually anxious through its pressure, restless and plagued by imperious wants, he nowhere finds rest except in enervation, and nowhere limits save in exhausted desire.

    “True, his is the powerful breast and the mighty hand of the
       Titans... 
     A certain inheritance; yet the god welded
     Round his forehead a brazen band;
     Advice, moderation, wisdom, and patience,—­
     Hid it from his shy, sinister look. 
     Every desire is with him a rage,
     And his rage prowls around limitless.”—­“Iphigenia in Tauris”

Ignorant of his own human dignity, he is far removed from honouring it in others, and conscious of his own savage greed, he fears it in every creature that he sees like himself.  He never sees others in himself, only himself in others, and human society, instead of enlarging him to the race, only shuts him up continually closer in his individuality.  Thus limited, he wanders through his sunless life, till favouring nature rolls away the load of matter from his darkened senses, reflection separates him from things, and objects show themselves at length in the after-glow of the consciousness.

It is true we cannot point out this state of rude nature as we have here portrayed it in any definite people and age.  It is only an idea, but an idea with which experience agrees most closely in special features.  It may be said that man was never in this animal condition, but he has not, on the other hand, ever entirely escaped from it.  Even in the rudest subjects, unmistakable traces of rational