Page:Psychology of the Unconscious (1916).djvu/571

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pp. 87-126]
THE SONG OF THE MOTH
501

is the material god; to a certain extent the visible lieutenant of the divinity. Concerning the confusion between Christ and Sol, see below.

22 Compare Freud: "Three Contributions to the Sexual Theory."

23 Renan ("Dialogues et fragments philosophiques," p. 168) says: "Before religion had reached the stage of proclaiming that God must be put into the absolute and ideal, that is to say, beyond this world, one worship alone was reasonable and scientific: that was the worship of the sun."

24 Buber: "Ekstat. Konfess.," p. 51 and on.

25 "Liebesgesänge an Gott," cited by Buber: "Ekstat. Konfess.," p. 40. An allied symbolism is found in Carlyle: "The great fact of existence is great to him. Fly as he will, he can not get out of the awful presence of this reality. His mind is so made; he is great by that first of all. Fearful and wonderful, real is life, real is death, is this universe to him. Though all men should forget its truth, and walk in a vain show, he can not. At all moments the Flame-image glares in upon him" ("Heroes and Hero-Worship").

One can select from literature at random. For example, S. Friedländer (Berlin-Halensee) says in Jugend, 1910, No. 35, p. 823: "Her longing demands from the beloved only the purest. Like the sun, it burns to ashes with the flame of excessive life, which refuses to be light," and so on.

26 Buber: Ibid., p. 45.

27 I emphasize this passage because its idea contains the psychological root of the "Wandering of the soul in Heaven," the conception of which is very ancient. It is a conception of the wandering sun which from its rising to its setting wanders over the world. The wandering gods are representations of the sun, that is, symbols of the libido. This comparison is indelibly impressed in the human phantasy as is shown by the poem of Wesendonck:

Grief.

The sun, every evening weeping,
Reddens its beautiful eyes for you;
When early death seizes you,
Bathing in the mirror of the sea.
Still in its old splendor
The glory rises from the dark world;
You awaken anew in the morning
Like a proud conqueror.
Ah, why then should I lament,
When my heart, so heavy, sees you?
Must the sun itself despair?
Must the sun set?
And does death alone bear life?
Do griefs alone give joys?
O, how grateful I am that
Such pains have given me nature!

Another parallel is in the poem of Ricarda Huch:

As the earth, separating from the sun,
Withdraws in quick flight into the stormy night,