Causality:

The relation of cause and effect

 

naturalistic:

pertaining to naturalists or natural history; a scientific approach to understanding.

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Destiny:

something that is to happen or has happened; lot or fortune; the predetermined, usually inevitable or irresistible, course of events.  Spengler uses it specifically to identify a model of thinking contrasting cause/effect or naturalistic approaches.

 

phenomenal world:

the world as it appears to human beings as a result of being structured by human understanding; the world as experienced, as opposed to the world of things-in-themselves.

 

Nature:

the material world, especially as surrounding humankind & existing independently of human activities.

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paradoxical:

proposition that seems self-contradictory or absurd but in reality expresses a possible truth

 

ahistorical:

without concern for history or historical development; indifferent to tradition

 

Hellenes:

The Greeks, usually a reference in the Greeks of the Classical age,

 

Dionysus:

in Greek religion and myth god of the grape harvest, winemaking and wine, of ritual madness, fertility, theatre & religious ecstasy .

 

Caesar: * see Endnote <A>

(100-44 BC) Roman general & politician, played critical role in the demise of the Roman Republic & rise of the Empire.  In 60 BC, Caesar, Crassus, & Pompey formed a political alliance that dominated Roman politics for several years.  After assuming control of government, Caesar began a programme of social and governmental reforms; In 44 BC, he was assassinated by a group of senators.

Venus:

Roman goddess of love, beauty, desire, sex, fertility, prosperity and victory; in Roman mythology, the mother of the Roman people through her son, Aeneas, who survived the fall of Troy and fled to Italy; central to many religious festivals & revered in Roman religion under numerous cult titles.  The Romans adapted the myths and iconography of her Greek counterpart Aphrodite.