September 3, 2025 • 32 mins
Dive into Hegels enlightening lectures on the philosophy of world history, crafted to ease students into his complex ideas. Hegels engaging discourse sheds light on accessible themes like world events while he intricately defines and explores the concept of Geist, or spirit. This notion reflects the evolving culture of humanity, continuously adapting to societal changes while simultaneously driving those transformations through what Hegel termed the cunning of reason. A significant focus of the text is on world history rather than confined regional narratives. Influenced by the enigmatic writings of Jakob Bhme and captivated by the thoughts of Spinoza, Kant, Rousseau, and Goethe, Hegel examined the contradictions of modern philosophy and society. He sought to interpret these tensions‚like those between knowledge and faith, freedom and authority‚as part of a comprehensive, evolving rational unity he called the absolute idea or absolute knowledge. This unity emerges through contradiction and negation, leading to an uplifting resolution that preserves these conflicts as integral phases of development. Ultimately, Hegel posits that this rational, self-conscious whole is realized through individual minds, culminating in a collective understanding of this intricate developmental process. (summary by Wikipedia and D.E. Wittkower)
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
The Course of the World's History subsection one. This is
a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain.
For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org.
Introduction to the Philosophy of History by Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel.
(00:27):
The Course of the World's History sub Section one. The
mutations which history presents have been long characterized in the
general as in advance to something better, more perfect. The
changes that take place in nature, how infinitely manifold, soever
(00:49):
they may be, exhibit only a perpetually self repeating cycle.
In nature, there happens nothing new under the sun, and
the multiform play of its phenomena so far induces a
feeling of anui. Only in those changes which take place
in the region of spirit does anything new arise. This
(01:13):
peculiarity in the world of mind, as indicated in the
case of man, an altogether different destiny from that of
merely natural objects, in which we find always one and
the same stable character to which all change reverts, namely,
a real capacity for change, and that for the better,
(01:37):
an impulse of perfectibility. This principle, which reduces change itself
under a law, has met with an unfavorable reception from
religions such as the Catholic and from states claiming as
their just right. A stereotyped or at least a stable
(01:58):
position if the mutability of worldly things in general political constitutions,
for instance, is conceded, either religion as the religion of
truth is absolutely accepted, or the difficulty escaped by ascribing changes, revolutions,
(02:20):
and abrogations of immaculate theories and institutions to accidents or imprudence,
but principally to the levity and evil passions of man.
The principle of perfectibility, indeed, is almost as indefinite a
term as mutability. In general. It is without scope or goal,
(02:44):
and has no standard by which to estimate the changes
in question. The improved, more perfect state of things towards
which it professedly tends is altogether undetermined. The principle of
development involves, all so the existence of a latent germ
of being, a capacity or potentiality striving to realize itself.
(03:11):
This formal conception finds actual existence in spirit, which has
the history of the world for its theater, its possession,
and the sphere of its realization. It is not of
such a nature as to be tossed to and fro
amid the superficial play of accidents, but is rather the
absolute arbiter of things, entirely unmoved by contingencies, which indeed
(03:37):
it applies and manages for its own purposes. Development, however,
is also a property of organized natural objects. Their existence
presents itself not as an exclusively dependent one subjected to
external changes, but as one which expands itself in virtue
(04:01):
of an internal, unchangeable principle. A simple essence whose existence,
that is, as a germ, is primarily simple, but which
subsequently develops a variety of parts that become involved with
other objects and consequently live through a continuous process of changes,
(04:25):
a process, nevertheless, that results in the very contrary of change,
and is even transformed into a vist conservatrix of the
organic principle and the form embodying it. Thus, the organized
individuum produces itself. It expands itself actually to what it
(04:46):
was always potentially. So spirit is only that which it
attains by its own efforts. It makes itself actually what
it always was potentially. That develop of natural organisms takes
place in a direct, unopposed unhindered manner between the idea
(05:10):
and its realization. The essential constitution of the original germ
and the conformity to it of the existence derived from it,
no disturbing influence can intrude, but in relation to Spirit
it is quite otherwise. The realization of its idea is
mediated by consciousness and will. These very faculties are, in
(05:33):
the first instance, sunk in their primary merely natural life.
The first object and goal of their striving is the
realization of their merely natural destiny, but which, since it
is spirit that animates it, is possessed of vast attractions
and displays great power and moral richness. Thus Spirit is
(05:57):
at war with itself. It has to overcome itself as
its most formidable obstacle. That development, which in the sphere
of nature is a peaceful growth, is in that of Spirit,
a severe, mighty conflict with itself. What Spirit really strives
(06:17):
for is the realization of its ideal being, but in
doing so, it hides that goal from its own vision,
and is proud and well satisfied in this alienation from it.
Its expansion therefore does not present the harmless tranquility of
mere growth, as does that of organic life. But a stern,
(06:39):
reluctant working against itself. It exhibits, moreover, not the mere
formal conception of development, but the attainment of a definite result.
The goal of attainment we determined at the outset. It
is spirit in its completeness, in its essential nature, that
is freedom. This is the fundamental object, and therefore also
(07:05):
the leading principle of the development that whereby it receives
meaning and importance. As in the Roman history, Rome is
the object. Consequently, that which directs our consideration of the
facts related. As conversely, the phenomena of the process have
resulted from this principle alone, and only as referred to
(07:27):
it possess a sense and value. There are many considerable
periods in history in which this development seems to have
been intermitted, in which we might rather say, the whole
enormous gain of previous culture appears to have been entirely lost,
(07:49):
after which, unhappily, a new commencement has been necessary made
in the hope of recovering by the assistance of some
remains saved from the wreck of former civilization, and by
dint of a renewed, incalculable expenditure of strength and time,
one of the regions which had been an ancient possession
(08:10):
of that civilization. We behold also continued processes of growth, structures,
and systems of culture, in particular spheres rich in kind
and well developed in every direction. The merely formal and
indeterminate view of development in general can neither assign to
(08:31):
one form of expansion superiority over the other, nor render
comprehensible the object of that decay of older periods of growth,
but must regard such occurrences, or, to speak more particularly,
the retrocessions they exhibit, as external contingencies, and can only
(08:52):
judge of particular modes of development from indeterminate points of view, which,
since the development as such is all in all, are
relative and not absolute goals of attainment. Universal history exhibits
the gradation in the development of that principle whose substantial
(09:13):
purport is the consciousness of freedom. The analysis of the
successive grades in their abstract form belongs to logic in
their concrete aspect to the philosophy of spirit. Here it
is sufficient to state that the first step in the
process presents that immersion of spirit in nature which has
(09:37):
been already referred to. The second shows it as advancing
to the consciousness of its freedom. But this initial separation
from nature is imperfect and partial, since it is derived
immediately from the merely natural state, is consequently related to it,
and is still encumbered with it as an essentially connected element.
(10:01):
The third step is the elevation of the soul from
this still limited and special form of freedom to its
pure universal form, that state in which the spiritual essence
attains the consciousness and feeling of itself. These grades are
the ground principles of the general process. But how each
(10:22):
of them, on the other hand, involves within itself a
process of formation, constituting the links in a dialectic of transition.
To particularize this must be reserved for the sequel. Here
we have only to indicate that spirit begins with a
germ of infinite possibility, but only possibility, containing its substantial
(10:47):
existence in an undeveloped form, as the object and goal,
which it reaches only in its resultant full reality in
actual existence. Progress appears as an advancing from the imperfect
to the more perfect. But the former must not be
understood abstractly as only the imperfect, but as something which
(11:10):
involves the very opposite of itself. The so called perfect
as a germ or impulse, so reflectively, at least possibility
points to something destined to become actual. The Aristotelian dunamis
is also potentsia, power and might. Thus the imperfect as
(11:36):
involving its opposite, is a contradiction which certainly exists, but
which is continually annulled and solved. The instinctive movement, the
inherent impulse in the life of the soul to break
through the rind of mere nature, sensuousness, and that which
is alien to it, and to attain to the light
(12:00):
of consciousness, that is, to itself. We have already made
the remark how the commencement of the history of Spirit
must be conceived so as to be in harmony with
its idea, in its bearing on the representations that have
been made of a primitive natural condition in which freedom
(12:22):
and justice are supposed to exist or to have existed.
This was, however, nothing more than an assumption of historical existence,
conceived in the twilight of theorizing reflection, a pretension of
quite another order, not a mere inference of reasoning, but
making the claim of historical fact, and that supernaturally confirmed
(12:46):
is put forth in connection with a different view that
is now widely promulgated by a certain class of speculatists.
This view takes up the idea of the primitive, paradisiacal
can condition of man, which had been previously expanded by
the Theologians after their fashion, involving, for example, the supposition
(13:09):
that God spoke with Adam and Hebrew, but remodeled to
suit other requirements. The high authority appealed to in the
first instance is the Biblical narrative. But this depicts the
primitive condition partly only in the few well known traits,
but partly either as in man generically human nature at large,
(13:33):
or so far as Adam is to be taken as
an individual and consequently one person, as existing and completed
in this one or only in one human pair. The
Biblical account by no means justifies us in imagining a
people and an historical condition of such people existing in
(13:55):
that primitive form. Still less does it warrant us in
attributing to them the possession of a perfectly developed knowledge
of God and nature. Nature. So the fiction runs like
a clear mirror of God's creation had originally lain revealed
and transparent to the unclouded eye of man. Footnote confer
(14:20):
Friedrich Fonschlegel's philosophy of history and footnote. Divine truth is
imagined to have been equally manifest. It is even hinted,
though left in some degree of obscurity, that in this
primary condition, men were in possession of an indefinitely extended
(14:42):
and already expanded body of religious truths immediately revealed by God.
This theory affirms that all religions had their historical commencement
in this primitive knowledge, and that they polluted and obscured
the original truth by the monstrous creations of error and depravity.
(15:04):
Though in all the mythologies invented by error, traces of
that origin and of those primitive true dogmas are supposed
to be present and cognizable. An important interest therefore accrues
to the investigation of the history of ancient peoples, that namely,
of the endeavor to trace their annals up to the
(15:26):
point where such fragments of the primary revelation are to
be met with in greater purity than lower down. We
owe to the interest which has occasioned these investigations very
much that is valuable. But this investigation bears direct testimony
against itself, for it would seem to be awaiting the
(15:49):
issue of an historical demonstration of that which is presupposed
by it as historically established that advanced case condition of
the knowledge of God and of other scientific for example,
astronomical knowledge, such as has been falsely attributed to the Hindus,
(16:11):
and the assertion that such a condition occurred at the
very beginning of history, or that the religions of various
nations were traditionally derived from it and have developed themselves
in degeneracy and deprivation, as is represented in the rudely
conceived so called emanation system. All these are suppositions which
(16:33):
neither have nor, if we may contrast with their arbitrary
subjective origin, the true conception of history can attain historical confirmation.
The only consistent and worthy method which philosophical investigation can
adopt is to take up history where rationality begins to
(16:57):
manifest itself in the act virtual conduct of the world's affairs,
not where it is merely an undeveloped potentiality, where a
condition of things is present in which it realizes itself
in consciousness, will and action, the inorganic existence of spirit,
(17:21):
that of abstract freedom, unconscious torpidity, and respect to good
and evil and consequently to laws, or if we please
determine so, blessed ignorance is itself not a subject of history.
Natural and at the same time, religious morality is the
(17:45):
piety of the family. In this social relation, morality consists
in the members behaving towards each other, not as individuals,
possessing an independent will, not as persons. The family therefore
is excluded from that process of development in which history
(18:05):
takes its rise. But when this self involved spiritual unity
steps beyond this circle of feeling and natural love and
first attains the consciousness of personality, we have that dark,
dull center of indifference, in which neither nature nor spirit
is open and transparent, and for which nature and spirit
(18:29):
can become open and transparent only by means of a
further process, a very lengthened culture of that will at
length become self conscious. Consciousness alone is clearness, and is
that alone for which God or any other existence can
(18:52):
be revealed in its true form. In absolute universality, nothing
can be manifested except to consciousness made precipient of it.
Freedom is nothing but the recognition and adoption of such universal,
substantial objects as right and law and the production of
(19:16):
a reality that is accordant with them. The state. Nations
may have passed a long life before arriving at this
their destination, and during this period they may have attained
considerable culture in some directions. This antehistorical period, consistently with
(19:39):
what has been said, lies out of our plan. Whether
a real history followed it, or the people in question
never attained a political constitution. It is a great discovery
in history as of a new world which has been
made within rather more than the last twenty years, respect
(20:00):
the Sanskrit and the connection of the European languages with it.
In particular, the connection of the German and Indian peoples
has been demonstrated with as much certainty as such subjects
allow of. Even at the present time, we know of
peoples which scarcely form a society, much less a state,
(20:24):
but that have been long known as existing. While with
regard to others which in their advanced condition excite our
especial interest, tradition reaches beyond the record of the founding
of the state, and they experienced many changes prior to
that epoch. In the connection just referred to between the
(20:47):
languages of nations, so widely separated. We have a result
before us which proves the diffusion of those nations from
Asia as a center, and the soimilar development of what
had been originally related as an incontestable fact, not as
an inference deduced by that favorite method of combining and
(21:10):
reasoning from circumstances, grave and trivial, which has already enriched
and will continue to enrich history with so many fictions
given out as facts. But that apparently so extensive range
of events lies beyond the pale of history, in fact
(21:33):
preceded it. In our language the term history translator's note
German geshichte from geshehen to happen and translator's note unites
the objective with the subjective side, and denotes quite as
(21:57):
much the historia rerum gestarum as the race guesstay themselves.
On the other hand, it comprehends not less what has
happened than the narration of what has happened. This union
of the two meanings we must regard as a higher
order than mere outward accident. We must suppose historical narrations
(22:20):
to have appeared contemporaneously with historical deeds and events. It
is an internal vital principle common to both that produces
them synchronously. Family memorials patriarchal conditions have an interest confined
to the family and the clan. The uniform course of
(22:44):
events which such a condition implies is no subject of
serious remembrance, though distinct transactions or turns of fortune may
arouse nemosine to form conceptions of them, in the same
way as love and the religious emotions provoke imagination to
give shape to a previously formless impulse. But it is
(23:06):
the state which first presents subject matter that is not
only adapted to the prose of history, but involves the
production of such history in the very progress of its
own being. Instead of merely subjective mandates on the part
of government sufficing for the needs of the moment, a
community that is acquiring a stable existence and exalting itself
(23:28):
into a state requires formal commands and laws, comprehensive and
universally binding prescriptions, and thus produces a record, as well
as an interest concerned with intelligent, definite and in their results,
lasting transactions and occurrences on which nemoseny for the behoof
(23:50):
of the perennial object of the formation and constitution of
the state is impelled to confer perpetuity. Profound sentiments, generally
such as that of love, as also religious intuition, and
its conceptions are in themselves complete, constantly present, and satisfying.
(24:13):
But that outward existence of a political constitution, which is
enshrined in its rational laws and customs, is an imperfect
present and cannot be thoroughly understood without a knowledge of
the past. The periods, whether we suppose them to be
(24:34):
centuries or millennia, that were passed by nations before history
was written among them, and which may have been filled
with revolutions, nomadic wanderings, and the strangest mutations, are on
that very account destitute of objective history, because they present
no subjective history, no annals. We need not suppose that
(24:59):
the wrec words of such periods have accidentally perished, Rather
because they were not possible do we find them wanting.
Only in a state cognizant of laws can distinct transactions
take place, accompanied by such a clear consciousness of them
as supplies the ability and suggests the necessity of an
(25:22):
enduring record. It strikes everyone in beginning to form an
acquaintance with the treasures of Indian literature. That a land
so rich in intellectual products and those of the profoundest
order of thought, has no history, and in this respect
contrasts most strongly with China, an empire possessing one so
(25:48):
remarkable one going back to the most ancient times. India
has not only ancient books relating to religion and splendid
poetical production, but also ancient codes, the existence of which
latter kind of literature has been mentioned as a condition
necessary to the origination of history. And yet history itself
(26:13):
is not found. But in that country the impulse of organization,
in beginning to develop social distinctions, was immediately petrified in
the merely natural classification according to Castes, so that although
the laws concern themselves with civil rights, they make even
(26:34):
these dependent on natural distinctions, and are especially occupied with
determining the relations wrongs rather than rights, of those classes
towards each other, that is, the privileges of the higher
over the lower. Consequently, the element of morality is banished
(26:57):
from the pomp of Indian life and from its polite
letical institutions. Where that iron bondage of distinctions derived from
nature prevails, the connection of society is nothing but wild arbitrariness,
transient activity, or rather the play of violent emotion, without
any goal of advancement or development. Therefore no intelligent reminiscence,
(27:23):
no object for namosine presents itself and imagination confused, though profound,
expatiates in a region which to be capable of history
must have had an aim within the domain of reality
and at the same time of substantial freedom. Since such
(27:47):
are the conditions indispensable to a history. It has happened
that the growth of families to clans, of clans to peoples,
and their local diffusion consequent upon this numerical increase, a
series of facts which itself suggests so many instances of
social complication, war, revolution, and ruin, a process which is
(28:13):
so rich in interest and so comprehensive in extent, has
occurred without giving rise to history. Moreover, that the extension
and organic growth of the empire of articulate sounds has
itself remained voiceless and dumb, a stealthy, unnoticed advance. It
(28:37):
is a fact revealed by philological monuments that languages, during
a rude condition of the nations that have spoken them,
have been very highly developed, that the human understanding occupied
this theoretical region with great ingenuity and completeness. For grammar
(28:59):
in its extended and consistent form is the work of thought,
which makes its categories distinctly visible Therein. It is moreover
a fact that with advancing social and political civilization, this
systematic completeness of intelligence suffers attrition, and language thereupon becomes
(29:23):
poorer and ruder. A singular phenomenon that the progress towards
a more highly intellectual condition, while expanding and cultivating rationality,
should disregard that intelligent amplitude and expressiveness should find it
an obstruction and contrive to do without it. Speech is
(29:48):
the act of theoretic intelligence in a special sense. It
is its external manifestation. Exercises of memory and imagination without
language are direct, non speculative manifestations. But this act of
(30:09):
theoretic intelligence itself, as also its subsequent development and the
more concrete class of facts connected with it, namely the
spreading of peoples over the earth, their separation from each other,
their comminglings and wanderings, remain involved in the obscurity of
(30:29):
a voiceless past. They are not acts of will. Becoming
self conscious of freedom mirroring itself in a phenomenal form
and creating for itself a proper reality. Not partaking of
this element of substantial, veritable existence, these nations, notwithstanding the
(30:53):
development of language among them, have never advanced to the
possession of a history. The rapid growth of language and
the progress and dispersion of nations assume importance and interest
for concrete reason only when they have come in contact
with states or begin to form political constitutions themselves. After
(31:21):
these remarks relating to the form of the commencement of
the world's history and to that antehistorical period which must
be excluded from it, we have to state the direction
of its course, though here only formally. The further definition
of the subject in the concrete comes under the head
(31:43):
of arrangement end the Course of the World's History sub
Section one. This recording is in the public domain. Give
Drinking King during dry and drink
The Course of the World's History subsection one. This is
a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain.
For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org.
Introduction to the Philosophy of History by Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel.
(00:27):
The Course of the World's History sub Section one. The
mutations which history presents have been long characterized in the
general as in advance to something better, more perfect. The
changes that take place in nature, how infinitely manifold, soever
(00:49):
they may be, exhibit only a perpetually self repeating cycle.
In nature, there happens nothing new under the sun, and
the multiform play of its phenomena so far induces a
feeling of anui. Only in those changes which take place
in the region of spirit does anything new arise. This
(01:13):
peculiarity in the world of mind, as indicated in the
case of man, an altogether different destiny from that of
merely natural objects, in which we find always one and
the same stable character to which all change reverts, namely,
a real capacity for change, and that for the better,
(01:37):
an impulse of perfectibility. This principle, which reduces change itself
under a law, has met with an unfavorable reception from
religions such as the Catholic and from states claiming as
their just right. A stereotyped or at least a stable
(01:58):
position if the mutability of worldly things in general political constitutions,
for instance, is conceded, either religion as the religion of
truth is absolutely accepted, or the difficulty escaped by ascribing changes, revolutions,
(02:20):
and abrogations of immaculate theories and institutions to accidents or imprudence,
but principally to the levity and evil passions of man.
The principle of perfectibility, indeed, is almost as indefinite a
term as mutability. In general. It is without scope or goal,
(02:44):
and has no standard by which to estimate the changes
in question. The improved, more perfect state of things towards
which it professedly tends is altogether undetermined. The principle of
development involves, all so the existence of a latent germ
of being, a capacity or potentiality striving to realize itself.
(03:11):
This formal conception finds actual existence in spirit, which has
the history of the world for its theater, its possession,
and the sphere of its realization. It is not of
such a nature as to be tossed to and fro
amid the superficial play of accidents, but is rather the
absolute arbiter of things, entirely unmoved by contingencies, which indeed
(03:37):
it applies and manages for its own purposes. Development, however,
is also a property of organized natural objects. Their existence
presents itself not as an exclusively dependent one subjected to
external changes, but as one which expands itself in virtue
(04:01):
of an internal, unchangeable principle. A simple essence whose existence,
that is, as a germ, is primarily simple, but which
subsequently develops a variety of parts that become involved with
other objects and consequently live through a continuous process of changes,
(04:25):
a process, nevertheless, that results in the very contrary of change,
and is even transformed into a vist conservatrix of the
organic principle and the form embodying it. Thus, the organized
individuum produces itself. It expands itself actually to what it
(04:46):
was always potentially. So spirit is only that which it
attains by its own efforts. It makes itself actually what
it always was potentially. That develop of natural organisms takes
place in a direct, unopposed unhindered manner between the idea
(05:10):
and its realization. The essential constitution of the original germ
and the conformity to it of the existence derived from it,
no disturbing influence can intrude, but in relation to Spirit
it is quite otherwise. The realization of its idea is
mediated by consciousness and will. These very faculties are, in
(05:33):
the first instance, sunk in their primary merely natural life.
The first object and goal of their striving is the
realization of their merely natural destiny, but which, since it
is spirit that animates it, is possessed of vast attractions
and displays great power and moral richness. Thus Spirit is
(05:57):
at war with itself. It has to overcome itself as
its most formidable obstacle. That development, which in the sphere
of nature is a peaceful growth, is in that of Spirit,
a severe, mighty conflict with itself. What Spirit really strives
(06:17):
for is the realization of its ideal being, but in
doing so, it hides that goal from its own vision,
and is proud and well satisfied in this alienation from it.
Its expansion therefore does not present the harmless tranquility of
mere growth, as does that of organic life. But a stern,
(06:39):
reluctant working against itself. It exhibits, moreover, not the mere
formal conception of development, but the attainment of a definite result.
The goal of attainment we determined at the outset. It
is spirit in its completeness, in its essential nature, that
is freedom. This is the fundamental object, and therefore also
(07:05):
the leading principle of the development that whereby it receives
meaning and importance. As in the Roman history, Rome is
the object. Consequently, that which directs our consideration of the
facts related. As conversely, the phenomena of the process have
resulted from this principle alone, and only as referred to
(07:27):
it possess a sense and value. There are many considerable
periods in history in which this development seems to have
been intermitted, in which we might rather say, the whole
enormous gain of previous culture appears to have been entirely lost,
(07:49):
after which, unhappily, a new commencement has been necessary made
in the hope of recovering by the assistance of some
remains saved from the wreck of former civilization, and by
dint of a renewed, incalculable expenditure of strength and time,
one of the regions which had been an ancient possession
(08:10):
of that civilization. We behold also continued processes of growth, structures,
and systems of culture, in particular spheres rich in kind
and well developed in every direction. The merely formal and
indeterminate view of development in general can neither assign to
(08:31):
one form of expansion superiority over the other, nor render
comprehensible the object of that decay of older periods of growth,
but must regard such occurrences, or, to speak more particularly,
the retrocessions they exhibit, as external contingencies, and can only
(08:52):
judge of particular modes of development from indeterminate points of view, which,
since the development as such is all in all, are
relative and not absolute goals of attainment. Universal history exhibits
the gradation in the development of that principle whose substantial
(09:13):
purport is the consciousness of freedom. The analysis of the
successive grades in their abstract form belongs to logic in
their concrete aspect to the philosophy of spirit. Here it
is sufficient to state that the first step in the
process presents that immersion of spirit in nature which has
(09:37):
been already referred to. The second shows it as advancing
to the consciousness of its freedom. But this initial separation
from nature is imperfect and partial, since it is derived
immediately from the merely natural state, is consequently related to it,
and is still encumbered with it as an essentially connected element.
(10:01):
The third step is the elevation of the soul from
this still limited and special form of freedom to its
pure universal form, that state in which the spiritual essence
attains the consciousness and feeling of itself. These grades are
the ground principles of the general process. But how each
(10:22):
of them, on the other hand, involves within itself a
process of formation, constituting the links in a dialectic of transition.
To particularize this must be reserved for the sequel. Here
we have only to indicate that spirit begins with a
germ of infinite possibility, but only possibility, containing its substantial
(10:47):
existence in an undeveloped form, as the object and goal,
which it reaches only in its resultant full reality in
actual existence. Progress appears as an advancing from the imperfect
to the more perfect. But the former must not be
understood abstractly as only the imperfect, but as something which
(11:10):
involves the very opposite of itself. The so called perfect
as a germ or impulse, so reflectively, at least possibility
points to something destined to become actual. The Aristotelian dunamis
is also potentsia, power and might. Thus the imperfect as
(11:36):
involving its opposite, is a contradiction which certainly exists, but
which is continually annulled and solved. The instinctive movement, the
inherent impulse in the life of the soul to break
through the rind of mere nature, sensuousness, and that which
is alien to it, and to attain to the light
(12:00):
of consciousness, that is, to itself. We have already made
the remark how the commencement of the history of Spirit
must be conceived so as to be in harmony with
its idea, in its bearing on the representations that have
been made of a primitive natural condition in which freedom
(12:22):
and justice are supposed to exist or to have existed.
This was, however, nothing more than an assumption of historical existence,
conceived in the twilight of theorizing reflection, a pretension of
quite another order, not a mere inference of reasoning, but
making the claim of historical fact, and that supernaturally confirmed
(12:46):
is put forth in connection with a different view that
is now widely promulgated by a certain class of speculatists.
This view takes up the idea of the primitive, paradisiacal
can condition of man, which had been previously expanded by
the Theologians after their fashion, involving, for example, the supposition
(13:09):
that God spoke with Adam and Hebrew, but remodeled to
suit other requirements. The high authority appealed to in the
first instance is the Biblical narrative. But this depicts the
primitive condition partly only in the few well known traits,
but partly either as in man generically human nature at large,
(13:33):
or so far as Adam is to be taken as
an individual and consequently one person, as existing and completed
in this one or only in one human pair. The
Biblical account by no means justifies us in imagining a
people and an historical condition of such people existing in
(13:55):
that primitive form. Still less does it warrant us in
attributing to them the possession of a perfectly developed knowledge
of God and nature. Nature. So the fiction runs like
a clear mirror of God's creation had originally lain revealed
and transparent to the unclouded eye of man. Footnote confer
(14:20):
Friedrich Fonschlegel's philosophy of history and footnote. Divine truth is
imagined to have been equally manifest. It is even hinted,
though left in some degree of obscurity, that in this
primary condition, men were in possession of an indefinitely extended
(14:42):
and already expanded body of religious truths immediately revealed by God.
This theory affirms that all religions had their historical commencement
in this primitive knowledge, and that they polluted and obscured
the original truth by the monstrous creations of error and depravity.
(15:04):
Though in all the mythologies invented by error, traces of
that origin and of those primitive true dogmas are supposed
to be present and cognizable. An important interest therefore accrues
to the investigation of the history of ancient peoples, that namely,
of the endeavor to trace their annals up to the
(15:26):
point where such fragments of the primary revelation are to
be met with in greater purity than lower down. We
owe to the interest which has occasioned these investigations very
much that is valuable. But this investigation bears direct testimony
against itself, for it would seem to be awaiting the
(15:49):
issue of an historical demonstration of that which is presupposed
by it as historically established that advanced case condition of
the knowledge of God and of other scientific for example,
astronomical knowledge, such as has been falsely attributed to the Hindus,
(16:11):
and the assertion that such a condition occurred at the
very beginning of history, or that the religions of various
nations were traditionally derived from it and have developed themselves
in degeneracy and deprivation, as is represented in the rudely
conceived so called emanation system. All these are suppositions which
(16:33):
neither have nor, if we may contrast with their arbitrary
subjective origin, the true conception of history can attain historical confirmation.
The only consistent and worthy method which philosophical investigation can
adopt is to take up history where rationality begins to
(16:57):
manifest itself in the act virtual conduct of the world's affairs,
not where it is merely an undeveloped potentiality, where a
condition of things is present in which it realizes itself
in consciousness, will and action, the inorganic existence of spirit,
(17:21):
that of abstract freedom, unconscious torpidity, and respect to good
and evil and consequently to laws, or if we please
determine so, blessed ignorance is itself not a subject of history.
Natural and at the same time, religious morality is the
(17:45):
piety of the family. In this social relation, morality consists
in the members behaving towards each other, not as individuals,
possessing an independent will, not as persons. The family therefore
is excluded from that process of development in which history
(18:05):
takes its rise. But when this self involved spiritual unity
steps beyond this circle of feeling and natural love and
first attains the consciousness of personality, we have that dark,
dull center of indifference, in which neither nature nor spirit
is open and transparent, and for which nature and spirit
(18:29):
can become open and transparent only by means of a
further process, a very lengthened culture of that will at
length become self conscious. Consciousness alone is clearness, and is
that alone for which God or any other existence can
(18:52):
be revealed in its true form. In absolute universality, nothing
can be manifested except to consciousness made precipient of it.
Freedom is nothing but the recognition and adoption of such universal,
substantial objects as right and law and the production of
(19:16):
a reality that is accordant with them. The state. Nations
may have passed a long life before arriving at this
their destination, and during this period they may have attained
considerable culture in some directions. This antehistorical period, consistently with
(19:39):
what has been said, lies out of our plan. Whether
a real history followed it, or the people in question
never attained a political constitution. It is a great discovery
in history as of a new world which has been
made within rather more than the last twenty years, respect
(20:00):
the Sanskrit and the connection of the European languages with it.
In particular, the connection of the German and Indian peoples
has been demonstrated with as much certainty as such subjects
allow of. Even at the present time, we know of
peoples which scarcely form a society, much less a state,
(20:24):
but that have been long known as existing. While with
regard to others which in their advanced condition excite our
especial interest, tradition reaches beyond the record of the founding
of the state, and they experienced many changes prior to
that epoch. In the connection just referred to between the
(20:47):
languages of nations, so widely separated. We have a result
before us which proves the diffusion of those nations from
Asia as a center, and the soimilar development of what
had been originally related as an incontestable fact, not as
an inference deduced by that favorite method of combining and
(21:10):
reasoning from circumstances, grave and trivial, which has already enriched
and will continue to enrich history with so many fictions
given out as facts. But that apparently so extensive range
of events lies beyond the pale of history, in fact
(21:33):
preceded it. In our language the term history translator's note
German geshichte from geshehen to happen and translator's note unites
the objective with the subjective side, and denotes quite as
(21:57):
much the historia rerum gestarum as the race guesstay themselves.
On the other hand, it comprehends not less what has
happened than the narration of what has happened. This union
of the two meanings we must regard as a higher
order than mere outward accident. We must suppose historical narrations
(22:20):
to have appeared contemporaneously with historical deeds and events. It
is an internal vital principle common to both that produces
them synchronously. Family memorials patriarchal conditions have an interest confined
to the family and the clan. The uniform course of
(22:44):
events which such a condition implies is no subject of
serious remembrance, though distinct transactions or turns of fortune may
arouse nemosine to form conceptions of them, in the same
way as love and the religious emotions provoke imagination to
give shape to a previously formless impulse. But it is
(23:06):
the state which first presents subject matter that is not
only adapted to the prose of history, but involves the
production of such history in the very progress of its
own being. Instead of merely subjective mandates on the part
of government sufficing for the needs of the moment, a
community that is acquiring a stable existence and exalting itself
(23:28):
into a state requires formal commands and laws, comprehensive and
universally binding prescriptions, and thus produces a record, as well
as an interest concerned with intelligent, definite and in their results,
lasting transactions and occurrences on which nemoseny for the behoof
(23:50):
of the perennial object of the formation and constitution of
the state is impelled to confer perpetuity. Profound sentiments, generally
such as that of love, as also religious intuition, and
its conceptions are in themselves complete, constantly present, and satisfying.
(24:13):
But that outward existence of a political constitution, which is
enshrined in its rational laws and customs, is an imperfect
present and cannot be thoroughly understood without a knowledge of
the past. The periods, whether we suppose them to be
(24:34):
centuries or millennia, that were passed by nations before history
was written among them, and which may have been filled
with revolutions, nomadic wanderings, and the strangest mutations, are on
that very account destitute of objective history, because they present
no subjective history, no annals. We need not suppose that
(24:59):
the wrec words of such periods have accidentally perished, Rather
because they were not possible do we find them wanting.
Only in a state cognizant of laws can distinct transactions
take place, accompanied by such a clear consciousness of them
as supplies the ability and suggests the necessity of an
(25:22):
enduring record. It strikes everyone in beginning to form an
acquaintance with the treasures of Indian literature. That a land
so rich in intellectual products and those of the profoundest
order of thought, has no history, and in this respect
contrasts most strongly with China, an empire possessing one so
(25:48):
remarkable one going back to the most ancient times. India
has not only ancient books relating to religion and splendid
poetical production, but also ancient codes, the existence of which
latter kind of literature has been mentioned as a condition
necessary to the origination of history. And yet history itself
(26:13):
is not found. But in that country the impulse of organization,
in beginning to develop social distinctions, was immediately petrified in
the merely natural classification according to Castes, so that although
the laws concern themselves with civil rights, they make even
(26:34):
these dependent on natural distinctions, and are especially occupied with
determining the relations wrongs rather than rights, of those classes
towards each other, that is, the privileges of the higher
over the lower. Consequently, the element of morality is banished
(26:57):
from the pomp of Indian life and from its polite
letical institutions. Where that iron bondage of distinctions derived from
nature prevails, the connection of society is nothing but wild arbitrariness,
transient activity, or rather the play of violent emotion, without
any goal of advancement or development. Therefore no intelligent reminiscence,
(27:23):
no object for namosine presents itself and imagination confused, though profound,
expatiates in a region which to be capable of history
must have had an aim within the domain of reality
and at the same time of substantial freedom. Since such
(27:47):
are the conditions indispensable to a history. It has happened
that the growth of families to clans, of clans to peoples,
and their local diffusion consequent upon this numerical increase, a
series of facts which itself suggests so many instances of
social complication, war, revolution, and ruin, a process which is
(28:13):
so rich in interest and so comprehensive in extent, has
occurred without giving rise to history. Moreover, that the extension
and organic growth of the empire of articulate sounds has
itself remained voiceless and dumb, a stealthy, unnoticed advance. It
(28:37):
is a fact revealed by philological monuments that languages, during
a rude condition of the nations that have spoken them,
have been very highly developed, that the human understanding occupied
this theoretical region with great ingenuity and completeness. For grammar
(28:59):
in its extended and consistent form is the work of thought,
which makes its categories distinctly visible Therein. It is moreover
a fact that with advancing social and political civilization, this
systematic completeness of intelligence suffers attrition, and language thereupon becomes
(29:23):
poorer and ruder. A singular phenomenon that the progress towards
a more highly intellectual condition, while expanding and cultivating rationality,
should disregard that intelligent amplitude and expressiveness should find it
an obstruction and contrive to do without it. Speech is
(29:48):
the act of theoretic intelligence in a special sense. It
is its external manifestation. Exercises of memory and imagination without
language are direct, non speculative manifestations. But this act of
(30:09):
theoretic intelligence itself, as also its subsequent development and the
more concrete class of facts connected with it, namely the
spreading of peoples over the earth, their separation from each other,
their comminglings and wanderings, remain involved in the obscurity of
(30:29):
a voiceless past. They are not acts of will. Becoming
self conscious of freedom mirroring itself in a phenomenal form
and creating for itself a proper reality. Not partaking of
this element of substantial, veritable existence, these nations, notwithstanding the
(30:53):
development of language among them, have never advanced to the
possession of a history. The rapid growth of language and
the progress and dispersion of nations assume importance and interest
for concrete reason only when they have come in contact
with states or begin to form political constitutions themselves. After
(31:21):
these remarks relating to the form of the commencement of
the world's history and to that antehistorical period which must
be excluded from it, we have to state the direction
of its course, though here only formally. The further definition
of the subject in the concrete comes under the head
(31:43):
of arrangement end the Course of the World's History sub
Section one. This recording is in the public domain. Give
Drinking King during dry and drink
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