Lectures on the Philosophy of History

...play of imagination. While people do not hesitate to admire God in the objects of Nature, it is often seen as almost blasphemous to recognize Him in human efforts and achievements. It is thought that we are overvaluing the disconnected results of human whims—outcomes that might have changed based on a simple shift in mood—if we suggest there is a deeper principle underlying them that the authors themselves were too distracted by their own passions to notice. In short, people resist calling the products of Free Will and of the human spirit "eternal," because they see only one consistent element within them: a gradual progress toward a richer and more fully developed character amidst constant change.

A major advance in Thought was required to bridge the "wide gulf" that separates Necessity Necessity: In philosophy, this refers to things that must happen according to fixed laws or fate, like the laws of physics. from Liberty Liberty: The capacity of humans to act through free will and choice.. Only then could a "guiding hand" be proven—not just sensed—in this most difficult and unstable area of study. Only then could a "Government of the World" original: "Government of the World": The idea of Divine Providence or a rational order directing the course of human history. be shown through the History of the World, rather than just asserted as a belief. This shows that the human Spirit has no more been abandoned by God than Nature has.

Before this could be achieved, thousands of years had to pass. The work of the human spirit had to reach a high level of perfection before we could reach a vantage point from which a comprehensive survey of its entire career is possible. Only now—when the modern world has developed an outward reality for its inner spirit in the form of civilized and free states—has the time arrived for a "Philosophy of History," rather than just a history that happens to be based on philosophy.

One other remark should be made, which may help reconcile even those who oppose Philosophy to this work. At the very least, it should convince them that in the philosophical original: "ideal" understanding of History, we do not intend to change the original facts or do them any kind of violence. This remark concerns what exactly is considered "philosophical" within these historical events. Not every small occurrence, and not every phenomenon that belongs to the life of an individual rather than the progress of the World-Spirit World-Spirit: Hegel’s concept of a collective human consciousness and divine reason that unfolds through history., is meant to be "interpreted" or reduced to a dry, lifeless formula. Nothing is more contrary to intelligence, and therefore more ridiculous, than descending into that micrology micrology micrology: An obsessive or excessive focus on trivial, tiny, or insignificant details. which attempts to explain in—