Lectures on the Philosophy of History

However, in this case, the advantages of the lecture format come with their usual drawbacks. The necessity of establishing principles at the start, covering the entire subject, and finishing within set time limits inevitably creates a mismatch between the first and the latter parts of the work. Because the Middle Ages offer such an abundance of facts and the Modern Era is so rich in ideas, readers might feel dissatisfied with the amount of attention given to the East—which receives so much focus simply because it is where history begins.

This naturally leads us to the principles used in preparing this work for its current publication, regarding both its content and its form. In a lecture, the teacher tries to personalize his knowledge and insights. Through the energy of speaking out loud, he breathes life into his intellectual material in a way that a book simply cannot. Digressions, expansions, repetitions, and analogies—even those only distantly related to the main topic—are appropriate in any lecture. In fact, without these elements, a speech would be dull and lifeless.

Despite common misconceptions, Hegel's manuscripts prove he possessed this gift for teaching original: "didactic gift". These papers do not contain everything he said in person, and they show the many changes and transformations he made each time he returned to this lecture series. The examples were often out of proportion with the philosophical theory original: "speculative matter". Because the beginning was the starting point, it was so greatly expanded that if every narrative, description, and anecdote had been included, it would have ruined the balance of the book.

In the first version of these lectures on the Philosophy of History, Hegel spent a full third of his time on the Introduction and on China—a section he developed with exhausting detail original: "wearisome prolixity". Although he was less wordy regarding the Chinese Empire in later lectures, the editor still had to trim the description. This was necessary to keep the section on China from taking up too much space and overshadowing the other parts of the work. The type of editorial work that was most required in...