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 Bohn's Standard Library. 
 
 A. 6EEIE8 OF THE BEST ENGLISH AND FOREIGN AUTHORS, PRINTED IN 
 
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LECTURES 
 
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 BY 
 
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 BY 
 
 J. SIBREE, M. A. 
 
 " The History of the World is not intelligible apart from a Government of 
 the World."— W. v. Humboldt. 
 
 * 
 
 LONDON : 
 BELL & DALDY YORK STREET, COVENT GARDEN. 
 1872. 
 
LONDON; 1' KINTEP BT W. CLOWES AND SONS, 8TAMF01C1> 8TK1IEI 
 AND CHA1UNG CROSS. 
 
TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE. 
 
 Hegel's Lectures on the Philosophy of History are recog- 
 nized in Germany as a popular introduction to his system ; 
 their form is less rigid than the generality of metaphysical trea- 
 tises, and the illustrations, which occupy a large proportion of 
 the work, are drawn from a field of observation more familiar 
 perhaps, than any other, to those who have not devoted 
 much time to metaphysical studies. One great value of the 
 work is that it presents the leading facts of History from an 
 altogether novel point of view. And when it is considered 
 that the writings of Hegel have exercised a marked influence 
 on the political movements of Germany, it will be admitted 
 that his theory of the universe, especially that part which 
 bears directly upon politics, deserves attention even from 
 those who are the most exclusive advocates of the £ practical.' 
 
 A writer who has established his claim to be regarded as 
 an authority, by the life which he has infused into metaphy- 
 sical abstractions, has pronounced the work before us, "one 
 of the pleasantest books on the subject he ever read."* 
 
 And compared with that of most German writers, even 
 the style may claim to be called vigorous and pointed. If 
 therefore in its English dress the Philosophy of History 
 should be found deficient in this respect, the fault must not 
 be attributed to the original. 
 
 It has been the aim of the translator to present his author 
 
 * Mr. G. H. Lewes, in his Biogr. Hist, of Philosophy, Vol. IV. Ed. 1841. 
 
iv PBEFACE. 
 
 to the public in a really English form, even at the cost 
 of a circumlocution which must sometimes do injustice to 
 the merits of the original. A few words however have 
 necessarily been used in a rather unusual sense ; and one of 
 them is of very frequent occurrence. The German ' Geist,' 
 in Hegel's nomenclature, includes both Intelligence and 
 Will, the latter even more expressly than the former. It 
 embraces in fact man's entire mental and moral being, and a 
 little reflection will make it obvious that no term in our 
 metaphysical vocabulary could have been well substituted 
 for the more theological one, ' Spirit,' as a fair equivalent* 
 It is indeed only the impersonal and abstract use of the 
 term that is open to objection ; an objection which can be 
 met by an appeal to the best classical usage ; viz. the ren- 
 dering of the Hebrew H^") and Greek -Kvevfia in the Author- 
 ized Version of the Scriptures. One indisputable instance 
 may suffice in confirmation : " Their horses (i.e. of the Egyp- 
 tians) are flesh and not spirit." (Isaiah xxxi. 3.) It is 
 pertinent to remark here, that the comparative disuse of this 
 term in English metaphysical literature, is one result of that 
 alienation of theology from philosophy with which conti- 
 nental writers of the most opposite schools agree in taxing 
 the speculative genius of Britain — an alienation which 
 mainly accounts for the gulf separating English from Ger- 
 man speculation, and which will, it is feared, on other ac- 
 counts also be the occasion of communicating a somewhat 
 uninviting aspect to the following pages. 
 
 The distinction which the Germans make between ' Sitt- 
 lichkeit' and 'Moralitat,' has presented another difficulty. 
 The former denotes Conventional Morality, the latter that of 
 the Heart or Conscience. Where no ambiguity was likely 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 V 
 
 to arise, both terms have been translated * Morality.' In 
 other cases a stricter rendering has been given, modified by 
 the requirements of the context. The word ' Moment* is, 
 as readers of German philosophy are aware, a veritable crux 
 to the translator. In Mr. J. E. Morell's very valuable edi- 
 tion of Johnson's Translation of Tennemann's 1 Manual of 
 the History of Philosophy ' (Bonn's Philos. Library), the 
 following explanation is given : " This term was borrowed 
 from Mechanics by Hegel (see his "Wissenschaft der Logik, 
 vol. 3. p. 104. ed. 1841.) He employs it to denote the con- 
 tending forces which are mutually dependent, and whose 
 contradiction forms an equation. Hence his formula, JEsse= 
 Nothing. Here JEsse and Nothing are momentums, giving 
 birth to Werden, i.e. Existence. Thus the momentum con- 
 tributes to the same oneness of operation in contradictory 
 forces that we see in mechanics, amidst contrast and diver- 
 sity, in weight and distance, in the case of the balance." 
 But in several parts of the work before us this definition is 
 not strictly adhered to, and the Translator believes he has 
 done justice to the original in rendering the word by ' Suc- 
 cessive' or 'Organic Phase.' In the chapter on the Crusades 
 another term occurs which could not be simply rendered into 
 English. The definite, positive, and present embodiment of 
 Essential Being is there spoken of as ' ein Dieses,' ' das 
 Dieses,' &c, literally 'a This,' 'the This,' for which repulsive 
 combination a periphrasis has been substituted, which, it is 
 believed, is not only accurate but expository. Paraphrastic 
 additions, however, have been, in fairness to the reader, en- 
 closed in brackets [ ] ; and the philosophical appropriation 
 of ordinary terms is generally indicated by capitals, e.g. 
 1 Spirit,' ' Freedom,' ' State,' ' Nature,' &c. 
 
vi 
 
 PKEFACE. 
 
 The limits of a brief preface preclude an attempt to ex- 
 plain the Hegelian method in its wider applications ; and 
 such an undertaking is rendered altogether unnecessary by 
 the facilities which are afforded by works so very accessible 
 as the translation of Tennemann above mentioned, Chäly- 
 bseus's ' Historical Development of Speculative Philosophy, 
 from Kant to Hegel,'* Blakey's History of the Philosophy 
 of Mind,t Mr. Lewes' s Biographical History of Philosophy, 
 besides treatises devoted more particularly to the Hegelian 
 philosophy. Amoug these latter may be fairly mentioned 
 the work of a French Professor, M. Vera, ' Introduction ä 
 la philosophic de Hegel,' a lucid and earnest exposition of 
 the system at large ; and the very able summary of Hegel's 
 ' Philosophy of Eight,' by T. C. Sandars, late fellow of Oriel 
 College, which forms one of the series of ' Oxford Essays' 
 for 1855, and which bears directly on the subject of the 
 present volume. 
 
 It may, nevertheless, be of some service to the reader to 
 indicate the point of view from which this Philosophy of 
 History 13 composed, and to explain the leading idea. The 
 substance of this explanation has already been given in the 
 foot-notes accompanying the translation ; but, considering the 
 unfamiliar character of the line of thought, a repetition 
 will not, it is hoped, be deemed obtrusive. 
 
 The aim and scope of that civilizing process which all 
 hopeful thinkers recognize in History, is the attainment of 
 Rational Fbeedom. But the very term Freedom sup- 
 poses a previous bondage; and the question naturally 
 arises : " Bondage to what ?" — A superficial inquirer may 
 
 * Republished by Mr. Bohn at 3s 6d. 
 f Four vols. 8vo. London, 1850, £1. Is. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 Vll 
 
 be satisfied with an answer referring it to the physical 
 power of the ruling body. Such a response was deemed 
 satisfactory by a large number of political speculators 
 in the last century, and even at the beginning of the pre- 
 sent ; and it is one of the great merits of an influential 
 thinker of our days to have expelled this idolum fori, which 
 had also become an idolum theatri, from its undue position ; 
 and to have revived the simple truth that all stable organi- 
 zations of men, all religious and political communities, are 
 based upon principles which are far beyond the control of 
 the One or the Many. And in these principles or some 
 phase of them every man in every clime and age is born, 
 lives and moves. The only question is : Whence are 
 those principles derived r Whence spring those primary 
 beliefs or superstitions, religious and political, that hold 
 society together ? They are no inventions of ' priest- 
 craft ' or ' kingcraft,' for to them priestcraft and king- 
 craft owe their power. They are no results of a Contrat 
 Social, for with them society originates. Nor are they 
 the mere suggestions of man's weakness, prompting him 
 to propitiate the powers of Nature, in furtherance of his 
 finite, earthborn desires. Some of the phenomena of the 
 religious systems that have prevailed in the world might 
 seem thus explicable ; but the Nihilism of more than one 
 Oriental creed, the suicidal strivings of the Hindoo devotee 
 to become absorbed in a Divinity recognized as a pure ne- 
 gation, cannot be reduced to so gross a formula ; while the 
 political superstition that ascribes a Divine Right to the 
 feebleness of a woman or an infant is altogether untouched 
 by it. Nothing is left therefore but to recognize them as 
 'fancies,' 'delusions,' 'dreams,' the results of man's vain 
 
viii 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 imagination, — to class them with the other absurdities with 
 which the abortive past of Humanity is by some thought to 
 be only too replete ; or, on the other hand, to regard them 
 as the rudimentary teachings of that Essential Intelligence 
 in which man's intellectual and moral life originates. "With 
 Hegel they are the objective manifestation of infinite Reason 
 — the first promptings of Him who having " made of one 
 blood all nations of men for to dwell on the face of the earth, 
 hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds 
 of their habitation, if haply they might feel after and find 
 him," — tov yäp Kai yivog kajxiv. And it is these Kaipoi ivpo- 
 Terayjievoi, these determined and organic epochs in the his- 
 tory of the world that Hegel proposes to distinguish and 
 develop in the following treatise. 
 
 Whatever view may be entertained as to the origin or 
 importance of those elementary principles, and by whatever 
 general name they may be called — Spontaneous, Primary, or 
 Objective Intelligence — it seems demonstrable that it is in 
 some sense or other to its own belief, its own Reason or 
 essential being, that imperfect humanity is in bondage ; 
 while the perfection of social existence is commonly regarded 
 as a deliverance from that bondage. In the Hegelian sys- 
 tem, this paradoxical condition is regarded as one phase of 
 that antithesis which is presented in all spheres of existence, 
 between the Subjective and the Objective, but which it is 
 the result of the natural and intellectual processes that con- 
 stitute the life of the universe, to annul by merging into one 
 absolute existence. And however startling this theory may 
 be as applied to other departments of nature and intelli- 
 gence, it appears to be no unreasonable formula for the 
 course of civilization, and which is substaütially as follows : 
 
PKEFACE. 
 
 ix 
 
 In less cultivated nations, political and moral restrictions 
 are looked upon as objectively posited ; the constitution of 
 society, like the world of natural objects, is regarded as 
 something into which a man is inevitably born; and the 
 individual feels himself bound to comply with requirements 
 of whose justice or propriety he is not allowed to judge, 
 though they often severely test his endurance, and even de- 
 mand the sacrifice of his life. In a state of high civiliza- 
 tion, on the contrary, though an equal self-sacrifice be called 
 for, it is in respect of laws and institutions which are felt 
 to be just and desirable. This change of relation may, 
 without any very extraordinary use of terms, or extravagance 
 of speculative conceit, be designated the harmonization or 
 reconciliation of Objective and Subjective intelligence. The 
 successive phases which humanity has assumed in passing 
 from that primitive state of bondage to this condition of 
 Rational Freedom form the chief subject of the following 
 lectures. 
 
 The mental and moral condition of individuals and their 
 social and religious conditions (the subjective and objective 
 manifestations of Reason) exhibit a strict correspondence 
 with each other in every grade of progress. " They that 
 make them are like unto them," is as true of religious and 
 political ideas as of religious and political idols. "Where 
 man sets no value on that part of his mental and moral life 
 which makes him superior to the brutes, brute life will be an 
 object of worship and bestial sensuality will be the genius 
 of the ritual. Where mere inaction is the finis bonorum, 
 absorption in Nothingness will be the aim of the devotee'. 
 Where, on the contrary, active and vigorous virtue is recog. 
 nized as constituting the real value of man— where sub- 
 
 b 
 
X 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 jective spirit has learned to assert its own Freedom, both 
 against irrational and unjust requirements from without, and 
 caprice, passion, and sensuality, from within, it will demand 
 a living, acting, just, and holy, embodiment of Deity as the 
 only possible object of its adoration. In the same degree, 
 political principles also will be affected. "Where mere Na- 
 ture predominates, no legal relations will be acknowledged 
 but those based on natural distinction; rights will be 
 inexorably associated with * caste.' Where, on the other 
 hand, Spirit has attained its Freedom, it will require a code 
 of laws and a political constitution, in which the rational 
 subordination of nature to reason that prevails in its own 
 being, and the strength it feels to resist sensual seductions 
 shall be distinctly mirrored. 
 
 Between the lowest and highest grades of intelligence 
 and will, there are several intervening stages, around which 
 a complex of derivative ideas, and of institutions, arts, and 
 sciences, in harmony with them, are aggregated. Each of 
 these aggregates has acquired a name in history as a dis- 
 tinct nationality. Where the distinctive principle is losing 
 its vigour, as the result of the expansive force of mind of 
 which it was only the temporary embodiment, the national 
 life declines, and we have the transition to a higher grade, 
 in which a comparatively abstract and limited phase of 
 subjective intelligence and will, — to which corresponds an 
 equally imperfect phase of objective Reason, — is exchanged 
 for one more concrete, and vigorous — one which developes 
 human capabilities more freely and fully, and in which Right 
 is more adequately comprehended. 
 
 The goal of this contention is, as already indicated, the 
 self-realization, the complete development of Spirit, whose 
 
PBEFACE. 
 
 proper nature is Freedom — Freedom in both senses of the 
 term, i.e. liberation from outward control — inasmuch as the 
 law to which it submits has its own explicit sanction, — and 
 emancipation from the inward slavery of lust and passion. 
 
 The above remarks are not designed to afford anything 
 like a complete or systematic analysis of Hegel's Philosophy 
 of History, but simply to indicate its leading conception, 
 and if possible to contribute something towards removing a 
 prejudice against it on the score of its resolving facts into 
 mystical paradoxes, or attempting to construe them a priori. 
 In applying the theory, some facts may not improbably have 
 been distorted, some brought into undue prominence, and 
 others altogether neglected. In the most cautious and 
 limited analysis of the Past, failures and perversions of this 
 kind are inevitable : and a comprehensive view of History is 
 proportionately open to mistake. But it is another question 
 whether the principles applied in this work to explain the 
 course which civilization has followed, are a correct inference 
 from historical facts, and afford a reliable clue to the ex- 
 planation of their leading aspects. 
 
 The translator would remark, in conclusion, that the " In- 
 troduction" will probably be found the most tedious and 
 difficult part of the treatise ; he would therefore suggest a 
 cursory reading of it in the first instance, and a second 
 perusal as a resume of principles which are more completely 
 illustrated in the body of the work. 
 
 J. S. 
 
 Upper Grange, Stroüd, 
 Nov. 25th, 1857. 
 
xii 
 
 PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION, 
 
 The first question that suggests itself on the publication 
 of a new Philosophy of History is why, of all the depart- 
 ments of so-called Practical Philosophy, this should have 
 been the latest cultivated and the least adequately discussed. 
 For it was not until the beginning of the eighteenth century 
 that Vico made the first attempt to substitute for that 
 view of History which regarded it either as a succession of 
 fortuitous occurrences, or as the supposed but not clearly 
 recognized work of God, a conception of it as an embodiment 
 of primordial laws, and a product of Reason — a theory which 
 so far from contravening the moral freedom of humanity, 
 posits the only conditions in which that freedom can be de- 
 veloped. 
 
 This fact can however be explained in a few brief observa- 
 tions. The laws of Being and Thought, the economy of 
 Nature, the phenomena of the human soul, even legal and 
 political organisms ; nor less the forms of Art and the ac- 
 knowledged manifestations of Grod in other modes have always 
 passed for stable and immutable existences, if not as far as 
 subjective views of them are concerned, yet certainly in their 
 objective capacity. It is otherwise with the movements of 
 History. The extrinsic contingency which predominates in 
 the rise and fall of empires and of individuals, the triumphs 
 of vice over virtue, the confession sometimes extorted, that 
 there have been instances in which crimes have been pro- 
 ductive of the greatest advantage to mankind, and that muta- 
 bility which must be regarded as the inseparable companion 
 of human fortunes, tend to keep up the belief that History 
 stands on such a basis of shifting caprice, on such an uncer- 
 tain fire-vomiting volcano, that every endeavour to discover 
 rules, ideas, the Divine and Eternal here, may be justly con- 
 demned as an attempt to insinuate adventitious subtleties, 
 <is the bubble-blowing of ä priori construction, or a vain 
 
PREFACE TO TUR FIRST EDITION. 
 
 Xlll 
 
 play of imagination. AVhile men do not hesitate to admire 
 God in the objects of Nature, it is deemed almost blasphemy 
 to recognize him in human exertions and human achieve- 
 ments ; it is supposed to be an exaltation of the disconnected 
 results of caprice —results which a mere change of humour 
 might have altered — above their proper value, to suppose a 
 principle underlying them for which the passions of their 
 authors left no room in their own minds. In short, men 
 revolt from declaring the products of Free-Will and of the 
 human spirit to be eternal, because they involve only one 
 element of stability and consistency — the advance amid con- 
 stant mutability to a richer and more fully developed cha- 
 racter. An important advance in Thought was required, a 
 filling up of the "wide gulf" that separates Necessity from 
 Liberty, before a guiding hand could be demonstrated as well 
 as recognized in this most intractable because most unstable 
 element — before a Government of the World in the History 
 of the "World could be, not merely asserted but indicated, 
 and Spirit be regarded as no more abandoned by God than 
 Nature. Before this could be done, a series of millenniums 
 must roll away : the work of the human spirit must reach a 
 high degree of perfection, before that point of view can be 
 attained, from which a comprehensive survey of its career is 
 possible. Only now, when Christendom has elaborated an 
 outward embodiment for its inward essence, in the form of 
 civilized and free states, has the time arrived not merely 
 for a History based on Philosophy, but for the Philosophy 
 of History. 
 
 One other remark must not be withheld, and which is per- 
 haps adapted to reconcile even the opponents of Philosophy, 
 at least to convince them that in the ideal comprehension of 
 History, the original facts are not designed to be altered or 
 violence of any kind done them. The remark in question has 
 reference to what is regarded as belonging to Philosophy in 
 these events. Not every trifling occurrence, not every phe- 
 nomenon pertaining rather to the sphere of individual life 
 than to the course of the World-Spirit, is to be " construed," 
 as it is called, and robbed of its life and substance by a 
 withering formula. There is nothing more alien to intelli- 
 gence, and consequently nothing more ridiculous than the 
 descending to that micrology which attempts to explain in- 
 
PREFACE TO 
 
 different matters — which endeavours to represent that as 
 necessitated which might have been decided in one way 
 quite as well as in another, and of which in either case, he 
 who presumes to construe the occurrence in question, would 
 have found an explanation. Philosophy is degraded by this 
 mechanical application of its noblest organs, while a recon- 
 ciliation with those who occupy themselves with its empirical 
 details is thereby rendered impossible. What is left for 
 Philosophy to claim as its own, consists not in the demon- 
 stration of the necessity of all occurrences, — in regard to 
 which, on the contrary, it may content itself with mere nar- 
 ration, — but rather in removing that veil of obscurity which 
 conceals the fact that every considerable aggregate of nations, 
 every important stadium of History has an idea as its basis, 
 and that all the transitions and developments which the 
 annals of the past exhibit to us, can be referred to the events 
 that preceded them. In this artistic union of the merely 
 descriptive element on the one hand, with that which aspires 
 to the dignity of speculation, on the other hand, will lie the 
 real value of a Philosophy of History. 
 
 Again, the treatises on the Philosophy of History that 
 have appeared within the last hundred years or thereabouts 
 differ in the point of view from which they have been com- 
 posed, vary with the national character of their respective 
 authors, and lastly, are often mere indications of a Philoso- 
 phy of History than actual elaborations of it. For we must 
 at the outset clearly distinguish Ph ilosophies from Theosophies, 
 which latter resolve all events directly into God, while the for- 
 mer unfold the manifestation of God in the real world. More- 
 over, it is evident that the Philosophies of History which have 
 appeared among the Italians and the French, have but little 
 connection with a general system of thought, as constituting 
 one of its organic constituents ; and that their views, though 
 often correct and striking, cannot demonstrate their own 
 inherent necessity. Lastly, much has often been introduced 
 into the Philosophy of History that has been of a mysti- 
 cal, rhapsodical order, that has not risen above a mere 
 fugitive hint, an undeveloped fundamental idea ; and though 
 in many cases the great merit of such contributions can- 
 not be denied, their place would be only in the vestibule of 
 our science. We have certainly no wish to deny that among 
 
THE FIRST EDITION. 
 
 the Germans Leibnitz, Lessing, Weguelin, Iselin, Kant, 
 Fichte, Schelling, Schiller, TV. von Humboldt * Görres, 
 Steffens and Rosencranz, f have given utterance to observa- 
 tions of a profound, ingenious and permanently valuable order, 
 respecting both the basis of History generally and the con- 
 nection that exists between events and the spirit of which 
 they are demonstrably the embodiment. Among French 
 writers, who would refuse to admire in Bossuet the refined 
 ecclesiastical and teleological genius which regards the His- 
 tory of the World as a vast map spread out before it ; in Mon- 
 tesquieu the prodigious talent that makes events transform 
 themselves instanter to thoughts in his quick apprehension ; 
 or in Balanche and Michelet the seer's intuition that pierces 
 the superficial crust of circumstances and discerns the hidden 
 forces with which they originated ? But if actually elaborated 
 Philosophies of History are in question, four writers only 
 present themselves, Vico, Herder, Fr. v. Schlegel,^ and lastly 
 the Philosopher whose work we are here introducing to the 
 public. 
 
 Vico's life and literary labours carry us back to a period 
 in which the elder philosophies are being supplanted by the 
 Cartesian ; but the latter has not yet advanced beyond the 
 contemplation of the fundamental ideas — Being and Thought; 
 it is not yet equipped for a descent into the concrete World 
 of History, or prepared to master it. Vico, in attempting to 
 exhibit the principles of History in his " Scienza Nuova," is 
 obliged to rely on the guidance of the ancients and to adopt 
 the classical (piXoaocpri/j-ara: in his investigations it is the data 
 of ancient rather than of modern records that arrest his 
 attention : Feudality and its history is with him rather a 
 supplement to the development of Greece and Borne than 
 something specifically distinct therefrom. Although at the 
 close of his book he asserts that the Christian religion, even 
 in its influence on human aims, excels all the religions of 
 the world, he stops short of anything like an elaboration of 
 this statement. The separation and distinction between the 
 Middle Ages and the Modern Time cannot be exhibited, as 
 
 * In an academic dissertation, whose style is as masterly as its contents 
 are profound : " On the Task of the Historian.'" 
 
 t In his animated and genially clever tractate: " What the Germans 
 have accomplished for the Philosophy of History." 
 
 X Translated in Bonn's Standard Library. 
 
PEEFACE TO 
 
 the 'Reformation and its effects are excluded from considera- 
 tion. Besides, he undertakes to discuss the rudiments of 
 human intelligence, Language, Poetry, Homer ; as a Jurist 
 he has to go down into the depths of Roman Law, and to 
 investigate them ; while all this — the main stream of thought, 
 episodes, expansion of the ideas and reverting to their princi- 
 ples — is further varied by a proneness to hunt out etymo- 
 logies and give verbal explanations, which often serves to 
 retard and disturb the most important processes of historical 
 evolution. Most persons are thus deterred by the repulsive 
 exterior from apprehending the profound truths which it 
 envelopes ; the latter are not sufficiently obvious on the 
 surface, and the gold is thrown away w r ith the dross that 
 conceals it. 
 
 In Herder we find traits of excellence which are wanting 
 in Yico. He is himself a poet, and he approaches History 
 in a poetic spirit ; further he does not detain the reader by 
 prefatory inquiries into the foundations and vestibules of 
 History — Poetry, Art, Language, and Law : he begins imme- 
 diately with points of climate and geography; moreover the 
 entire field of History lies open before him : his liberal Pro- 
 testant and cosmopolitan culture gives him an insight into all 
 nationalities and views, and renders him capable of transcend- 
 ing mere traditional notions to an unlimited extent. Some- 
 times, too, he hits upon " the right word " with wonderful feli- 
 city ; the teleological principle on which his speculations are 
 based does not hinder him from doing justice to the varieties 
 [of the actual world], and in comparing historical periods the 
 aualogy they bear to the stages of human life does not 
 escape him. But these "Ideas contributory to the Philoso- 
 phy of the History of Mankind " contradict their title by 
 the very fact that not only are all metaphysical categories 
 banished, but a positive hatred to metaphysics is the very 
 element in which they move. The Philosophy of History 
 in Herder's hands therefore, broken off from its proper basis, 
 is a highly intellectual, often striking, and on the other hand 
 often defective " raisonnement' n — a Theodicsea rather of the 
 Heart and Understanding than of Reason. This alienation 
 from its natural root leads by necessary consequence to an 
 enthusiasm which often obstructs the current of thought, and 
 to interjections of astonishment, instead of that contention of 
 mind which results in demonstration. The theologian, the 
 
THE FIRST EDITION. 
 
 XVÜ 
 
 genial preacher, the entranced admirer of the works of God, 
 very often intrudes with his subjective peculiarities amid the 
 objectivity of History. 
 
 In Frederick v. SchlegeVs Philosophy of History we may 
 find, if we choose to look, a fundamental idea, which can be 
 called a philosophical one. It is this, namely, that Man 
 was created free ; that two courses lay before him, between 
 which he was competent to choose — that which led up- 
 wards, and that which led downwards to the abyss. Had 
 he remained firm and true to the primary will that proceeded 
 from God, his freedom would have been that of blessed 
 spirits ; that view being rejected as quite erroneous, which 
 represents the paradisaical condition as one of blissful idle- 
 ness. But as man unhappily chose the second path, there 
 was from that time forward a divine and a natural will in 
 him ; and the great problem for the life of the individual as 
 also for that of the entire race, is the conversion and trans- 
 formation of the lower earthly and natural will more and 
 more into the higher and divine will. This Philosophy of 
 History, therefore, really begins with the dire and strange 
 lament, that there should be a history at all, and that man 
 did not remain in the unhistorical condition of blessed spirits. 
 History, in this view, is an apostasy — the obscuration of 
 man's pure and divine being ; and instead of a possibility 
 of discovering God in it, it is rather the Negative of God 
 which is mirrored in it. Whether the race will ultimately 
 succeed in returning completely and entirely to God, is on 
 this shewing only a matter of expectation and hope, which, 
 since humanity has once more darkened its prospects by 
 Protestantism, must, at least to Frederick v. Schlegel, 
 appear doubtful. In elaborating the characteristic princi- 
 ples and historical development of the several nations, 
 wherever that fundamental idea retires somewhat into the 
 background, an intellectual platitude manifests itself, which 
 seeks to make up by smooth and polished diction for the 
 frequent tenuity of the thought. A desire to gain repose for 
 his own mind, to justify himself, and to maintain the Catholic 
 stand-point against the requirements of the modern world, 
 gives his treatise a somewhat far-fetched and premeditated 
 tone, which deprives facts of their real character to give them 
 that tinge which will connect them with the results they are 
 brought forward to establish. 
 
XV111 
 
 PREFACE TO 
 
 Hegel's Lectures on the Philosophy of History, to which 
 we now come, have at starting a great advantage over 
 their predecessors, apart from the merits of their contents. 
 First and foremost they are connected with a system of 
 thought logically elaborated even to its minutest members : 
 they claim to exhibit the Logos of History, just as there is 
 a Logos of Nature, of the Soul, of Law, of Art, &c. Here, 
 then, mere flashes of thought, mere " raisonnement" intelli- 
 gent or unintelligent intuitions are out of the question; instead 
 of these we have an investigation conducted by logical philo- 
 sophy in the department of those human achievements [which 
 constitute History] . The categories have been already de- 
 monstrated in other branches of the System, and the only 
 point left to be determined is, whether they will be able also 
 to verify themselves in the apparently intractable element of 
 human caprice. But in order that this proceeding may 
 bring with it a guarantee of its correctness, and I might 
 also say, of its honesty, the occurrences themselves are not 
 metamorphosed by Thought, exhibited as otherwise than they 
 really are, or in any way altered. The facts remain as they 
 were — as they appear in the historical traditions of centuries: 
 the Idea is their expositor, not their perverter ; and while 
 the Philosophy of History thus involves nothing more than 
 the comprehension of the hidden meaning of the outward 
 phenomenon, the philosophical art will consist in perceiving 
 in what part of these phenomenal data a ganglion of Ideas 
 lies, which must be announced and demonstrated as such ; 
 and, as in Nature every straw, every animal, every stone 
 cannot be deduced from general principles, so the art in 
 question will also discern where it should rise to the full 
 height of speculation, or where, as remarked above, it may 
 be content to lose itself in the confines of the merely super- 
 ficial ; it will know what is demonstrable, and what is simply 
 attached to the demonstration as portraiture and charac- 
 teristics ; conscious of its dignity and power, it will not be 
 content to expend its labour on indifferent circumstances. 
 
 This is in fact one of the chief merits of the present 
 Lectures, that with all the speculative vigour which they 
 display, they nevertheless concede their due to the Empirical 
 and Phenomenal ; that they equally repudiate a subjective 
 raisonnement [a discussion following the mere play of in- 
 
THE FIBST EDITION. 
 
 xix 
 
 dividual fancy,] and the forcing of all historical data into 
 the mould of a formula ; that they seize and present the 
 Idea both in logical development and in the apparently loose 
 and irregular course of historical narrative, but yet without 
 allowing this process to appear obtrusively in the latter. 
 The so-called ä priori method — which is, in fact, presumed 
 to consist in ' making up ' history without the aid of his- 
 torical facts — is therefore altogether different from what is 
 presented here ; the author had no intention to assume the 
 character of a Grod, and to create History, but simply that 
 of a man, addressing himself to consider that History which, 
 replete with reason and rich with ideas, had already been 
 created. 
 
 The character of Lectures gives the work an additional 
 advantage, which it would perhaps have wanted had it been 
 composed at the outset with a view to publication as a book, 
 and with the compact energy and systematic seriousness 
 which such a design would have involved. Consisting of 
 lectures, it must contemplate an immediate apprehension 
 of its ' meaning ;' it must be intended to excite the in- 
 terest of youthful hearers, and associate what is to be pre- 
 sented to their attention with what they already know. 
 And as of all the materials that can be subjected to philo- 
 sophic treatment, History is always the one with whose 
 subject persons of comparatively youthful years become ear- 
 liest acquainted, the Philosophy of History may also be 
 expected to connect itself with what was previously known, 
 and not teach the subject itself as well as the ideas it 
 embodies, (as is the case, e.g. in ^Esthetics,) but rather 
 confine itself to exhibiting the workings of the Idea in a 
 material to which the hearer is supposed to be no stranger. 
 If this be done in a method partly constructive, partly 
 merely characteristic, the advantage will be secured of pre- 
 senting to the student a readable work — one which has 
 affinities with ordinary intelligence, or at least is not very 
 much removed from it. These Lectures therefore — and 
 the remark is made without fear of contradiction— would 
 form the readiest introduction to the Hegelian Philosophy : 
 they are even more adapted to the purpose than the " Phi- 
 losophy of Right," [or Law,] which certainly presupposes 
 in the student some ideas of its subject to begin with. But 
 
XX 
 
 PEEFACE TO 
 
 the advantages of the Lecture form are not unaccompanied 
 by the usual drawbacks in the present case. The necessity 
 of developing principles at the commencement, of embra- 
 cing the entire subject, and of concluding within definite 
 limits, must occasion an incongruity between the first and 
 the latter part of the work. The opulence of facts which 
 the Middle Ages offer us, and the wealth of ideas that cha- 
 racterizes the Modern Time, may possibly induce dissatis- 
 faction at the attention which, simply because it is the 
 beginning, is devoted to the East. 
 
 This naturally leads us to the principles which have been 
 adopted in the composition of the work in its present dress; 
 as they concern, first, its contents, and secondly, its form. 
 In a lecture, the teacher endeavours to individualize his 
 knowledge and acquisitions : by the momentum of oral de- 
 livery he breathes a life into his intellectual materials which 
 a mere book cannot possess. Not only are digressions, 
 amplifications, repetitions, and the introduction of analogies 
 which are but distantly connected with the main subject, 
 in place in every lecture, but without these ingredients an 
 oral discourse would be dry and lifeless. That Hegel pos- 
 sessed this didactic gift, notwithstanding all prejudices to 
 the contrary, might be proved by his manuscripts alone, 
 which by no means contain the whole of what was actually 
 delivered, as also by the numerous changes and transforma- 
 tions that mark the successive resumptions of an old course 
 of lectures. The illustrations were not unfrequently dispro- 
 portioned to the speculative matter ; the beginning (and 
 simply because it was such) was so greatly expanded, that 
 if all the narrative sections, descriptions, and anecdotes had 
 beeu inserted, essential detriment would have resulted to 
 the appearance of the book. In the first delivery of his lec- 
 tures on the Philosophy of History, Hegel devoted a full 
 third of his time to the Introduction and to China — a part 
 of the work which was elaborated with wearisome prolixity. 
 Although in subsequent deliveries he was less circumstantial 
 in regard to this Empire, the editor was obliged to reduce 
 the description to such proportions as would prevent the 
 Chinese section from encroaching upon, and consequently 
 prejudicing the treatment of, the other parts of the work. 
 That kind of editorial labour which was most called for in 
 
THE FIRST EDITION". 
 
 xxi 
 
 this part was necessary in a less degree in all the other 
 divisions. The Editor had to present Lectures in the form 
 of a Book : he was obliged to turn oral discourse into read- 
 able matter : the notes of students and the manuscripts 
 which constituted his materials were of different dates ; he 
 had to undertake the task of abridging the diffuseness of 
 delivery, bringing the narrative matter into harmony with 
 the speculative observations of the author, taking due pre- 
 cautions that the later lectures should not be thrust into a 
 corner by the earlier ones, and that the earlier ones should 
 be freed from that aspect of isolation and disconnection 
 which they presented. On the other hand, he was bound 
 not to forget for one moment that the book contained lec- 
 tures ; the naivete, the abandon, the enthusiastic absorption 
 in the immediate subject which makes the speaker indifferent 
 as to when or how he shall finish, had to be left intact ; and 
 even frequent repetitions, where they did not too much in- 
 terrupt the course of thought, or weary the reader, could 
 not be altogether obliterated. 
 
 But notwithstanding the full measure of license, which in 
 the nature of the case must be conceded to the Editor, and 
 the reconstructive duties imposed upon him by compilation, 
 it can be honestly averred that in no case have the ideas of 
 the compiler been substituted for those of Hegel, — that a 
 genuine, altogether unadulterated work of the great phi- 
 losopher is here offered to the reader, and that, if the editor 
 had followed another plan, no choice would have been left him 
 but either to produce a book which none could have enjoyed, 
 or, on the other hand, to insert too much of his own in place 
 of the materials that lay before him. 
 
 As regards the style of the work, it must be observed that 
 the Editor was obliged to write it out from beginning to 
 end. Eor one part of the Introduction however, (as far 
 as p. 61 of this book) he had ready to hand an elaboration 
 begun by Hegel in 1830, which though it was not designed 
 expressly for publication, was manifestly intended to take 
 the place of earlier Introductions. The Editor — though all 
 his friends did not adopt his view of the matter — believed 
 that where a Hegelian torso was in existence, he ought to 
 refrain from all interpolations of his own and from revisional 
 alterations. He was desirous not to weaken the firm 
 
XXU 
 
 PEEFACE TO 
 
 phalanx of the Hegelian style by introducing phrases of 
 any other stamp or order, even at the risk of being thus 
 obliged to forego a certain unity of expression. He thought 
 that it could not be otherwise than gratifying to the reader 
 to encounter — at least through some part of the book — the 
 strong, pithy and sometimes gnarled style of the author ; 
 he wished to afford him the pleasure of pursuing the laby- 
 rinthine windings of thought under the guidance of his often 
 less than flexible but always safe and energetic hand. From 
 the point at which these elaborated fragments ceased, began 
 the real task of giving the work an integral form ; but 
 this was performed with constant regard for the peculiar 
 terms of expression which the manuscripts and notes ex- 
 hibited : the Editor gladly exchanged the words which offered 
 themselves to his own pen for others which he would per- 
 haps not have preferred himself, but which seemed to him 
 more characteristic of the author ; only where it was ab- 
 solutely necessary has he been willing to complete, to fill 
 up, to supplement ; in short he has been anxious as far as 
 possible to make no sort of change in the peculiar type of 
 the composition, and to offer to the public not a book of his 
 own but that of another. The Editor cannot therefore be- 
 come responsible for its expression, as if it were his own ; 
 he had to present a material and trains of thought not his 
 own, and as far as possible to avoid travelling far out of the 
 limits of that order of phrases in which they were originally 
 clothed. Only within these given and predetermined con- 
 ditions, which are at the same time impediments to a free 
 style, can the Editor be made accountable. 
 
 Hegel's manuscripts were the first materials to which the 
 Editor had recourse. These often contain only single words 
 and names connected by dashes, evidently intended to aid 
 the memory in teaching ; then again longer sentences, and 
 sometimes a page or more fully written out. Erom this 
 latter part of the manuscript could be taken many a striking 
 expression, many an energetic epithet : the hearers' notes 
 were corrected and supplemented by it, and it is surprising 
 with what unwearied perseverance the author continually 
 returns to former trains of thought. Hegel appears in 
 these memorials as the most diligent and careful teacher, 
 always intent upon deepening fugitive impressions, and 
 
THE FIRST EDITION. 
 
 xxiii 
 
 clenching what might pass away from the mind, with the 
 strong rivets of the Idea. As regards the second part of 
 my materials, the notes, I have had such — reporting all the 
 five deliveries of this course, 18ff, 18ff, 18f|, 18ff* 
 
 — in the hand- writing of Geh. Ober-Eegierungs Hath 
 Schulze, Capt. von Griesheim, Prof. Hotho, Dr. Werder, 
 Dr. Heimann, and the son of the philosopher, M. Charles 
 Hegel. It was not till the session of 18§^ that Hegel came 
 to treat somewhat more largely of the Middle Ages and the 
 Modern Time, and the sections of the present work devoted 
 to those periods are for the most part taken from this last 
 delivery of the course. To many of my respected colleagues 
 and friends, whom I would gladly name if I might presume 
 upon their permission to do so, I am indebted for emenda- 
 tions, additions, and assistance of every kind. Without such 
 aids, the book would be much less complete as regards the 
 historical illustration of principles than it may perhaps be 
 deemed at present. 
 
 With this publication of the " Philosophy of History," that 
 of the "iEsthetik" within a few months, and that of the 
 "Encyclopädie" in its new form and style, which will not have 
 long to be waited for, the work of editing and publishing 
 Hegel's writings will be completed. For oar Friend and 
 Teacher it will be a monument of fame ; for the editors a 
 memorial of piety, whose worth and truth consist not in 
 womanish lamentation, but in a grief that is only a stimulus 
 to renewed activity. On the other hand that piety desires 
 no return but the satisfaction which it already possesses in 
 the consciousness of the performance of duty ; and though 
 those who are " dead while they live" may think to reproach 
 us with the feebleness of our means, we may hope for abso- 
 lution in consideration of the plenitude of our zeal. The 
 Hegelian Four Ages of the World have at least made their 
 appearance. 
 
 Edward Gans. 
 
 Berlin, June 8, 1837. 
 
 * These lectures were delivered in the University of Berlin, to which 
 Hegel was called in 1818. " He there lectured for thirteen years, and 
 formed a school, of which it is sufficient to name as among its members, 
 Gans, Rosenkranz, Michelet, Werder, Marheineke and Hotho." Lewes' s 
 Biog. Hist, of Philos.— Tr. 
 
xxiv 
 
 PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. 
 
 The changed form in which Hegel's lectures on the Phi- 
 losophy of History are re-issued, suggests the necessity of 
 some explanation respecting the relation of this second edi- 
 tion both to the original materials from which the work was 
 compiled, and to their first publication. 
 
 The lamented Professor Grans, the editor of the " Philo- 
 sophy of History," displayed a talented ingenuity in trans- 
 forming Lectures into a Book ; in doing so he followed for 
 the most part Hegel's latest deliveries of the course, because 
 they were the most popular, and appeared most adapted to 
 his object. 
 
 He succeeded in presenting the lectures much as they 
 were delivered in the winter of 18-J J- ; and this result might 
 be regarded as perfectly satisfactory, if Hegel's various read- 
 ings of the course had been more uniform and concordant, 
 if indeed they had not rather been of such a nature as to 
 supplement each other. Eor however great may have been 
 Hegel's power of condensing the wide extent of the pheno- 
 menal world by Thought, it was impossible for him entirely 
 to master and to present in an uniform shape the immea- 
 surable material of History in the course of one semester. 
 In the first delivery in the winter of 18|-|, he was chiefly 
 occupied with unfolding the philosophical Idea, and shewing 
 how this constitutes the real kernel of History, and the im- 
 pelling Soul of World-Historical Peoples. In proceeding to 
 treat of China and India, he wished, as he said himself, only 
 to shew by example how philosophy ought to comprehend 
 the character of a nation ; and this could be done more easily 
 in the case of the stationary nations of the East, than in that 
 of peoples which have a bond fide history and an historical 
 development of character. A warm predilection made him 
 linger long with the Greeks, for whom he always felt a 
 youthful enthusiasm ; and after a brief consideration of the 
 Eoman World he endeavoured finally to condense the 
 Mediaeval Period and the Modern Time into a few lectures ; 
 for time pressed, and when, as in the Christian World, the 
 Thought, no longer lies concealed among the multitude of 
 phenomena, but announces itself and is obviously present in 
 History, the philosopher is at liberty to abridge his discus- 
 
PREFACE TO TUE SECOND EDITION". XXV 
 
 sion of it ; in fact, nothing more is needed than to indicate 
 the impelling Idea. In the later readings, on the other hand, 
 China, India, and the East generally were more speedily- 
 dispatched, and more time and attention devoted to the 
 German World. By degrees the Philosophical and Abstract 
 occupied less space, the historical matter was expanded, and 
 the whole became more popular. 
 
 It is easy to see how the different readings of the course 
 supplement each other, and how the entire substance cannot 
 be gathered without uniting the philosophical element which 
 predominates in the earlier, and which must constitute the 
 basis of the work, with the historical expansion which cha- 
 racterizes the latest deliveries. 
 
 Had Hegel pursued the plan which most professors adopt, 
 in adapting notes for use in the lecture room, of merely 
 appending emendations and additions to the original draught, 
 it would be correct to suppose that his latest readings would 
 be also the most matured. But as, on the contrary, every 
 delivery was with him a new act of thought, each gives only 
 the expression of that degree of philosophical energy which 
 animate his mind at the time ; thus, in fact, the two first 
 deliveries of 18-f-f and 18|^, exhibit a far more com- 
 prehensive vigour of idea and expression, a far richer store 
 of striking thoughts and appropriate images, than those of 
 later date ; for that first inspiration which accompanied the 
 thoughts when they first sprang into existence, could only 
 lose its living freshness by repetition. 
 
 From what has been said, the nature of the task which a 
 new edition involved is sufficiently manifest. A treasury 
 of thought of no trifling value had to be recovered from the 
 first readings, and the tone of originality restored to the 
 whole. The printed text therefore was made the basis, 
 and the work of inserting, supplementing, substituting, 
 and transforming, (as the case seemed to require,) was 
 undertaken with the greatest possible respect for the 
 original. No scope was left for the individual views of the 
 Editor, since in all such alterations Hegel's manuscripts 
 were the sole guide. Eor while the first publication of these 
 lectures — a part of the Introduction excepted — followed the 
 notes of the hearers only, the second edition has endeavoured 
 to supplement it by making Hegel's own manuscripts the 
 
 e 
 
XXvi PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. 
 
 basis throughout, and using the notes only for the purpose 
 of rectification and arrangement. The editor has striven 
 after uniformity of tone through the whole work simply by 
 allowing the author to speak everywhere in his own words ; 
 so that not only are the new insertions taken verbatim from 
 the manuscripts, but even where the printed text was re- 
 tained in the main, peculiar expressions which the hearer had 
 lost in transcription, were restored. 
 
 For the benefit of those who place vigour of thought in a 
 formal schematism, and with polemical zeal assert its exclu- 
 sive claim against other styles of philosophizing, the remark 
 may be added that Hegel adhered so little to the subdivisions 
 which he had adopted, that he made some alterations in 
 them on occasion of every reading of the course — treated 
 Buddhism and Lamaism, e. g., sometimes before, sometimes 
 after India, sometimes reduced the Christian World more 
 closely to the Grerman nations, sometimes took in the By- 
 zantine Empire, and so on. The new edition has had but 
 few alterations to make in this respect. 
 
 When the association for publishing Hegel's works did 
 me the honour to entrust me with the re-editing of my 
 Father's Philosophy of History, it also named as advocates 
 of the claims of the first edition, and as representatives of 
 Prof. Grans, who had been removed from its circle by 
 death, three of its members, Geh. Ober-Eegierungs Rath 
 Dr. Schulze, Prof. von Henning, and Prof. Hotho, to whose 
 revision the work in its new shape was to be submitted. In 
 this revision, I not only enjoyed the acquiescence of those 
 most estimable men and valued friends in the alterations I 
 had made, but also owe them a debt of thanks for many 
 new emendations, which I take the opportunity of thus pub- 
 licly discharging. 
 
 In conclusion, I feel constrained to acknowledge that my 
 gratitude to that highly respected association for the praise- 
 worthy deed of love to science, friendship, and disinterested- 
 ness, whose prosecution originated it and still holds it 
 together, could be increased only by the fact of its having 
 granted me also a share in editing the works of my beloved 
 Father. 
 
 Chables Hegel. 
 
 Berlin, May 16, 1840. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 Translator's Preface . . . iii 
 
 Preface to the First Edition, by Dr. E. Gans . xii 
 
 Preface to the Second Edition by Dr. C. Hegel . xxiv 
 
 Introduction. Various methods of treating History: Original, Re- 
 flective and Philosophical. I. Original History: Herodotus, Thu- 
 cydides, Xenophon, Caesar, Guicciardini, p. 1-4. II. Reflective 
 History. (1) General or Universal History. Livy, Diodorus Siculus, 
 Johannes von Müller. (2) Pragmatical History. (3) Critical History 
 — the German method of modern times. (4) The History of special 
 departments of life and thought — of Art, Law, and Religion, 4-8. 
 III. Philosophical History. Reason, the Infinite material and the 
 Infinite Formative Power of the Universe, 8-12. — Anaxagoras's dictum, 
 that vovq or Reason governs the world, 12-17. — The Destiny or Final 
 Cause of the World. History, the Development of Spirit, or 
 the Realization of its Idea, 17. (1 ) The abstract characteristics of 
 the Nature of Spirit — Spirit the antithesis of Matter — Self-Contained 
 Existence, whose essential characteristic is Freedom, 18 — Successive 
 stages in the appreciation of the inalienable Freedom of the Human 
 Spirit: The Oriental "World knows only that One is Free : The Greeks 
 and Romans recognize Some as free. The German Nations under the 
 influence of Christianity, have attained the knowledge that A 11 are 
 Free, 19. The Final Cause of the World is the realization of its own 
 freedom by Spirit, 20. (2) The means by which this consciousness is 
 developed — human activity originally stimulated by desires and 
 passions, but in which higher principles are implicit, resulting in the 
 State, 21. In the State these universal principles are harmonized 
 with subjective and particular aims, and the passions of individuals 
 result in the restraints of law and political order, 22-30. — Great Men 
 the founders of political organizations in which this Harmony is 
 realized, 30. Standard by which Great Men are to be judged, 31,* 32. 
 Heroes and Valets, 33. The cunning of Reason, 34. Claims of 
 religion and morality absolute, 35. Ideals, under what conditions re- 
 alized, 3G, 37. The true Ideal, that of Reason, always tending to realize 
 itself, 38. (3) The object to be attained by the processes of History — 
 the union of the Subjective with the Objective Will in the State, 40. 
 Idea of the State — its abstract basis referred to the Philosophy of 
 Jurisprudence or Right, 41. Erroneous views confuted. — Man is not 
 free in a merely natural condition, 42. The Patriarchal principle not 
 the only legitimate basis of government, 43. Only a transitional one, 
 44. The consent of all the members of the community not necessary 
 to a legitimate government, 45. Question of the best Constitution, 46. 
 Constitution of a country not the result of deliberate choice, but of 
 the genius of a people, 47. Successive phases of government — Primi- 
 
XXY111 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 tive Monarchy, Aristocracy, Democracy, and Constitutional Royalty, 
 48. Political idiosyncrasies, 49. Connection of Religion, Art, and 
 Philosophy with the State, 51-56. The course of the World's History, 
 56. Natural and Spiritual Development contrasted, 57. History 
 exhibits the gradations in the consciousness of Freedom, 58, 59. 
 Fiction of a Golden Age. Frederick von Schlegel's theory. Re- 
 searches in Oriental literature stimulated by this fallacious view, 60, 61. 
 Conditions essential to History — Intimate relation between legal and 
 political organizations and the rise of Historical literature, 62, 63. 
 Contrast between India and China in this respect, 64. Ante-Historical 
 period— the growth of Peoples and of Languages, 65. Dialectical 
 nature of the Idea, 66. Empirical objections, 67. Reason and Un- 
 derstanding, 68. Distinctions in National Genius, in Poetry, Philo- 
 sophy, &c, ignored, 69-74. Prima facie aspect of History — Mutability 
 of Human Things — Metempsychosis— The Phoenix, 75, 76. Activity 
 characteristic of Spirit — ■ Nations are what their deeds are, illustrated 
 in the case of England — Culmination, Decline and Fall of Nations, 
 77, 78. Chronos and Zeus, 79. Spirit expands beyond the limits of 
 each successive nationality and annuls it, 80. Summary, 81, 82. 
 
 Geographical Basis of History. 
 
 Influence of Nature on Historical Development— Should not be rated 
 too high nor too low, 83. The Temperate Zone the true theatre of 
 History, 84. Division of the World into Old and New — Physical 
 immaturity of Australia — South Americans physically and psychically 
 inferior, 84, 85. Modern Emigration and its Mediaeval analogies, 86. 
 South and North America — Catholicism and Protestantism, 87. Puri- 
 tan colonization and industrial tendencies in their bearing on the cha- 
 racter of the United States — Multiplication of Religious Sects — Neces- 
 sity of consolidated political organization not felt in North America, 
 
 89. Relation of the United States to neighbouring countries different 
 from that of European nations — America as the echo of the Past or 
 the Land of the Future, has little interest for the Philosophy of History, 
 
 90. The Old World; its ancient limitations. The Mediterranean 
 Sea, the centre of World-History, 91. Special Geographical distinc- 
 tions: (1) The Uplands — Mongolia, the Deserts of Arabia, &c, 92. 
 
 (2) The Valley Plains — China, India, Babylonia, Egypt. In such 
 regions great Kingdoms have originated, 93. (3) The coast land — 
 Influence of the Sea, 94. Classification of the three portions of the 
 Old World according to the predominant physical features. — Africa. 
 (1) Africa Proper, (2) European Africa — the coast-land on the North, 
 
 (3) the Valley Land of the Nile, connected with Asia, 95, 96. Afri- 
 can type of character, 97. Sorcery and Fetish -worship, 98. Worship 
 of the Dead —Contempt for Humanity — Tyranny and Cannibalism, 
 99. Slavery, 100. Political condition of Africans, 101. Frenzy in 
 war, 102. The merely Natural condition which African character ex- 
 hibits is one of absolute injustice — Africa dismissed from further con- 
 sideration as lying only on the threshold of History, 103. Asia. Si- 
 beria eliminated as out of the pale of History. (1) Central Upland of 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 xxix 
 
 Asia. (2) Vast Valley-Plains of China, India, the lands of the Tigris 
 and Euphrates, &c. (3) The intermixture of these physical features 
 in Hither or Anterior Asia — Syria, Asia Minor, &c, 104, 105. Eu- 
 rope. Physical features less marked than those of Africa and Asia. 
 
 (1) Southern Europe — Greece, Italy, South Eastern France, &c. 
 
 (2) The heart of Europe — France, Germany, and England. (3) The 
 North Eastern States — Poland, Russia, the Slavonic Kingdoms, 106. 
 107. 
 
 Classification of Historic Data. 
 
 The course of History symbolized by that of Light, 109. Begins with 
 the East — Gradual development of the consciousness of Freedom, 110. 
 Oriental Empires, 111. Invasion of Tartar hordes — Prosaic Empire 
 of China, India, &c. — Persian Empire of Light— Transition to Greece, 
 112. Greece, the Kingdom of Beautiful Freedom — the Youth, as Rome 
 is the Manhood of History, 113. Claims of Personality formally recog- 
 nized — Crushing influence of Rome on individual and national genius, 
 114. Christianity and the German World — Mahometanism, 115. 
 The Church — Its Corruption — The Ideal of Reason realized in Secular 
 life — The emancipation of Spirit, 116. 
 
 Part I. The Oriental World. 
 
 Principle of the Oriental World, the Substantial, the Prescriptive in 
 Morality — Government only the prerogative of compulsion, 116, 
 117. With China and the Mongols — the realm of theocratic despotism 
 — History begins. — India, 118. Persia — the symbol of whose empire 
 is Light, 119. Syria and Judcea. Egypt — the transition to Greece, 120. 
 
 Section I. China. 
 
 Substantiality of the principle on which the Chinese Empire is based, 
 
 121. Antiquity of Chinese traditions and records — Canonical books, 
 
 122. Population— Complete political organization, 123. Fohi, the 
 reputed founder of Chinese civilization— Successive dynasties and ca- 
 pital cities, 124. Shi-hoang-ti — His Great Wall, and Book-burning. 
 Tartars; Mantchoo dynasty, 125. Spirit of the political and social 
 life of China— The principle of the Family that of the Chinese State, 
 126. Relative duties strictly enforced by law, 127. Merits of Sons 
 ♦imputed ' to their Fathers — " Hall of Ancestors," 128. The Empe- 
 ror is the Patriarch —the supreme authority in matters of religion and 
 science as well as government — His will, however, controlled by an- 
 cient maxims — Education of Princes, 129. Administration of the 
 Empire, 130. Learned and Military Mandarins — Examinations for 
 official posts — The Romance, Ju-Kiao-li, 131. The Censors — In- 
 stances of their upright discharge of duty, 132. The Emperor the 
 active soul of the Empire, 133. Jurisprudence — Subjects regarded as 
 in a state of nonage — Chastisements chiefly corporal — corrective, not 
 retributive, 134. Severe punishment of the contravention of relative 
 duties— No distinction between malice prepense and accidental injury: 
 a cause of dispute between the English and Chinese, 135. Revenge 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 an occasion of suicide — Serfdom, 136. Great immorality of the Chi- 
 nese — The Religion of Fo, which regards God as Pure Nothing, 137. 
 Religious side of Chinese polity — Relation of the Emperor to Religion 
 — Controversy in the Catholic Church respecting the Chinese name of 
 God, 138. Genii— Bonzes, 139. Chinese Science, 140. "Written 
 distinguished from Spoken Language — Leibnitz's opinion on the ad- 
 vantage of the separation, 141. Obstacles presented by this system to 
 the advance of Knowledge. — Chinese History, Jurisprudence, Ethica 
 and Philosophy, 142. Mathematics, Physics, and Astronomy — Ac- 
 quaintance with the Art of Printing, 143. Chinese painting, working 
 of metals, &c. — Summary of Chinese character, 144. 
 
 Section II. India. 
 
 India the region of phantasy and sensibility, contrasted with China, 145. 
 India presents us with Spirit in a state of Dream — Analogy to certain 
 phases of female beauty, 146. Indian Pantheism, that of Imagination 
 not of Thought — Deification of finite existence, 147. Extensive rela- 
 tions of India to the History of the "World — Sanscrit, 148. India the 
 Land of Desire to Conquerors: Alexander — Conquests of the English — 
 Topographical divisions, 149, 150. Political life — Castes, &c. 151-154. 
 Brahm ; the Brahmins ; the Yogis, 155. Religious suicide, 156. 
 Brahmins are by birth, present deities, 157. Observances binding on 
 Brahmins, 1 ")8. Brahminical dignity and prerogatives, 159. Difficul- 
 ties experienced by the English in enlisting native troops, 160. Rights of 
 property in land not clearly ascertainable — Evasion of land tax imposed 
 by the English, 161. Hindoo Mythology, 162. Brahm, the pure Unity 
 of Thought, or God in incomplexity of existence — Analogies to religion 
 of Fo, 163. Avatars or Incarnations — Vishnu. Siva, and Mahädeva — 
 Sensual side of Hindoo worship, 164. Immorality of Hindoo character 
 accounted for, 165. Art and Science — Exaggerated estimate of intel- 
 lectual culture and scientific attainments, 166. The Vedas, the epic 
 poems, Ramayana and Mahabharata — The Puranas and the Code of 
 Manu, 167. The Hindoo State, 168. History, properly speaking, 
 non-existent among the Hindoos, 169. Confusion of imagination with 
 fact, 170. Absurd chronology and cosmogonies — Colebrooke's re- 
 searches, 171. Deception practised by Brahmins on Captain "Wilford 
 — Vicramäditya and Calidasa, 172. State in which Europeans found 
 India — Not a degeneracy from a superior political condition, 173. 
 Summary of Hindoo character, 174. 
 
 Section II. Continued. India — Buddhism. 
 Distinction of Buddhism from Hindoo conceptions, 175. Buddhism 
 supplements the spiritual deficiencies of the Chinese principle. Analysis 
 of Buddhism — Connection of its leading conception with the doctrine 
 of Metempsychosis, 170. Incarnations of abstract Deity in departed 
 teachers, Buddha, Gautama, and Foe, and in the Grand Lama, 177. 
 The three Lamas — The individual as such is not the object of worship 
 but the principle of which he is the incarnation, 178. Education and 
 personal character of the Lamas, The Shamans, 179. Government 
 administered by a Vizier, 180. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 Section III. Persia. 
 
 Nations of Hither Asia belong to the Caucasian race. Greater similarity 
 to Europeans. The Persians the first "World- historical people. Zo- 
 roaster and the principle of 'Light,' 180. Explanation of that principle, 
 181, 182. Topographical divisions, 183. 
 
 Chapter I. The Zend People. — The Zend Books — the canonical books 
 of the ancient Parsees. Anquetil du Perron's researches — Bactriana 
 probably the original seat of the Zend people, 184. The doctrine of 
 Zoroaster, 185. Light and Darkness — Ormuzd and Ahriman. Zer- 
 uane-Akerene, 186. Moral requirements, 187. Ritual Observances, 
 
 188. Cyrus and the river Gyndes, 189. 
 
 Chapter II. The Assyrians, Babylonians, Medes, and Persians. — 
 Element of wealth, luxury and commerce in these nations — The ' Shah- 
 nameh.' Contest of Iran and Turan — Perversion of historical facts, 
 
 189, 190. Babylon, 191, 192. The Medes — Magi, closely connected 
 with the Zend religion — The Assyrian-Babylonian Empire, 193. The 
 Persians— Cyrus — Lydia and the Greek colonies, 194. 
 
 Chapter III. The Persian Empire and its constituent parts. 
 — The Persian Empire comprehends the three geographical elements 
 noticed p. 92 — the Uplands of Persia and Media, the Valley- Plains of 
 the Euphrates, Tigris, and Nile, and the Coast- Region, Syria and 
 Phenicia, 195. Persians, 196. Nomadic character of their military 
 expeditions, 197. Nobility, court, and political constitution of Persia, 
 198. Syria and Semitic Western Asia — Syrian and Phoenician cul- 
 ture, commerce, and inventions, 199 Idolatry of Syria, Phrygia, &c. 
 — Worship of the Universal Power of Nature, Astarte, Cybele, or 
 Diana, 200. Bond of religion lax. — Phoenicians — Hercules worshipped 
 at Tyre — Real import of the myths attached to Hercules, 201. Ado« 
 nis. Pain an element of worship, 202. Judcca. Jewish idea of God, 
 203. Spirit in opposition to Nature, 204. Advantages and deficien- 
 cies attaching to the Jewish stand-point, 205, 206. Egypt. Union 
 of the elements of the Persian Empire — The Sphinx, 207. Egypt the 
 Land of Marvels— Herodotus, Manetho, 208. Young and Champol- 
 lion's investigations into the Hieroglyphic language, 209. History, 
 2('9 — 212. Genius of the Egyptians • Division into Castes— less rigid 
 than among the Hindoos, 213. Customs, Laws, scientific and practi- 
 cal skill of Egypt, 214. Indifference to politics on the part of the 
 inferior castes. Religion — Series of natural phenomena determined 
 by the Sun and the Nile — Osiris, the Sun, the Nile; Isis, the Earth — 
 Parallelism with human life. Mutual symbolism — Egyptian Hermes, 
 Anubis (Thoth ), the spiritual side of Egyptian theism, 215-220. Wor- 
 ship chiefly Zoolatry — The Worship of brutes may involve a more intel- 
 ligent creed than that of the "Host of Heaven." Apis, 220, 221. Tran- 
 sition from Egyptian to Greek statuary art, the former giving definite 
 expression by the heads and masks of brutes, Anubis, e. g., with 
 dog's head, &c. The Problem which the Egyptian Spirit proposes to 
 itself, 222, 223. Hieroglyphs — Catacombs — The Pyramids— The 
 Realm of the Dead. The Egyptians the first to conceive of the soul 
 
xxxii 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 as immortal — Metempsychosis, 225. The dead body an object of care 
 in consequence of belief in immortality — Mummies, 226. Judgment 
 on the Dead — Death with the Egyptians a stimulus to enjoy Life, 
 227. The Human and Divine united in some symbolic representa- 
 tions — Summary of the startling contrasts exhibited in Egyptian cha- 
 racter — Herodotus's Egyptian tales, similar to the Thousand and One 
 Nights, which may be partly traced to Egypt — Von Hammer's 
 opinion. Transition to the Greek World. The Egyptians 
 as compared with the Greeks, present boyhood contrasted with youth, 
 229. The inscriptions at Sais and Delphi compared — (Edipus and 
 the Sphinx, 230. Historical transition from Egypt to Greece me- 
 diated by the fall of the Persian Empire — Decline and fall of the 
 great Empires— Prejudice in favour of duration as compared with 
 transiency. Summary of characteristics of the Persian Empire and 
 its dependencies, 231, 232. 
 
 Part II. The Greek World. 
 
 Among the Greeks we feel ourselves at home— True Palingenesis of 
 Spirit, 232. Homer, Achilles, Alexander — Three periods in Greek 
 History — Growth, Contests with the Persians, and Decline, 233. 
 
 Section I. The Elements of the Greek Spirit. 
 
 The Greek Spirit characterized — Geographical peculiarities of Hellas, 
 234. The Greeks a mixed race, 235. Various stocks from which 
 the population of Greece was derived, 236. Influence of the Sea — 
 Piracy — Minos. Rudiments of Greek civilization connected with the 
 advent of foreigners. States founded by foreigners, 237. Cecrops, 
 Danaus, Cadmus — Cyclopian fortresses, 238. Royalty in the earliest 
 period of Greece, and relation of Kings to subjects, 239. The Trojan 
 War, 240. Extinction of the royal houses — Position of the Actors 
 and the Chorus in Tragedy analogous to that of Kings and peoples in 
 early Greek history, 241. Rise of the Greek cities — Colonization, 
 242. Influence of the topographical features of Greece on the culture 
 of its inhabitants— Specific character of Greek worship of Nature, 243. 
 Greek view of Nature — Pan, 244. Origin of the Muses — Mavrtia, 
 
 245. Oracles, the Delphic priestesses; and the Cave of Trophonius, 
 
 246. Question of the foreign or indigenous origin of Greek mytholo- 
 gical conceptions, 247. The Mysteries — Summary of the Elements 
 of the Greek Spirit— The Greek character is Individuality conditioned 
 by Beauty, 248. Philosophical import of Art, 249. 
 
 Section II. Phases of Individuality aesthetically 
 
 CONDITIONED. 
 
 Chapter I. The Subjective Work of Art. — Adaptation of Nature 
 to purposes of utility and ornament, 250. Development of the human 
 body itself as the organ of the Soul, and as a medium for the expres- 
 sion of beauty, 251. Olympic and other public games. Philosophical 
 import of sports of this kind, 252. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 XXX111 
 
 Chapter IT. The Objective Work of Art. — The Greek Gods are 
 Individualities, objectively beautiful, 253. The overthrow of the 
 Titans— its philosophical import. Relation of the new dynasty of 
 pods to the powers of Nature, 254. Advance from the Sensuous to 
 the Spiritual — Greek divinities not abstractions, 255. The adven- 
 titious element in the Greek mythology — Local divinities, 256. Ra- 
 tional estimate of the " Mysteries," 258. Anthropomorphism of Greek 
 mythology no disparagement, but the contrary — The Christian con- 
 ception of God still more anthropomorphic, and therefore more ade- 
 quate, 258. Distinction between Greek and Christian incarnations 
 of deity, 259, Fate and Oracles, 260. 
 
 Chapter III. The Political Work of Art. —Democracy adapted to 
 the grade of development occupied by the Greeks, 260. The Seven 
 Sages, practical politicians. Solon — Athenian Democracy. Montes- 
 quieu's remark on Democracy. Law with the Greeks is Customary 
 Morality, 261. Immanent Objective Morality essential to the healthy 
 working of a Democratic constitution, 262. Patriotic sentiment of the 
 Greeks — Not an enthusiasm for an abstract principle. Sophists intro- 
 duced subjective rejection, which led to the decline of national life, 
 263. Great men as legislators and statesmen enjoyed the confidence 
 of the people during the prosperous times of Greece — Greek Demo- 
 cracy connected with Oracles, 264. Slavery another characteristic of 
 the Greek polity — Democratical constitutions attached to small states, 
 often to single cities of no great extent — The French Democracy con- 
 stituted no vital and concrete unity, but a mere Paper World, 265-6. 
 The War with the Persians. Summary view of the struggle, 267. 
 Victories of the Greeks and the undying interest attached to them — 
 Athens and Sparta, 268. Athens. Mixed population — Solonian 
 Constitution — Pisistratus, 269. Advance of the Democratic principle 
 — Pericles, 270. Free play for the development of individual charac- 
 ter at Athens, resulting in a noble intellectual and artistic develop- 
 ment, 271. Funeral oration of Pericles. 272. Sparta. Early stages 
 of its development very different from those of Athenian history. 
 Dorian invasion — Subjugation of the Helots The Lycurgian Consti- 
 tution, 273-4. Defects of Spartan culture. — Standpoint of the Greek 
 Spirit, 275. The Peloponnesian, War. Isolation of the Greek states. 
 The Athenian Hegemony — Struggle between Athens and Sparta, 
 277. Spartan oppression — Temporary preponderance of Thebes — 
 Subjectivity characteristic of Theban character, 278. Cause of the 
 decay of the Greek World, 279. The Sophists, 280. Socrates the 
 Inventor of Morality. — Established an Ideal world alien to the Real 
 one, 281. Condemnation of Socrates, its interest in connection with 
 the decay of the Greek World. Aristophanes— Decline of Athens 
 and that of Sparta contrasted, 282. 
 
 The Macedonian Emjtire. The Insult to the Delphian Apollo destroys 
 the last support of unity in Greece— Establishment of a real authori- 
 tative royalty by Philip. Alexander's inherited advantages, 283. 
 His education— invasion of the East — early death — Extent and im- 
 portance of his empire, 284. Alexandria a centre of Science and Art 
 — the point of union for Eastern and Western culture, 286. 
 
xxxiv 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 Section III. Fall of the Greek Spirit. 
 
 Intellectual vitality still preserved to some extent in Athens — Relations 
 of Greek States to foreign powers — Achaean league — Attempts of Agis 
 and Cleomenes, Aratus and Philopcemen to resuscitate Greece. Con- 
 tact with the Romans, 286-9. 
 
 Part III. The Roman "World. 
 
 Napoleon's observation, " La politique est la fatalite." The Roman 
 World the crushing Destiny that aimed to destroy all concrete life in 
 states and individuals, compelling the soul to take refuge in such a 
 supersensuous world as Christianity offers, 289. Abstract personality — 
 the legal right of the individual, established by Rome — General aspect 
 of the political world of Rome, 290. Treatment of its annals by His- 
 torians. Philologists, and Jurists — Locality of Rome — Question of an 
 Italian capital discussed by Napoleon in his " Memoirs." Italy presents 
 no natural unity, 291. Division of Roman History, 292-3. 
 
 Section L Rome to the time of the Second Punic 
 War. 
 
 Chapter L The Elements of the Roman Spirit. — Pirst establish- 
 ment of Rome, 293. Romulus — Artificial foundation of the State, 
 294-5. Patricians and Plebeians — Debts and laws respecting them, 
 296. Roman harshness in respect to the family relation. Marriage 
 and the condition of wives, 298. Strict subordination of Roman citi- 
 zens to the state and its usages, 298. The prose of life characteristic 
 of the Roman World — Prosaic character of Etruscan art. To the 
 Romans we owe the development of positive Law, 299. Spirit of the 
 mythological conceptions of the Romans to be carefully distinguished 
 from that of the Greeks, 300. Mystery characterizing the Roman re- 
 ligion — Number and minuteness of ceremonial observances — The 
 Sacra, 301. Self-seeking character of Roman religion. 302. Prosaic 
 utilitarian divinities contrasted with the free and beautiful conceptions 
 of the Greeks, 303. The Saturnalia — Adoption of Greek divinities — 
 Frigid use of them in Roman poetry, 304. Public games of the Romans 
 — The people generally were spectators only — Cruelty of public spec- 
 tacles. Superstition and self-seeking the cl.ief characteristics of Roman 
 religion, 305. Religion made to serve the purposes of the Patricians — 
 No genial vitality uniting the whole state as in the Greek Polis — Each 
 M gens " sternly retains its peculiarities, 306. 
 
 Chapter II. History of Rome to the Second Punic War. — First 
 period of Roman History — The Kings, 307-309. Expulsion of the 
 Kings by the patricians — Consuls — Straggles between the patricians 
 and the plebs, 310-313. The Agrarian Laws, 314. Excitement of 
 civil contest diverted into the channel of foreign wars — Roman com- 
 pared with Greek armies, 315. Gradual extension of Roman dominion, 
 316, 317. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 XXXV 
 
 Section IT. Rome from the Second Punic War to the 
 Emperors. 
 
 Power of Carthage — Hannibal, 317. Conquest of Macedonia — Antio- 
 chus — Fall of Carthage and of Corinth — The Scipios, 318. When the 
 excitement of war is over, the Romans have no resources of Art or 
 Intellect to fall back upon, 319. Treatment of conquered provinces. 
 — Increase of luxury and debauchery in Rome. The legacy of Atta- 
 lus— The Gracchi, 320. Jugurtha — Mithridates — Sulla — Marius and 
 Cinna— The Servile War, 321. Great individuals now appear on the 
 stage of political life in Rome, as during the period of the decline of 
 Greece — Pompey and Ca?sar — Triumph of the latter, 322. Impossi- 
 bility of preserving the republican constitution — Short-sighted views 
 of Cicero and Cato, 323. Character and achievements of Caesar — 
 Hallucination which led to his assassination, 324. Rise of Augustus. 
 A revolution is sanctioned in men's opinions when it repeats itself 
 — Napoleon and the Bourbons, 325. 
 
 Section III. 
 
 Chapter I. Rome under the Emperors. — Position of the Ruler and 
 the Subjects — The, former an absolute despot supported by the army, 
 the laiter united by purely legal relations, all concrete and genial in- 
 terests being annulled, 325, 326. Personal character of the Emperors 
 a matter of small importance to the empire, 327. The recognition of 
 Private Right the result of this absolute despotism — Dissolution of 
 the political body into its component atoms, 328. Public and political 
 interests have lost all charm, and men fall back upon mere sensuous 
 enjoyment or philosophic indifference— Prevalence of Stoicism, Epi- 
 cureanism and Scepticism, 329. 
 
 Chapter II. Christianity. — Julius Caesar inaugurated the 'real' 
 side of the Modern World : its spiritual and inward existence was un- 
 folded under Augustus — Crushing despotism of the Empire opens the 
 way for Christianity, 330. The Greek, Roman and Christian grades of 
 self-consciousness, 331. Despotism of Rome, the discipline of the 
 World — Import of Discipline, 332. Moral introspection the charac- 
 teristic of the Jewish World — The Psalms and Prophets — Connection 
 of Knowledge with Sin in the Biblical Narrative of the Fall, 333. 
 Annulling of their nationality and loss of all temporal good reduces 
 the Jewish Spirit to seek satisfaction in God alone — God recognized 
 as pure Spirit in Christianity, 334, 335. The Trinity, 336. Incarna- 
 tion of God in Christ its full import— distinguished from Lamaistic 
 and similar conceptions, 337. Miracles — The formation of the Church 
 — Christ's own teaching, 338. Polemical aspect of that teaching to 
 secular interests and relations — Nowhere are such revolutionary utter- 
 ances to be found as in the Gospels, 339, 340. Origination of the 
 Church— Development of doctrine by the Apostles — Relation of early 
 Christianity to the Empire, 341. Connection of Christian doctrine 
 with the Philosoph ij of the time — Union of the abstract idea of God 
 that originated in the West with the concrete and imaginative con- 
 ceptions characteristic of the East — Alexandria — Philo — the Aoyos,, 
 
xxx vi 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 341, 342. Attempt of the Alexandrians to rationalize Paganism ; and of 
 Philo and Christian writers to spiritualize the narrative parts of the 
 Old Testament, 343. The Nicene settlement of doctrine — Internal 
 and external aspect of the Church— Eise of an ecclesiastical organi- 
 zation, 344. The Ecclesiastical distinguished from the Spiritual 
 Kingdom, 345. Recognition of Human dignity: the result of Christi- 
 anity — Slavery incompatible with it — Mere customary morality abro- 
 gated — Oracles cease to be respected, 346, 347. Imbuing of secular 
 life with the Christian principle, a work of time — Religion and " the 
 World " not necessarily opposed to each other — Rational Freedom the 
 harmonization of the Religious and the Secular — This harmonization 
 the destiny of the German peoples, 347, 348. 
 Chapter III. The Byzantine Empire. — Progress of Christianity — 
 Division of the Empire, 349. Fall of the Roman power in the West — 
 Contrast between the East and the West, 350. Powerlessness of the 
 abstract profession of Christianity in the Byzantine Empire, to restrain 
 crime, 351. Violent and sanguinary religious feuds in Constantinople 
 — Gregory Nazianzen cited, 352. Image- Worship — Aspect of Byzan- 
 tine History down to the conquest of Constantinople by the Turks, 
 353. 
 
 Part IV. The German World. 
 The German Spirit that of the Modern World — The German peoples 
 destined to be the bearers of the Christian principle — German de- 
 velopment contrasted with that of Greece and Rome, 354. The 
 Christian World that of completion — Bearing of this fact on the 
 division of the Modern World into historical periods— The Religion 
 of the Ancient Germans struck no deep root among them : Tacitus' de- 
 scription of them as " Securi adversus Deos" 355. Germans came in 
 contact with a fully developed Ecclesiastical and Secular culture — The 
 German world apparently a continuation of the Roman — But a new 
 spirit characterizes them — Evolution of the antithesis between Church 
 and State — Division of the German World into three periods — (l)From 
 the appearance of the Germans in the Roman Empire to Charlemagne 
 — (2) Period of Contest between Church and State — (3) That in which 
 Secularity obtains a consciousness of its intrinsic moral value, and 
 Rational Freedom is achieved, i. e. from the Reformation to our own 
 times, 356, 357. The German world presents a repetition (by analogy) 
 of earlier epochs — Comparison with the Persian, Greek and Roman 
 World, 358, 359. 
 
 Section I. The Elements of the Christian German 
 World. 
 
 Chapter I. The Barbarian Migrations. — Individual freedom a 
 characteristic of the ancient Germans — Causes of the invasion of the 
 Roman Empire, 360. Duplicate condition of the great Teutonic 
 families — Various tribes of Germans, 361 — Romanic and Germanic 
 nations of Europe — the former comprising Italy, Spain, Portugal and 
 France, the latter Germany itself, Scandinavia and England, 362. The 
 Sclaves — their immigration and relation to the rest of Europe — Have 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 XXX VÜ 
 
 not yet appeared as an independent phase of Reason, whatever they 
 may become in the Future— The German Nation characterized by 
 "Heart" [Gemiith] — " Heart " distinguished from Character, 363. 
 Aspect which their idiosyncrasy presents to Christianity, 364, 365. 
 Religion of the ancient Germans — Deficiency in depth of moral senti- 
 ment, 366. Free confederations united by fealty— Political relations 
 not founded on general principles, but split up into private rights and 
 obligations, 367. Violence of passions not restrained by religion in 
 the early periods of the German World — Transition from secular 
 excesses to religious enthusiasm and seclusion, 368, 369. 
 
 Chapter II. Mahometanism. — Absorption in one Idea characteristic 
 of Mahometanism — the polar and supplemental opposite of the splitting 
 up into particularity that distinguishes the German World, 369, 370. 
 Comparison of Mahometanism with other forms of Faith — Origin and 
 progress of the Mussulman faith and arms, 371. Fanaticism of the 
 Mahometans— La religion et la terreur the Moslem principle, as with 
 Robespierre La UberU et la terreur — Instability of their political or- 
 ganizations, 372. Rapid rise of Arts and Sciences among them, 373. 
 Mussulman revolutions — European struggle with the Saracens — 
 Goethe's " Divan," 374. 
 
 Chapter III. The Empire of Charlemagne — Constitution of the 
 Frank Empire — Feudal System— Rise of the " Mayors of the Palace." 
 Pepin le Bref, 375. Charlemagne — Extent of his Empire — Its com- 
 plete organization, 376, 377. Administration of Justice — Ecclesiasti- 
 cal affairs— Imperial Council, 378, 379. Causes of the instability of 
 the political organization established by Charlemagne, 38Ü. 
 
 Section II. The Middle Ages. 
 
 Reactions occasioned by the infinite falsehood which rules the destinies of 
 the Middle Ages. (1) That of particular nationalities against the 
 universal sovereignty of the Frank Empire. (2) That of individuals 
 against legal authority. (3) That of the spiritual element against the 
 existing order of things. The Crusades the culminating epoch of the 
 Middle Ages, 380, 381. 
 
 Chapter I. The Feudality and the Hierarchy. — First reaction 
 — Separation of the French from the Germans —Italian andBurgun- 
 dian Kingdoms, &c. Invasion by the Norsemen of England, France, 
 and Germany, 382. Magyar and Saracen inroads — Inefficiency of 
 the military organization formed by Charlemagne, 383. Second re- 
 action — Capacity of appreciating the advantages of legal order not yet 
 attained — Protection afforded by powerful individuals — " Feudum " 
 and "fides," 384,385. The Imperial dignity an empty title— The 
 state broken up into petty sovereignties, 386. Hugh Capet — the na- 
 ture of his power — France divided into several Duchies and Earldoms 
 — Conquest of England by William Duke of Normandy, 387. State 
 of Germany and Italy — Right vanishing before individual Might. 
 Third reaction — that of Universality against the Real World split up 
 into particularity — chiefly promoted by the Church, 388. Close of the 
 World expected" in the eleventh century — Ecclesiastical affairs, 389. 
 
xxxviii 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 Gregory VII. enforces the celibacy of the clergy, and contends against 
 Simony, 390. Increasing power of the Church — " Truce of God," 
 391. Spiritual element in the Church — Design of the Mass, 392. 
 Laity and Clergy, 393. Mediation of the Saints, 394. False separa- 
 tion of the Spiritual from the Secular, 395. Celibacy, Religious Pau- 
 perism and the Obedience of Blind Credulity opposed to true morality, 
 396. The Mediaeval Church and State involved in contradictions — 
 Absurdity of modern laudations of the Middle Ages. Growth of Feu- 
 dal System, side by side with that of secularized Church power — Rise of 
 architectural art — of maritime commerce — of the Sciences — Growing 
 importance of the Towns, 399. Freedom reviving in the town com- 
 munities—Defensive organization — Formation of Guilds, 400, 401. 
 Struggles between the cities and the nobility, and internal factions, 
 402. Struggle of the Emperor with the cities and with the Church— 
 Guelf and Ghibelline contest — Dante — The House of Hohenstaufen 
 and the Papal power — Termination of the contest, 403-405. 
 
 Chapter LT. — The Crusades. — Analysis of the impulse that led to 
 the Crusades, 405-408. — Conduct and results of the expedition, 408. 
 Spiritual result of the Crusades, 409. Wars with the Moors in Spain, 
 Crusades against the Albigenses, 410. Culmination of the authority 
 of the Church in the Crusades, but its power weakened through their 
 failure, 411. Monastic and Chivalric Orders, their Spiritual import, 
 412-414. Science — Scholastic Philosophy — Intellectual jousting, 
 414, 415. 
 
 Chapter III. — Transition from Feudalism to Monarchy. Forms 
 of Transition from feudal to monarchical sway, 415-417. State of 
 Germany — Leagues of Nations, 418. Peasant fraternities — Invention 
 of Gunpowder — its results to civilization, 419. Italy — Reduction of 
 feudal power by Sovereigns. — Machiavelli's " Prince," 420. France 
 — Increasing power of Kings — States -general called, 421. England — 
 Magna Charta — House of Commons, 422. Revolts against Papal 
 power — Arnold of Brescia, Wickliffe and Huss, 423. Disciplinary 
 Influence of the Church and of Serfdom — Results, 424, 425. 
 
 Art and Science putting a period to the Middle Ages. — Religious Art, 
 Spiritual import of, 425, 426. Study of Antiquity. Revival of the 
 Study of Greek literature occasioned by the fall of the Eastern Empire 
 — New world of ideas opened. — The Art of Printing, 427. Dis- 
 covery of the passage to India by the Cape, and of America, 428. 
 
 Section III. The Modern Time. 
 
 The third period of the German World — Spirit becomes conscious of its 
 Freedom, 428. (1) The Reformation; (2) The state of things imme- 
 diately resulting from it; (3) Period from the end of the last century 
 to the present day. 
 
 Chapter I. The Reformation. — The Reformation resulted from the 
 corruption of the Church ; but this corruption was no accidental pheno- 
 menon — It arose from the enshrinement of the sensuous and material 
 in the inmost being of the Church, 429. Luther's doctrine of Faith, 432. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 xxxix 
 
 His views of the Eucharist — more in accordance with the Catholic than 
 with the Calvinistic Church — Subjective Feeling as well as Objective 
 Truth regarded in the Lutheran Church as essential to salvation, 433. 
 The banner of Free Spirit, — The essence of the Reformation is that 
 Man is destined to be free, 434. Gradual expansion of Luther's views 
 — Denies the Authority of the Church — Incalculable value to the 
 Germans of Luther's translation of the Bible — The Bible a People's 
 Book, 435. Council of Trent stereotyped Catholic dogmas and 
 rendered reconciliation between Catholics and Protestants impossible 
 — Hostility of the Church to Science — Galileo, 436. Why was the 
 Keformation confined to Germanic nations? Answer to this question 
 must be referred to essential differences of national character — Napo- 
 leon's view of religion — Antipathy of cultivated Frenchmen to Protes- 
 tantism, 437-439. Relation of the Reformed doctrine to social life 
 — Celibacy repudiated — Condemnation of " Usury" by the Church — 
 Obedience of blind credulity renounced, 440, 441. Slow introduction 
 of the principles of the Reformation into political life — Influence on 
 religious consciousness of the individual — Painfully introspective ten- 
 dencies, 442. The Power of Evil — Witchcraft— Legend of Faust - 
 . Trials for witchcraft — Long continuance of these superstitious cruel- 
 ties, 444. 
 
 Chapter II. Influence op the Reformation on Political De- 
 velopment.— Establishment of hereditary monarchy— Conversion of 
 rights of the great vassals into official positions and functions — Origi- 
 nation of standing armies, 445, 446. Chivalric Spirit of Spain — 
 The Inquisition — Assistance afforded by it to the throne — Suppression 
 of aristocratic power in Europe — Proper office of an aristocracy, 447, 
 448. System of European States— International wars —Conquest aimed 
 at — Italy an especial object of desire — Disintegration characteristic of 
 Italy — Love of the Fine Arts tends to make Italians indifferent to 
 political matters — "Balance of Power," 449. Sovereigns threatening 
 to disturb the Balance of Power — Charles V. Louis XIV. 450. The 
 Thirty Years' War, 452. The "Great Rebellion" in England, 453. 
 The Peace of Westphalia, 454. Richelieu's policy, 455. Consolida- 
 tion of Prussia by Frederick the Great, 456. 
 
 Chapter III. The Eolaircissement and Revolution. — Experi- 
 mental Science, Descartes, 458. Merits of Frederick the Great, 460. 
 itant, 462. Analysis of the principles of the French Revolution: 
 How far connected with Philosophy: Grand Problem of the Age, 
 463. The Constitution, 469. Robespierre — Napoleon, 470. Rela- 
 tion of France, Italy and Spain to the Revolution, 472. Why did not 
 England adopt it ? 473. Analysis of the English Constitution, 474. 
 State of Germany, 475. The Goal of History, 476. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 The subject of this course of Lectures is the Philosophical 
 History of the World. Aud by this must be understood, 
 not a collection of general observations respecting it, sug- 
 gested by the study of its records, and proposed to be illus- 
 trated by its facts, but Universal History itself.* To gain a 
 clear idea at the outset, of the nature of our task, it seems 
 necessary to begin with an examination of the other methods 
 of treating History. The various methods may be ranged 
 under three heads: 
 
 I. Original History. 
 II. Eeflective History. 
 III. Philosophical History. 
 
 I. Of the first kind, the mention of one or two distinguished 
 names will furnish a definite type. To this category belong 
 Herodotus, Thucydides, and other historians of the same 
 order, whose descriptions are for the most part limited to 
 deeds, events, and states of society, which they had before 
 their eyes, and whose spirit they shared. They simply trans- 
 ferred what was passing in the world around them, to the 
 realm of re-presentative intellect. An external phenomenon 
 is thus translated into an internal conception. In the same 
 way the poet operates upon the material supplied him by 
 his emotions ; projecting it into an image for the conceptive 
 faculty. These original historians did, it is true, find state- 
 ments and narratives of other men ready to hand. One 
 person cannot be an eye and ear witness of everything. 
 But they make use of such aids only as the poet does ofthat 
 
 * I cannot mention any work that will serve as a compendium of the 
 course, but I may remark that in my " Outlines of the Philosophy of 
 Law," §§ 341-300, 1 have already given a definition of such a Universal 
 History as it is proposed to develope, and a syllabus of the chief elements 
 or periods into which it naturally divides itself. 
 
 B 
 
2 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 heritage of an already-formed language, to which he owes so 
 much ; merely as an ingredient. Historiographers bind to- 
 gether the fleeting elements of story, and treasure them up 
 for immortality in the Temple of Mnemosyne. Legends, 
 Ballad-stories, Traditions must be excluded from such ori- 
 ginal history. These are but dim and hazy forms of histo- 
 rical apprehension, and therefore belong to nations whose 
 intelligence is but half awakened. Here, on the contrary, we 
 have to do with people fully conscious of what they were 
 and what they were about. The domain of reality — actually 
 seen, or capable of being so — affords a very different basis in 
 point of firmness from that fugitive and shadowy element, 
 in which were engendered those legends and poetic dreams 
 whose historical prestige vanishes, as soon as nations have 
 attained a mature individuality. 
 
 Such original historians, then, change the events, the deeds 
 and the states of society with which they are conversant, 
 into an object for the conceptive faculty. The narratives they 
 leave us cannot, therefore, be very comprehensive in their 
 range. Herodotus, Thucydides, Guicciardini, may be taken 
 as fair samples of the class in this respect. What is present 
 and living in their environment, is their proper material. 
 The influences that have formed the writer are identical with 
 those which have moulded the events that constitute the 
 matter of his story. The author's spirit, and that of the 
 actions he narrates, is one and the same. He describes 
 scenes in which he himself has been an actor, or at any rate 
 an interested spectator. It is short periods of time, indi- 
 vidual shapes of persons and occurrences, single, unreflected 
 traits, of which he makes his picture. And his aim is no- 
 thing more than the presentation to posterity of an image of 
 events as clear as that which he himself possessed in virtue 
 of personal observation, or life-like descriptions. Reflections 
 are none of his business, for he lives in the spirit of his sub- 
 ject ; he has not attained an elevation above it. If, as in 
 Caesar's case, he belongs to the exalted rank of generals or 
 statesmen, it is the prosecution of his own aims that con- 
 stitutes the history. 
 
 Such speeches as we find in Thucydides (for example) of 
 which we can positively assert that they are not bond fide 
 reports, would seem to make against our statement that a 
 
ORIGINAL niSTOET. 
 
 3 
 
 historian of his class presents us no reflected picture ; that 
 persons and people appear in his works in propria person a. 
 Speeches, it must be allowed, are veritable transactions in 
 the human commonwealth ; in fact, very gravely influential 
 transactions. It is, indeed, often said, " Such and such 
 things are only talk ;" by way of demonstrating their harm- 
 lessness. That for which this excuse is brought, may be 
 mere " talk ;" and talk enjoys the important privilege 
 of being harmless. But addresses of peoples to peoples, or 
 orations directed to nations and to princes, are integrant 
 constituents of history. Granted that such orations as 
 those of Pericles — that most profoundly accomplished, ge- 
 nuine, noble statesman — were elaborated by Thucydides ; it 
 must yet be maintained that they were not foreign to the 
 character of the speaker. In the orations in question, these 
 men proclaim the maxims adopted by their countrymen, and 
 which formed their own character ; they record their views 
 of their political relations, and of their moral and spiritual 
 nature ; and the principles of their designs and conduct. 
 What the historian puts into their mouths is no suppositi- 
 tious system of ideas, but an uncorrupted transcript of their 
 intellectual and moral habitudes. 
 
 Of these historians, whom we must make thoroughly our 
 own, with whom we must linger long, if we would live with 
 their respective nations, and enter deeply into their spirit : 
 of these historians, to whose pages we may turn not for the 
 purposes of erudition merely, but with a view to deep and ge- 
 nuine enjoyment, there are fewer than might be imagined. 
 Herodotus the Father, i.e. the Founder of History, and Thu- 
 cydides have been already mentioned. Xenophon's Retreat of 
 the Ten Thousand, is a work equalty original. Caesar's Com- 
 mentaries are the simple masterpiece of a mighty spirit. 
 Among the ancients, these annalists were necessarily great 
 captains and statesmen. In the Middle Ages, if we except 
 the Bishops, who were placed in the very centre of the poli- 
 tical world, the Monks monopolize this category as naive 
 chroniclers who were as decidedly isolated from active life as 
 those elder annalists had been connected with it. In modern 
 times the relations are entirely altered. Our culture is es- 
 sentially comprehensive, and immediately changes all events 
 into historical representations. Belonging to the class in 
 
4 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 question, we have vivid, simple, clear narrations — especially 
 of military transactions — which might fairly take their place 
 with those of CaBsar. In richness of matter and fulness of 
 detail as regards strategic appliances, and attendant cir- 
 cumstances, they are even more instructive. The Trench 
 " Memoires " also, fall under this category. In many cases 
 these are written by men of mark, though relating to affairs of 
 little note. They not unfrequently contain a large proportion 
 of anecdotical matter, so that the ground they occupy is 
 narrow and trivial. Yet they are often veritable master- 
 pieces in history ; as those of Cardinal Ketz, which in fact 
 trench on a larger historical field. In Germany such masters 
 are rare. Frederick the Great (" Histoire de mon temps") 
 is an illustrious exception. Writers of this order must oc- 
 cupy an elevated position. Only from such a position is it 
 possible to take an extensive view of affairs — to see every- 
 thing. This is out of the question for him, who from below 
 merely gets a glimpse of the great world through a miserable 
 cranny. 
 
 II. The second kind of history we may call the reflective. 
 It is history whose mode of representation is not really con- 
 fined by the limits of the time to which it relates, but whose 
 spirit transcends the present. In this second order a strongly 
 marked variety of species may be distinguished. 
 
 1. It is the aim of the investigator to gain a view of the 
 entire history of a people or a country, or of the world, in 
 short, what we call Universal History. In this case the 
 working up of the historical material is the main point. 
 The workman approaches his task with his own spirit ; a 
 spirit distinct from that of the element he is to manipulate. 
 Here a very important consideration will be the principles to 
 which the author refers the bearing and motives of the 
 actions and events which he describes, and those which de- 
 termine the form of his narrative. Among as Germans this 
 reflective treatment and the display of ingenuity which it 
 occasions, assume a manifold variety of phases. Every 
 writer of history proposes to himself an original method. 
 The English and French confess to general principles of his- 
 torical composition. Their stand-point is more that of cos- 
 mopolitan or of national culture. Among us each labours to 
 invent a purely individual point of view. Instead of writing 
 
EEFLECTIYE HISTORY . 
 
 5 
 
 history, we are always beating our brains to discover how 
 history ought to be written. This first kind of Eeflective 
 History is most nearly akin to the preceding, when it has no 
 farther aim than to present the annals of a country complete. 
 Such compilations (among which may be reckoned the works 
 of Livy, Diodorus Siculus, Johannes von Müller' s History of 
 Switzerland) are, if well performed, highly meritorious. 
 Among the best of the kind may be reckoned such annalists 
 as approach those of the first class ; who give so vivid a tran- 
 script of events that the reader may well fancy himself lis- 
 tening to contemporaries and eye-witnesses. But it often 
 happens that the individuality of tone which must charac- 
 terize a writer belonging to a different culture, is not modified 
 in accordance with the periods such a record must traverse. 
 The spirit of the writer is quite other than that of the times 
 of which he treats. Thus Livy puts into the mouths of the 
 old Roman kings, consuls, and generals, such orations as 
 would be delivered by an accomplished advocate of the Livian 
 era, and which strikingly contrast with the genuine tradi- 
 tions of Roman antiquity (e. g. the fable of Menenius 
 Agrippa.) In the same way he gives us descriptions of 
 battles, as if he had been an actual spectator ; but whose 
 features would serve well enough for battles in any period, 
 and whose distinctness contrasts on the other hand with the 
 want of connection and the inconsistency that prevail else- 
 where, even in his treatment of chief points of interest. The 
 difference between such a compiler and an original historian 
 may be best seen by comparing Polybius himself with the 
 style in which Livy uses, expands, and abridges his annals 
 in those periods of which Polybius' s account has been pre- 
 served. Johannes von Müller has given a stiff, formal, pe- 
 dantic aspect to his history, in the endeavour to remain 
 faithful in his portraiture to the times he describes. We 
 much prefer the narratives we find in old Tschudy. All is 
 more naive and natural than it appears in the garb of a fic- 
 titious and affected archaism. 
 
 A history which aspires to traverse long periods of time, 
 or to be universal, must indeed forego the attempt to give 
 individual representations of the past as it actually existed. 
 It must foreshorten its pictures by abstractions; and this in- 
 cludes not merely the omission of events and deeds, but what- 
 
G 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 ever is involved in the fact that Thought is, after all, the 
 most trenchant epitomist. A battle, a great victory, a siege, 
 no longer maintains its original proportions, but is put off 
 with a bare mention. "When Livy e. g. tells us of the wars 
 with the Volsci, we sometimes have the brief announcement : 
 " This year war was carried on with the Volsci." 
 
 2. A second species of Reflective History is what we 
 may call the Pragmatical. When we have to deal with the 
 Past, and occupy ourselves with a remote world, a Present 
 rises into being for the mind — produced by its own activity, 
 as the reward of its labour. The occurrences are, indeed, 
 various ; but the idea which pervades them— their deeper 
 import and connection — is one. This takes the occurrence 
 out of the category of the Past and makes it virtually Pre- 
 sent. Pragmatical (didactic) reflections, though in their 
 nature decidedly abstract, are truly and indefeasibly of the 
 Present, and quicken the annals of the dead Past with the 
 life of to-day. Whether, indeed, such reflections are truly 
 interesting and enlivening, depends on the writer's own 
 spirit. Moral reflections must here be specially noticed, — 
 the moral teaching expected from history ; which latter has 
 not unfrequently been treated with a direct view to the 
 former. It may be allowed that examples of virtue elevate 
 the soul, and are applicable in the moral instruction of 
 children for impressing excellence upon their minds. But 
 the destinies of peoples and states, their interests, relations, 
 and the complicated tissue of their affairs, present quite 
 another field. Rulers, Statesmen, Nations, are wont to be 
 emphatically commended to the teaching which experience 
 offers in history. But what experience and history teach 
 is this, — that peoples and governments never have learned 
 anything from history, or acted on principles deduced from 
 it. Each period is involved in such peculiar circumstances, 
 exhibits a condition of things so strictly idiosyncratic, that 
 its conduct must be regulated by considerations connected 
 with itself, and itself alone. Amid the pressure of great 
 events, a general principle gives no help. It is useless to 
 revert to similar circumstances in the Past. The pallid 
 shades of memory struggle in vain with the life and freedom 
 of the Present. Looked at in this light, nothing can be 
 shallower than the oft-repeated appeal to Greek and Roman 
 
CRITICAL HISTORY. 
 
 7 
 
 examples during the French Revolution. Nothing is more 
 diverse than the genius of those nations and that of our 
 times. Johannes v. Müller, in his Universal History as 
 also in his History of Switzerland, had such moral aims in 
 view. He designed to prepare a body of political doctrines 
 for the instruction of princes, governments and peoples (he 
 formed a special collection of doctrines and reflections, — 
 frequently giving us in his correspondence the exact number 
 of apophthegms which he had compiled in a week) ; but he 
 cannot reckon this part of his labour as among the best that 
 he accomplished. It is only a thorough, liberal, compre- 
 hensive view of historical relations (such e.g. as we find In 
 Montesquieu's " Esprit des Loix"), that can give truth and 
 interest to reflections of this order. One Reflective History 
 therefore, supersedes another. The materials are patent to 
 every writer : each is likely enough to believe himself capa- 
 ble of arranging and manipulating them ; and we may 
 expect that each will insist upon his own spirit as that of 
 the age in question. Disgusted by such reflective histories, 
 readers have often returned with pleasure to a narrative 
 adopting no particular point of view. These certainly have 
 their value ; but for the most part they offer only material 
 for history. We Germans are content with such. The 
 French, on the other band, display great genius in reani- 
 mating bygone times, and in bringing the past to bear upon 
 the present condition of things. 
 
 3. The third form of Reflective History is the Critical. 
 This deserves mention as preeminently the mode of treating 
 history, now current in Germany. It is not history itself 
 that is here presented. We might more properly designate 
 it as a History of History ; a criticism of historical narra- 
 tives and an investigation of their truth and credibility. 
 Its peculiarity in point of fact and of intention, consists in 
 the acuteness with which the writer extorts something from 
 the records which was not in the matters recorded. The 
 French have given us much that is profound and judicious 
 in this class of composition. But they have not endeavoured 
 to pass a merely critical procedure for substantial history. 
 They have duly presented their judgments in the form of 
 critical treatises. Among us, the i-o-called " higher criti- 
 cism," which reigns supreme in the domain of philology, 
 
8 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 has also taken possession of our historical literature. This 
 " higher criticism " has been the pretext for introducing all 
 the anti-historical monstrosities that a vain imagination 
 could suggest. Here we have the other method of making 
 the past a living reality ; putting subjective fancies in the 
 place of historical data ; fancies whose merit is measured by 
 their boldness, that is, the scantiness of the particulars on 
 which they are based, and the peremptoriness with which 
 they contravene the best established facts of history. 
 
 4. The last species of Reflective History announces its 
 fragmentary character on the very face of it. It adopts an 
 abstract position ; yet, since it takes general points of view 
 {e.g. as the History of Art, of Law, of Religion), it forms a 
 transition to the Philosophical History of the World. In 
 our time this form of the history of ideas has been more 
 developed and brought into notice. Such branches of na- 
 tional life stand in close relation to the entire complex of a 
 people's annals ; and the question of chief importance in 
 relation to our subject is, whether the connection of the 
 whole is exhibited in its truth and reality, or referred to 
 merely external relations. In the latter case, these im- 
 portant phenomena (Art, Law, Eeligion, &c.) appear as 
 purely accidental national peculiarities. It must be re- 
 marked that, when Reflective History has advanced to the 
 adoption of general points of view, if the position taken is 
 a true one, these are found to constitute — not a merely 
 external thread, a superficial series — but are the inward 
 guiding soul of the occurrences and actions that occupy a 
 nation's annals. For, like the soul-conductor Mercury, the 
 Idea is in truth, the leader of peoples and of the World; 
 and Spirit, the rational and necessitated will of that con- 
 ductor, is and has been the director of the events of the 
 World's History. To become acquainted with Spirit in 
 this its office of guidance, is the object of our present 
 undertaking. This brings us to 
 
 III. The third kind of history, — the Philosophical. No 
 explanation was needed of the two previous classes ; their 
 nature was self-evident. It is otherwise with this last, 
 which certainly seems to require an exposition or justifica- 
 tion. The most general definition that can be given, is, that 
 the Philosophy of History means nothing but the thoughtful 
 
PHILOSOPHICAL niSTOHY. 
 
 
 
 consideration of it. Thought is, indeed, essential to hu- 
 manity. It is this that distinguishes us from the brutes. 
 In sensation, cognition and intellection ; in our instincts 
 and volitions, as far as they are truly human, Thought is 
 an invariable element. To insist upon Thought in this con- 
 nection with history, may however, appear unsatisfactory. 
 In this science it would seem as if Thought must be subor- 
 dinate to what is given, to the realities of fact ; that this is 
 its basis and guide : while Philosophy dwells in the region 
 of self-produced ideas, without reference to actuality. Ap- 
 proaching history thus prepossessed, Speculation might be 
 expected to treat it as a mere passive material ; and, so far 
 from leaving it in its native truth, to force it into conformity 
 with a tyrannous idea, and to construe it, as the phrase is, 
 " u priori." But as it is the business of history simply to 
 adopt into its records what is and has been, actual occur- 
 rences and transactions ; and since it remains true to its 
 character in proportion as it strictly adheres to its data, we 
 seem to have in Philosophy, a process diametrically opposed 
 to that of the historiographer. This contradiction, and the 
 charge consequently brought against speculation, shall be 
 explained and confuted. We do not, however, propose to 
 correct the innumerable special misrepresentations, trite or 
 novel, that are current respecting the aims, the interests, 
 and the modes of treating history, and its relation to Phi- 
 losophy. 
 
 The only Thought which Philosophy brings with it to the 
 contemplation of History, is the simple conception of 
 Reason ; that Eeason is the Sovereign of the World ; that 
 the history of the world, therefore, presents us with ä 
 rational process. This conviction and intuition is a hypo- 
 thesis in the domain of history as such. In that of Phi- 
 losophy it is no hypothesis. It is there proved by spe- 
 culative cognition, that Eeason — and this term may here 
 suffice us, without investigating the relation sustained by the 
 Universe to the Divine Being, — is Substance, as well as 
 Infinite Power ; its own Infinite Material underlying 
 alJ the natural and spiritual life which it originates, as 
 also the Infinite Form, — that which sets this Material in 
 motion. On the one hand, Eeason is the substance of the 
 Universe ; viz. that by which and in which all reality has its 
 
10 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 being and subsistence. On the other hand, it is the Infinite 
 Energy of the Universe ; since Reason is not so powerless 
 as to be incapable of producing anything but a mere ideal, 
 a mere intention — having its place outside reality, nobody 
 knows where; something separate and abstract, in the heads 
 of certain human beings. It is the infinite complex of 
 things, their entire Essence and Truth. It is its own ma- 
 terial which it commits to its own Active Energy to work 
 up ; not needing, as finite action does, the conditions of an 
 external material of given means from which it may obtain 
 its support, and the objects of its activity. It supplies its 
 own nourishment, and is the object of its own operations. 
 While it is exclusively its own basis of existence, and abso- 
 lute final aim, it is also the energizing power realizing this 
 aim ; developing it not only in the phenomena of the 
 Natural, but also of the Spiritual Universe — the History of 
 the World. That this " Idea" or " Reason " is the True, 
 the Eternal, the absolutely powerful essence ; that it reveals 
 itself in the World, and that in that World nothing else is 
 revealed but this and its honour and glory — is the thesis 
 which, as we have said, has been proved in Philosophy, and 
 is here regarded as demonstrated. 
 
 In those of my hearers who are not acquainted with 
 Philosophy, I may fairly presume, at least, the existence 
 of a belief in Reason, a desire, a thirst for acquaint- 
 ance with it, in entering upon this course of Lectures. 
 It is, in fact, the wish for rational insight, not the ambi- 
 tion to amass a mere heap of acquirements, that should be 
 presupposed in every case as possessing the mind of the 
 learner in the study of science. If the clear idea of Reason 
 is not already developed in our minds, in beginning the 
 study of Universal History, we should at least have the 
 firm, unconquerable faith that Reason does exist there ; and 
 that the World of intelligence and conscious volition is 
 not abandoned to chance, but must shew itself in the light 
 of the self-cognizant Idea. Tet I am not obliged to make 
 any such preliminary demand upon your faith. What I 
 have said thus provisionally, and what I shall have further 
 to say, is, even in reference to our branch of science, not to 
 be regarded as hypothetical, but as a summary view of the 
 whole ; the result of the investigation we are about to pur- 
 
EE SU LT OF 1IISTOHY. 
 
 11 
 
 sue ; a result which happens to be known to me, because I 
 have traversed the entire field". It is only an inference from 
 the history of the World, that its development has been a 
 rational process ; that the history in question has consti- 
 tuted the rational necessary course of the World-Spirit — 
 that Spirit whose nature is always one and the same, but 
 which unfolds this its one nature in the phenomena of the 
 World's existence. This must, as before stated, present 
 itself as the ultimate result of History. But we have to 
 take the latter as it is. We must proceed historically — 
 empirically. Among other precautions we must take care 
 not to be misled by professed historians who (especially 
 among the Germans, and enjoying a considerable authority), 
 are chargeable with the very procedure of which they accuse 
 the Philosopher — introducing ä priori inventions of their 
 own into the records of the Past. It is, for example, a widely 
 current fiction, that there was an original primaeval people, 
 taught immediately by God, endowed with perfect insight 
 and wisdom, possessing a thorough knowledge of all natural 
 laws and spiritual truth; that there have been such or such 
 sacerdotal peoples ; or, to mention a more specific averment, 
 that there was a Soman Epos, from which the Roman his- 
 torians derived the early annals of their city, &c. Authori- 
 ties of this kind we leave to those talented historians by 
 profession, among whom (in Germany at least) their use is 
 not uncommon. — We might then announce it as the first 
 condition to be observed, that we should faithfully adopt all 
 that is historical. But in such general expressions them- 
 selves, as "faithfully" and "adopt," lies the ambiguity. 
 Even the ordinary, the "impartial" historiographer, who 
 believes and professes that he maintains a simply receptive 
 attitude; surrendering himself only to the data supplied 
 him — is by no means passive as regards the exercise of his 
 thinking powers. He brings his categories with him, and 
 sees the phenomena presented to his mental vision, exclu- 
 sively through these media. And, especially in all that 
 pretends to the name of science, it is indispensable that 
 Season should not sleep — that reflection should be in full 
 play. To him who looks upon the world rationally, the 
 world in its turn, presents a rational aspect. The relation 
 is mutual. But the various exercises of reflection — the dif- 
 
12 
 
 INTBODUCTION. 
 
 ferent points of view — the modes of deciding the simple 
 question of the relative importance of events (the first 
 category that occupies the attention of the historian), do 
 not belong to this place. 
 
 I will only mention two phases and points of view that 
 concern the generally diffused conviction that Reason has 
 ruled, and is still ruling in the world, and consequently in 
 the world's history; because they give us, at the same time, 
 an opportunity for more closely investigating the question 
 that presents the greatest difficulty, and for indicating a 
 branch of the subject, which will have to be enlarged on in 
 the sequel. 
 
 I. — One of these points is, that passage in history, which in- 
 forms us that the Greek Anaxagoras was the first to enunciate 
 the doctrine that vovg, Understanding generally, or Reason, 
 governs the world. It is not intelligence as self-conscious 
 Reason, — not a Spirit as such that is meant ; and we must 
 clearly distinguish these from each other. The movement of 
 the solar system takes place according to unchangeable laws. 
 These laws are Reason, implicit in the phenomena in question. 
 But neither the sun nor the planets, which revolve around it 
 according to these laws, can be said to have any conscious- 
 ness of them. 
 
 A thought of this kind, — that Nature is an embodiment 
 of Reason ; that it is unchangeably subordinate to universal 
 laws, appears nowise striking or strange to us. "We are 
 accustomed to such conceptions, and find nothing extraor- 
 dinary in them. And I have mentioned this extraordinary 
 occurrence, partly to shew how history teaches, that ideas of 
 this kind, which may seem trivial to us, have not always been 
 in the world ; that on the contrary, such a thought makes 
 an epoch in the annals of human intelligence. Aristotle 
 says of Anaxagoras, as the originator of the thought in ques- 
 tion, that he appeared as a sober man among the drunken. 
 Socrates adopted the doctrine from Anaxagoras, and it forth- 
 with became the ruling idea in Philosophy, — except in the 
 school of Epicurus, who ascribed all events to chance. " I 
 was delighted with the sentiment," — Plato makes Socrates 
 say, — " and hoped I had found a teacher who would shew me 
 Nature in harmony with Reason, who would demonstrate in 
 each particular phenomenon its specific aim, and in the whole, 
 
PROVIDENCE. 
 
 13 
 
 the grand object of the Universe. I would not have sur- 
 rendered this hope for a great deal. But how very much 
 was I disappointed, when, having zealously applied myself to 
 the writings of Anaxagoras, I found that he adduces ouly 
 external causes, such as Atmosphere, Ether, "Water, and the 
 like." It is evident that the defect which Socrates complains 
 of respecting Anaxagoras's doctrine, does not concern the 
 principle itself, but the shortcoming of the propounder in 
 applying it to Nature in the concrete. Nature is not deduced 
 from that principle : the latter remains in fact a mere ab- 
 straction, inasmuch as the former is not comprehended and 
 exhibited as a development of it, — an organisation produced 
 by and from Eeason. I wish, at the very outset, to call your 
 attention to the important difference between a conception, 
 a principle, a truth limited to an abstract form and its de- 
 terminate application, and concrete development. This dis- 
 tinction affects the whole fabric of philosophy ; and among 
 other bearings of it there is one to which we shall have 
 to revert at the close of our view of Universal History, 
 in investigating the aspect of political affairs in the most 
 recent period. 
 
 We have next to notice the rise of this idea — that Reason 
 directs the World — in connection with a further application 
 of it, well known to us, — in the form, viz. of the religious 
 truth, that the world is not abandoned to chance and ex- 
 ternal contingent causes, but that a Providence controls it. 
 I stated above, that I would not make a demand on your 
 faith, in regard to the principle announced. Yet I might 
 appeal to your belief in it, in this religious aspect, if, as a 
 general rule, the nature of philosophical science allowed it to 
 attach authority to presuppositions. To put it in another 
 shape, — this appeal is forbidden, because the science of which 
 we have to treat, proposes itself to furnish the proof (not 
 indeed of the abstract Truth of the doctrine, but) of its 
 correctness as compared with facts. The truth, then, that 
 a Providence (that of God) presides over the events of the 
 World —consorts with the proposition in question ; for 
 Divine Providence is Wisdom, endowed with an infinite 
 Power, which realises its aim, viz. the absolute rational 
 design of the World. Eeason is Thought conditioning itself 
 with perfect freedom. But a difference — rather a contra- 
 
Ii 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 diction — will manifest itself, between this belief and our 
 principle, just as was the case in reference to the demand 
 made by Socrates in the case of Anaxagoras' s dictum. For 
 that belief is similarly indefinite ; it is what is called a belief 
 in a general Providence, and is not followed out into definite 
 application, or displayed in its bearing on the grand total 
 — the entire course of human history. But to explain 
 History is to depict the passions of mankind, the genius, the 
 active powers, that play their part on the great stage ; and 
 the providentially determined process which these exhibit, 
 constitutes what is generally called the "plan" of Provi- 
 dence. Yet it is this very plan which is supposed to be 
 concealed from our view : which it is deemed presumption, 
 even to wish to recognise. The ignorance of Anaxagoras, as 
 to how intelligence reveals itself in actual existence, was 
 ingenuous. Neither in his consciousness, nor in that of 
 Greece at large, had that thought been farther expanded. 
 He had not attained the power to apply his general principle 
 to the concrete, so as to deduce the latter from the former. 
 It was Socrates who took the first step in comprehending the 
 union of the Concrete with the Universal. Anaxagoras, then, 
 did not take up a hostile position towards such an application. 
 The common belief in Providence does ; at least it opposes 
 the use of the principle on the large scale, and denies the 
 possibility of discerning the plan of Providence. In isolated 
 cases this plan is supposed to be manifest. Pious persons 
 are encouraged to recognise in particular circumstances, 
 something more than mere chance ; to acknowledge the 
 guiding hand of God ; e.g. when help has unexpectedly come 
 to an individual in great perplexity and need. But these 
 instances of providential design are of a limited kind, and 
 concern the accomplishment of nothing more than the desires 
 of the individual in question. But in the history of the 
 "World, the Individuals we have to do with are Peoples ; 
 Totalities that are States. We cannot, therefore, be satisfied 
 with what we may call this "peddling " view of Providence, 
 to which the belief alluded to limits itself. Equally unsatis- 
 factory is the merely abstract, undefined belief in a Provi- 
 dence, when that belief is not brought to bear upon the 
 details of the process which it conducts. On the contrary 
 our earnest endeavour must be directed to the recognition 
 
KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. 
 
 15 
 
 of the ways of Providence, the means it uses, and the historical 
 phenomena in which it manifests itself ; and we must shew 
 their connection with the general principle above mentioned. 
 But in noticing the recognition of the plan of Divine Provi- 
 dence generally, I have implicitly touched upon a prominent 
 question of the day ; viz. that of the possibility of knowing 
 God : or rather — since public opinion has ceased to allow it 
 to be a matter of question — the doctrine that it is impossible 
 to know God. In direct contravention of what is commanded 
 in holy Scripture as the highest duty, — that we should not 
 merely love, but know God, — the prevalent dogma involves 
 the denial of what is there said ; viz. that it is the Spirit (der 
 Geist) that leads into Truth, knows all things, penetrates 
 even into the deep things of the Grodhead. While the 
 Divine Being is thus placed beyond our knowledge, and 
 outside the limit of all human things, we have the convenient 
 licence of wandering as far as we list, in the direction of our 
 own fancies. We are freed from the obligation to refer our 
 knowledge to the Divine and True. On the other hand, the 
 vanity and egotism which characterise it, find, in this false 
 position, ample justification; and the pious modesty which 
 puts far from it the knowledge of God, can well estimate how 
 much furtherance thereby accrues to its own wayward and 
 vain strivings. I have been unwilling to leave out of sight 
 the connection between our thesis — that Reason governs and 
 has governed the World— and the question of the possibility of 
 a knowledge of God, chiefly that I might not lose the opportu- 
 nity of mentioning the imputation against Philosophy of being 
 shy of noticing religious truths, or of having occasion to be so ; 
 in which is insinuated the suspicion that it has anything but a 
 clear conscience in the presence of these truths. So far from 
 this being the case, the fact is, that in recent times Philosophy 
 has been obliged to defend the domain of religion against 
 the attacks of several theological systems. In the Christian 
 religion God has revealed Himself, — that is, he has given us 
 to understand what He is ; so that He is no longer a con- 
 cealed or secret existence. And this possibility of knowing 
 Him, thus afforded us, renders such knowledge a duty. God 
 wishesnonarrow-hearted souls or empty heads for his children; 
 but those whose spirit is of itself indeed, poor, but rich iu 
 the knowledge of Him ; and who regard this knowledge of 
 
IG 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 (rod as the only valuable possession. That development of 
 the thinking spirit, which has resulted from the revelation 
 of the Divine Being as its original basis, must ultimately 
 advance to the intellectual comprehension of what was pre- 
 sented in the first instance, to feeling and imagination. The 
 time must eventually come for understanding that rich 
 product of active Eeason, which the History of the World 
 offers to us. It was for a while the fashion to profess ad- 
 miration for the wisdom of God, as displayed in animals, 
 plants, and isolated occurrences. But, if it be allowed that 
 Providence manifests itself in such objects and forms of 
 existence, why not also in Universal History. This is deemed 
 too great a matter to be thus regarded. But Divine Wisdom, 
 i. e. Eeason, is one and the same in the great as in the 
 little ; and we must not imagine God to be too weak to 
 exercise his wisdom on the grand scale. Our intellectual 
 striving aims at realizing the conviction that what was 
 intended by eternal wisdom, is actually accomplished in the 
 domain of existent, active Spirit, as well as in that of mere 
 Nature. Our mode of treating the subject is, in this aspect, 
 a Theodicsea, — a justification of the ways of God, — which 
 Leibnitz attempted metaphysically, in his method, i. e. in 
 indefinite abstract categories, — so that the ill that is found 
 in the World may be comprehended, and the thinking Spirit 
 reconciled with the fact of the existence of evil. Indeed, 
 nowhere is such a harmonising view more pressingly de- 
 manded than in Universal History ; and it can be attained 
 only by recognising the positive existence, in which that 
 negative element is a subordinate, and vanquished nullity. 
 On the one hand, the ultimate design of the World must be 
 perceived ; and, on the other hand, the fact that this design 
 has been actually realized in it, and that evil has not been 
 able permanently to assert a competing position. But this 
 conviction involves much more than the mere belief in a 
 superintending vovc, or in " Providence." " Eeason," whose 
 sovereignty over the World has been maintained, is as in- 
 definite a term as " Providence," supposing the term to be 
 used by those who are unable to characterize it distinctly, 
 — to shew wherein it consists, so as to enable us to decide 
 whether a thing is rational or irrational. An adequate defi- 
 nition of Eeason is the first desideratum ; and whatever 
 
ULTIMATE DESIGN OF THE WORLD. 
 
 17 
 
 boast may be made of strict adherence to it in explaining 
 phenomena, — without such a definition we get no farther 
 than mere wonis. With these observations we may proceed 
 to the second point of view that has to be considered in this 
 Introduction. 
 
 II. The enquiry into the essential destiny of Reason — 
 as tar as it is considered in reference to the World — is iden- 
 tical with the question, what is the ultimate design of the 
 World? And the expression implies that that design is 
 destined to be realised! Two points of consideration suggest 
 themselves : first, the import of this design — its abstract 
 definition ; and secondly, its realization. 
 
 It must be observed at the outset, that the phenomenon 
 we investigate —Universal History — belongs to the realm of 
 Spirit. The term " World," includes both physical and psy- 
 chical Nature. Physical Nature also plays its part in the 
 World's History, and attention will have to be paid to the 
 fundamental natural relations thus involved. But Spirit, 
 and the course of its development, is our substantial object. 
 Our task does not require us to contemplate Nature as a 
 Rational System in itself — though in its own proper domain 
 it proves itself such — but simply in its relation to Spirit. On 
 the stage on which we are observing it, — Universal History 
 — Spirit displays itself in its most concrete reality. Not- 
 withstanding this (or rather for the very purpose of com- 
 prehending the general principles which this, its form of 
 concrete reality, embodies) we must premise some abstract 
 characteristics of the nature of Spirit. Such an explanation, 
 however, cannot be given here under any other form than 
 that of bare assertion. The present is not the occasion for 
 unfolding the idea of Spirit speculatively ; for whatever has a 
 place in an Introduction, must, as already observed, be taken 
 as simply historical ; something assumed as having been 
 explained and proved elsewhere ; or whose demonstration 
 awaits the sequel of the Science of History itself. 
 
 We have therefore to mention here : 
 
 (1.) The abstract characteristics of the nature of 
 Spirit. 
 
 (2.) What means Spirit uses in order to realize its Idea. 
 (3.) Lastly, we must consider the shape which the 
 perfect embodiment of Spirit assumes — the Stato, 
 
18 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 (1.) The nature of Spirit may be understood by a glance 
 at its direct opposite — Matter. As the essence of Matter 
 is Gravity, so, on the other hand, we may affirm that the 
 substance, the essence of Spirit is Freedom. Ali will readily 
 assent to the doctrine that Spirit, among other properties, 
 is also endowed with Freedom ; but philosophy teaches that 
 all the qualities of Spirit exist only through Freedom ; that 
 all are but means for attaining Freedom ; that all seek 
 and produce this and this alone. It is a result of spe- 
 culative Philosophy, that Freedom is the sole truth of 
 Spirit. Matter possesses gravity in virtue of its tendency 
 towards a central point. It is essentially composite ; con- 
 sisting of parts that exclude each other. It seeks its Unity ; 
 and therefore exhibits itself as self- destructive, as verging 
 towards its opposite [an indivisible point]. If it could attain 
 this, it would be Matter no longer, it would have perished. 
 It strives after the realization of its Idea ; for in Unity it 
 exists ideally. Spirit, on the contrary, may be defined as 
 that which has its centre in itself. It has not a unity out- 
 side itself, but has already found it ; it exists in and -with 
 itself. Matter has its essence out of itself ; Spirit is self- 
 contained existence (Bei-sich-selbst-seyn) . Now this is 
 Freedom, exactly. For if I am dependent, my being is re- 
 ferred to something else which I am not ; I cannot exist in- 
 dependently of something external. I am free, on the 
 contrary, when my existence depends upon myself. This 
 self-contained existence of Spirit is none other than self- 
 consciousness — consciousness of one's own being. Two 
 things must be distinguished in consciousness ; first, the 
 fact that I know ; secondly, what I know. In self con- 
 sciousness these are merged in one ; for Spirit knows itself 
 It involves an appreciation of its own nature, as also an 
 energy enabling it to realise itself ; to make itself actually that 
 which it is potentially. According to this abstract definition 
 it may be said of Universal History, that it is the exhibition 
 of Spirit in the process of working out the knowledge of 
 that which it is potentially. And as the germ bears in 
 itself the whole nature of the tree, and the taste and form of 
 its fruits, so do the first traces of Spirit virtually contain the 
 whole of that History. The Orientals have not attained the 
 knowledge that Spirit — Man as such— is free ; and because 
 
ESSENTIALS OF FREEDOM. 
 
 19 
 
 they do not know this, they are not free. They only know 
 that one is free. But on this very account, the freedom of 
 that one is only caprice ; ferocity — brutal recklessness of pas- 
 sion, or a mildness and tameness of the desires, which is itself 
 only an accident of Nature — mere caprice like the former. 
 — That one is therefore only a Despot ; not a free man. The 
 consciousness of Freedom first arose among the Greeks, and 
 therefore they were free ; but they, and the Eomans likewise, 
 knew only that some are free, — not man as such. Even 
 Plato and Aristotle did not know this. The Greeks, there- 
 fore, had slaves ; and their whole life and the maintenance of 
 their splendid liberty, was implicated with the institution 
 of slavery : a fact moreover, which made that liberty on the 
 one hand only an accidental, transient and limited growth ; 
 on the other hand, constituted it a rigorous thraldom of our 
 common nature — of the Human. The German nations, 
 under the influence of Christianity, were the first to attain 
 the consciousness, that man, as man, is free : that it is the 
 freedom of Spirit which constitutes its essence. This con- 
 sciousness arose first in religion, the inmost region of Spirit; 
 but to introduce the principle into the various relations ot 
 the actual world, involves a more extensive problem than its 
 simple implantation ; a problem whose solution and appli- 
 cation require a severe and lengthened process of culture. 
 In proof of this, we may note that slavery did not cease 
 immediately on the reception of Christianity. Still less did 
 liberty predominate in States ; or Governments and Consti- 
 tutions adopt a rational organization, or recognise freedom 
 as their basis. That application of the principle to political 
 relations ; the thorough moulding and interpenetration of 
 the constitution of society by it, is a process identical with 
 history itself. I have already directed attention to the dis- 
 tinction here involved, between a principle as such, and its 
 application ; i. e. its introduction and carrying out in the 
 actual phenomena of Spirit and Life. This is a point of 
 fundamental importance in our science, and one which must 
 be constantly respected as essential. And in the same way 
 as this distinction has attracted attention in view of the 
 Christian principle of self-consciousness — Freedom ; it also 
 shews itself as an essential one, in view of the principle of 
 Freedom generally. The History of the world is none other 
 
20 INT RODT CT ION. 
 
 than the progress, of the consciousness of Freedom ; a pro- 
 gress whose development according to the necessity of its 
 nature, it is our business to investigate. 
 
 The general statement given above, of the various grades 
 in the consciousness of Freedom — and which we applied in 
 the first instance to the fact that the Eastern nations knew 
 only that one is free ; the Greek and Soman world only that 
 some are free ; whilst we know that all men absolutely (man 
 as man) are free, — supplies us with the natural division of 
 Universal History, and suggests the mode of its discussion. 
 This is remarked, however, only incidentally and anticipa- 
 tivelv ; some other ideas must be first explained. 
 
 The destiny of the spiritual "World, and, — since this is the 
 substantial World, while the physical remains subordinate to 
 it, or, in the language of speculation, has no truth as against 
 the spiritual, — the final cause of the World at large, we allege 
 to be the consciousness of its own freedom on the part of Spirit, 
 and ipso facto, the reality of that freedom. But that this 
 term " Freedom," without further qualification, is an inde- 
 finite, and incalculable ambiguous term ; and that while that 
 which it represents is the ne plus ultra of attainment, it is 
 liable to an infinity of misunderstandings, confusions and 
 errors, and to become the occasion for all imaginable excesses, 
 — has never been more clearly known and felt than in modern 
 times. Yet, for the present, we must content ourselves with 
 the term itself without farther definition. Attention was 
 also directed to the importance of the infinite difference 
 between a principle in the abstract, and its realization in the 
 concrete. In the process before us, the essential nature of 
 freedom, — which involves in it absolute necessity, - is to be 
 displayed as coming to a consciousness of itself (for it is in 
 its very nature, self-consciousness) and thereby realizing its 
 existence. Itself is its own object of attainment, and the sole 
 aim of Spirit. This result it is, at which the process of the 
 World's History has been continually aiming; and to which 
 the sacrifices that have ever and anon been laid on the vast 
 altar of the earth, through the long lapse of ages, have been 
 offered. This is the only aim that sees itself realized and 
 fulfilled ; the only pole of repose amid the ceaseless change 
 of events and conditions, and the sole efficient principle that 
 pervadrs them. This fin-l aim is G-od's purpose with tho 
 
EEALIZATION OF THE " IDEA." 
 
 21 
 
 world ; but God is the absolutely perfect Being, and can, 
 therefore, will nothing other than himself— his own Will. 
 The Nature of His Will — that is, His Nature itself — is what 
 we here call the Idea of Freedom ; translating the language 
 of Eeligion into that of Thought. The question, then, which 
 we may next put, is : What means does this principle of 
 Freedom use for its realization ? This is the second point 
 we have to consider. 
 
 (2.) The question of the means by which Freedom deve- 
 lops itself to a World, conducts us to the phenomenon of 
 History itself. Although Freedom is, primarily, an unde- 
 veloped idea, the means it uses are external and phenomenal ; 
 presenting themselves in History to our sensuous vision. 
 The first glance at History convinces us that the actions of 
 men proceed from their needs, their passions, their charac- 
 ters and talents ; and impresses us with the belief that such 
 needs, passions and interests are the sole springs of action — 
 the efficient agents in this scene of activity. Among these may, 
 perhaps, be found aims of a liberal or universal kind — bene- 
 volence it may be, or noble patriotism ; but such virtues and 
 general views are but insignificant as compared with the 
 World and its doings. We may perhaps see the Ideal of 
 Reason actualized in those who adopt such aims, and witbiu 
 the sphere of their influence ; but they bear only a trifling 
 proportion to the mass of the human race ; and the extent of 
 that influence is limited accordingly. Passions, private aims, 
 and the satisfaction of selfish desires, are on the other hand, 
 most effective springs of action. Their power lies in the 
 fact that they respect none of the limitations which justice 
 and morality w r ould impose on them ; and that these natural 
 impulses have a more direct influence over man than the 
 artificial and tedious discipline that tends to order and self- 
 restraint, law and morality. When we look at this display 
 of passions, and the consequences of their violence ; the 
 Unreason which is associated not only with them, but even 
 (rather we might say especially) with good designs and 
 righteous aims ; when we see the evil, the vice, the ruin that 
 has befallen the most flourishing kingdoms which the mind 
 of man ever created ; we can scarce avoid being filled with sor- 
 row at this universal taint of corruption : and, since this decay 
 is not the work of mere Nature, but of the Human Will — a 
 
22 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 moral embitterment — a revolt of the Good Spirit (if it have 
 a place within us) may well be the result of our reflections. 
 Without rhetorical exaggeration, a simply truthful combina- 
 tion of the miseries that have overwhelmed the noblest of 
 nations and polities, and the finest exemplars of private vir- 
 tue, — forms a picture of most fearful aspect, and excites emo- 
 tions of the profoundest and most hopeless sadness, counter 
 balanced by no consolatory result. We endure in beholding 
 it a mental torture, allowing no defence or escape but the 
 consideration that what has happened could not be other- 
 wise ; that it is a fatality which no intervention could alter. 
 And at last we draw back from the intolerable disgust wit" 
 which these sorrowful reflections threaten us, into the mo~ 
 agreeable environment of our individual life— the Presen 
 formed by our private aims and interests. In short we re 
 treat into the selfishness that stands on the quiet shore, an 
 thence enjoys in safety the distant spectacle of " wrecks 
 confusedly hurled." But even regarding History as th 
 slaughter-bench at which the happiness of peoples, the wis- 
 dom of States, and the virtue of individuals have been vi 
 timised — the question involuntarily arises — towhat principle, 
 to what final aim these enormous sacrifices have been offered. 
 From this point the investigation usually proceeds to that 
 which we have made the general commencement of our en- 
 quiry. Starting from this we pointed out those pheno- 
 mena which made up a picture so suggestive of gloomy 
 emotions and thoughtful reflections — as the very field which 
 we, for our part, regard as exhibiting only the means for 
 realizing what we assert to be the essential destiny — the ab- 
 solute aim, or — which comes to the same thing — the true 
 result of the World's History. We have all along purposely 
 eschewed " moral reflections" as a method of rising from the 
 scene of historical specialities to the general principles which 
 they embody. Besides, it is not the interest of such senti- 
 mentalities, really to rise above those depressing emotions ; 
 and to solve the enigmas of Providence which the consider- 
 ations that occasioned them, present. It is essential to their 
 character to find a gloomy satisfaction in the empty and 
 fruitless sublimities of that negative result. We return the 
 to the point of view which we have adopted ; observing that 
 the successive steps (Momente) of the analysis to which it 
 
SPRINGS OF HUMAN ACTION. 
 
 23 
 
 will lead us, will also evolve the conditions requisite for an- 
 swering the enquiries suggested by the panorama of sin and 
 suffering that history unfolds. 
 
 The first remark we have to make, and which — though 
 already presented more than once — cannot be too often re- 
 peated when the occasion seems to call for it,— is that what 
 we call principle, aim, destiny, or the nature and idea of 
 Spirit, is something merely general and abstract. Principle — 
 Plan of Existence — Law— is a hidden, undeveloped essence, 
 which a$ such — however true in itself — is not completely 
 real. Aims, principles, &c, have a place in our thoughts, in 
 our subjective design only ; but not yet in the sphere of rea- 
 lity. That which exists for itself only, is a possibility, a po- 
 tentiality ; but has not yet emerged into Existence. A second 
 element must be introduced in order to produce actuality — 
 viz. actuation, realization ; and whose motive power is the 
 Will — the activity of man in the widest sense. It is only by 
 this activity that that Idea as well as abstract characteristics 
 generally, are realised, actualised ; for of themselves they are 
 powerless. The motive power that puts them in operation, 
 and gives them determinate existence, is the need, instinct, 
 inclination, and passion of man. That some conception of 
 mine should be developed into act and existence, is my earnest 
 desire : I wish to assert my personality in connection with 
 it : I wish to be satisfied by its execution. If I am to exert 
 myself for any object, it must in some way or other be my 
 object. In the accomplishment of such or such designs I 
 must at the same time find my satisfaction ; although the 
 purpose for which I exert myself includes a complication of 
 results, many of which have no interest for me. This is the 
 absolute right of personal existence — to find itself satisfied in 
 its activity and labour. If men are to interest themselves 
 for anything, they must (so to speak) have part of their ex- 
 istence involved in it ; find their individuality gratified by its 
 attainment. Here a mistake must be avoided. We intend 
 blame, and justly impute it as a fault, when we say of an 
 individual, that he is " interested" (in taking part in such 
 or such transactions,) that is, seeks only his private advan- 
 tage. In reprehending this we find fault with him for fur- 
 thering his personal aims without any regard to a more 
 comprehensive design ; of which he takes advantage to pro- 
 
24 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 mote his own interest, or which he even sacrifices with this 
 view. Bat he who is active in promoting an object, is not 
 simply " interested," but interested in that object itself. Lan- 
 guage faithfully expresses this distinction. — Nothing there- 
 fore happens, nothing is accomplished, unless the individuals 
 concerned, seek their own satisfaction in the issue. They are 
 particular units of society ; i.e. they have special needs, in- 
 stincts, and interests generally, peculiar to themselves. 
 Among these needs are not only such as we usually call ne- 
 cessities — the stimuli of individual desire and volition — but 
 also those connected with individual views and convictions ; 
 or — to use a term expressing less decision — leanings of opi- 
 nion ; supposing the impulses of reflection, understanding, 
 and reason, to have been awakened. In these cases people 
 demand, if they are to exert themselves in any direction, 
 that the object should commend itself to them ; that in point 
 of opinion, — whether as to its goodness, justice, advantage, 
 profit, — they should be able to " enter into it" (dabei seyn). 
 This is a consideration of especial importance in our age, 
 when people are less than formerly influenced by reliance on 
 others, and by authority ; when, on the contrary, they de- 
 vote their activities to a cause on the ground of their own 
 understanding, their independent conviction and opinion. 
 
 We assert then that nothing has been accomplished with- 
 out interest on the part of the actors ; and - if interest be 
 called passion, inasmuch as the whole individuality, to 
 the neglect of all other actual or possible interests and 
 claims, is devoted to an object with every fibre of volition, 
 concentrating all its desires and powers upon it — we may 
 affirm absolutely that nothing great in the World has been ac- 
 complished without passion. Two elements, therefore, enter 
 into the object of our investigation ; the first the Idea, the 
 second the complex of human passions ; the one the warp, 
 the other the woof of the vast arras-web of Universal His- 
 tory. The concrete mean and union of the two is Liberty, 
 under the conditions of morality in a State. "We have spoken 
 of the Idea of Freedom as the nature of Spirit, and the abso- 
 lute goal of History. Passion is regarded as a thing of sinister 
 aspect, as more or less immoral. Man is required to have no 
 passions. Passion, it is true, is not quite the suitable word 
 for what I wish to express. I mean here nothing more than 
 
SPEINOS OF HUMAN ACTION. 
 
 25 
 
 human activity as resulting from private interests —special, 
 or if you will, self-seeking designs, — with this qualification, 
 that the whole energy of will and character is devoted to their 
 attainment ; that other interests, (which would in themselves 
 constitute attractive aims) or rather all things else, are sacri- 
 ficed lo them. The object in question is so bound up with the 
 man's will, that it entirely and alone determines the "hue 
 of resolution," and is inseparable from it. It has become 
 the very essence of his volition. For a person is a specific 
 existence ; not man in general, (a term to which no real ex- 
 istence corresponds) but a particular human being. The 
 term " character" likewise expresses this idiosyncrasy of 
 Will and Intelligence. But Character comprehends all pecu- 
 liarities whatever; the way in which a person conducts him- 
 self in private relations, &c, and is not limited to his 
 idiosyncrasy in its practical and active phase. I shall, there- 
 to re, use the term " passion ;" understanding thereby the 
 particular bent of character, as far as the peculiarities of 
 volition are not limited to private interest, but supply the 
 impelling and actuating force for accomplishing deeds shared 
 m by the community at large. Passion is in the first 
 instance the subjective, and therefore the formal side of 
 energy, will, and activity — leaving the object or aim still 
 undetermined. And there is a similar relation of formality 
 to reality in merely individual conviction, individual views, 
 individual conscience. It is always a question of essential 
 importance, what is the purport of my conviction, what the 
 object of my passion, in deciding whether the one or the 
 other is of a true and substantial nature. Conversely, if it 
 is so, it will inevitably attain actual existence — be realized. 
 
 From this comment on the second essential element in 
 the historical embodiment of an aim, we infer— glancing at 
 the institution of the State in passing, — that a State 
 is then well constituted and internally powerful, wlien the 
 private interest of its citizens is one with the common interest 
 of the State ; when the one finds its gratification and reali- 
 zation in the other, — a proposition in itself very important. 
 But in a State many institutions must be adopted, much 
 political machinery invented, accompanied by appropriate 
 political arrangements, — necessitating long struggles of 
 the understanding before what is really appropriate can be 
 
2G 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 discovered, — involving, moreover, contentions with private 
 interest and passions, and a tedious discipline of these latter, 
 in order to bring about the desired harmony. The epoch 
 when a State attains this harmonious condition, marks the 
 period of its bloom, its virtue, its vigour, and its prosperity. 
 But the history of mankind does not begin with a conscious 
 aim of any kind, as it is the case with the particular circles 
 into which men form themselves of set purpose. The mere 
 social instinct implies a conscious purpose of security for life 
 and property ; and when society has been constituted, this 
 purpose becomes more comprehensive. The History of the 
 "World begins with its general aim — the realization of the 
 Idea of Spirit — only in an implicit form (an sich) that is, as 
 Nature ; a hidden, most profoundly hidden, unconscious 
 instinct ; and the whole process of History (as already 
 observed), is directed to rendering this micouscious impulse 
 a conscious one. Thus appearing in the form of merely 
 natural existence, natural will — that which has been called the 
 subjective side, — physical craving, instinct, passion, private 
 interest, as also opinion and subjective conception, — sponta- 
 neously present themselves at the very commencement. 
 This vast congeries of volitions, interests and activities, con- 
 stitute the instruments and means of the "World-Spirit for 
 attaining its object ; bringing it to consciousness, and real- 
 izing it. And this aim is none other than finding itself — 
 coming to itself — and contemplating itself in concrete ac- 
 tuality. But that those manifestations of vitality on the 
 part of individuals and peoples, in which they seek and satisfy 
 their own purposes, are, at the same time, the means and 
 instruments of a higher and broader purpose of which they 
 know nothing, — which they realize unconsciously, — might be 
 made a matter of question ; rather has been questioned, 
 and in every variety of form negatived, decried and con- 
 temned as mere dreaming and " Philosophy." But on this 
 point I announced my view at the very outset, and asserted 
 our hypothesis, — which, however, will appear in the sequel, 
 in the form of a legitimate inference, — and our belief, that 
 Reason governs the world, and has consequently governed 
 its history. In relation to this independently universal and 
 substantial existence — all else is subordinate, subservient to 
 it, and the means for its development. — The Union of 
 
FIRST PRINCIPLES. 
 
 27 
 
 Universal Abstract Existence generally with the Individual, 
 — the Subjective — that this alone is Truth, belongs to the de- 
 partment of speculation, and is treated in this general form 
 in Logic. — But in the process of the World's History itself, 
 — as still incomplete, — the abstract final aim of history is 
 not yet made the distinct object of desire and interest. 
 While these limited sentiments are still unconscious of the 
 purpose they are fulfilling, the universal principle is implicit 
 in them, and is realizing itself through them. The question 
 also assumes the form of the union of Freedom and Necessity ; 
 the latent abstract process of Spirit being regarded as Neces- 
 sity, while that which exhibits itself in the conscious will of 
 men, as their interest, belongs to the domain of Freedom. 
 As the metaphysical connection (i. e. the connection in the 
 Idea) of these forms of thought, belongs to Logic, it would 
 be out of place to analyze it here. The chief and cardinal 
 points only shall be mentioned. 
 
 Philosophy shews that the Idea advances to an infinite 
 antithesis ; that, viz. between the Idea in its free, universal 
 form — in which it exists for itself — and the contrasted form 
 of abstract introversion, reflection on itself, which is formal 
 existence-for-self, personality, formal freedom, such as belongs 
 to Spirit only. The universal Idea exists thus as the substantial 
 totality of things on the oue side, and as the abstract essence 
 of free volition on the other side. This reflection of the 
 mind on itself is individual self-consciousness - the polar 
 opposite of the Idea in its general form, and therefore existing 
 in absolute Limitation. This polar opposite is consequently 
 limitation, particularization, for the universal absolute being ; 
 it is the side of its definite existence; the sphere of its 
 formal reality, the sphere of the reverence paid to God. — 
 To comprehend the absolute connection of this antithesis, is 
 the profound task of metaphysics. This Limitation originates 
 all forms of particularity of whatever kind. The formal 
 volition [of which we have spoken] wills itself ; desires to 
 makes its own personality valid in all that it purposes and 
 does : even the pious individual wishes to be saved and happy. 
 This pole of the antithesis, existing for itself, is — in contra^ 
 with the Absolute Universal Being — a special separate exist- 
 ence, taking cognizance of speciality only, and willing that 
 alone. In short it plays its part in the region of mere phe- 
 
28 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 nomena. This is the sphere of particular purposes, in ef- 
 fecting which individuals exert themselves on behalf of their 
 individuality — give it full play and objective realization. This 
 is also the sphere of happiness and its opposite. He is happy 
 who finds his condition suited to his special character, will, 
 and fancy, and so enjoys himself in that condition. The 
 History of the "World is not the theatre of happiness. 
 Periods of happiness are blank pages in it, for they are periods 
 of harmony, — periods when the antithesis is in abeyance. 
 Reflection on self, — the Freedom above described — is ab- 
 stractly defined as the formal element of the activity of the 
 absolute Idea. The realizing activity of which we have 
 spoken is the middle term of the Sj'llogism, one of whose 
 extremes is the Universal essence, the Idea, which reposes in 
 the penetralia of Spirit ; and the other, the complex of 
 external things, — objective matter. That activity is the 
 medium by which the universal latent principle is translated 
 into the domain of objectivity. 
 
 I will endeavour to make what has been said more vivid 
 and clear by examples. 
 
 The building of a house is, in the first instance, a subjective 
 aim and design. On the other hand we have, as means, the 
 several substances required for the work, — Iron, Wood, 
 Stones. The elements are made use of in working up this 
 material : fire to melt the iron, wind to blow the fire, water to 
 set wheels in motion, in order to cut the wood, &c. The 
 result is, that the wind, which has helped to build the house, 
 is shut out by the house ; so also are the violence of rains and 
 floods, and the destructive powers of fire, so far as the house 
 is made fire-proof. The stones and beams obey the law of 
 gravity, — press downwards, — and so high walls are carried 
 up. Thus the elements are made use of in accordance with 
 their nature, and yet to co-operate for a product, by which 
 their operation is limited. Thus the passions of men are 
 gratified ; they develope themselves and their aims in accord- 
 ance with their natural tendencies, and build up the edifice 
 of human society ; thus fortifying a position for Eight and 
 Order against themselves. 
 
 The connection of events above indicated, involves also the 
 fact, that in history an additional result is commonly pro- 
 duced by human actions beyond that which they aim at and 
 
ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 20 
 
 obtain — that which they immediately recognise and desire. 
 They gratify their own interest ; but something farther is 
 thereby accomplished, latent in the actions in question, though 
 not present to their consciousness, and not included in their 
 design. An analogous example is offered in the case of a 
 man who, from a feeling of revenge, — perhaps not an unjust 
 one, but produced by injury on the other's part, — burns that 
 other man's house. A connection is immediately established 
 between the deed itself and a train of circumstances not 
 directly included in it, taken abstractedly. In itself it 
 consisted in merely presenting a small flame to a small 
 portion of a beam. Events not involved in that simple act 
 follow of themselves. The part of the beam which was set 
 fire to is connected with its remote portions ; the beam itself 
 is united with the woodwork of the house generally, and this 
 with other houses ; so that a wide conflagration ensues, which 
 destroys the goods and chattels of many other persons besides 
 his against whom the act of revenge was first directed; per- 
 haps even costs not a few men their lives. This lay neither 
 in the deed abstractedly, nor in the design of the man who 
 committed it. But the action has a further general bearing. 
 In the design of the doer it was only revenge executed 
 against an individual in the destruction of his property, but 
 it is moreover a crime, and that involves punishment also. 
 This may not have been present to the mind of the perpe- 
 trator, still less in his intention; but his deed itself, the 
 general principles it calls into play, its substantial content 
 entails it. By this example I wish only to impress on you 
 the consideration, that in a simple act, something farther 
 may be implicated than lies in the intention and conscious- 
 ness of the agent. The example before us involves, however, 
 this additional consideration, that the substance of the act, 
 consequently we may say the act itself, recoils upon the per- 
 petrator, — reacts upon him with destructive tendency. This 
 union of the two extremes — the embodiment of a general idea 
 in the form of direct reality, and the elevation of a speciality 
 into connection with universal truth - is brought to pass, at 
 first sight, under the conditions of an utter diversity of 
 nature between the two, and an indifference of the one 
 extreme towards the other. The aims which the agents set 
 before them are limited and soeoial : but it must be remarked 
 
30 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 that the agents themselves are intelligent thinking beings. 
 The purport of their desires is interwoven with general, essen- 
 tial considerations of justice, good, duty, &c ; for mere 
 desire — volition in its rough and savage forms — falls not 
 within the scene and sphere of Universal History. Those 
 general considerations, which form at the same time a norm 
 for directing aims and actions, have a determinate purport ; 
 for such an abstraction as " good for its own sake," has no 
 place in living reality. If men are to act, they must not only 
 intend the Good, but must have decided for themselves 
 whether this or that particular thing is a Grood. What special 
 course of action, however, is good or not, is determined, as 
 regards the ordinary contingencies of private life, by the laws 
 and customs of a State ; and here no great difficulty is pre- 
 sented. Each individual has his position ; he knows on 
 the whole what a just, honourable course of conduct is. As 
 to ordinary, private relations, the assertion that it is difficult 
 to choose the right and good, — the regarding it as the mark 
 of an exalted morality to find difficulties and raise scruples 
 on that score, — may be set down to an evil or perverse will, 
 which seeks to evade duties not in themselves of a per- 
 plexing nature ; or, at any rate, to an idly reflective habit of 
 mind — where a feeble will affords no sufficient exercise to 
 the faculties, — leaving them therefore to find occupation 
 within themselves, and to expend themselves on moral self- 
 adulation. 
 
 It is quite otherwise with the comprehensive relations 
 that History has to do with. In this sphere are presented 
 those momentous collisions between existing, acknowledged 
 duties, laws, and rights, and those contingencies which are 
 adverse to this fixed system ; which assail and even destroy 
 its foundations and existence ; whose tenor may nevertheless 
 seem good, — on the large scale advantageous, — yes, even in- 
 dispensable and necessary. These contingencies realise 
 themselves in History : they involve a general principle of a 
 different order from that on which depends the permanence 
 of a people or a State. This principle is an essential phase 
 in the development of the creating Idea, of Truth striving and 
 urging towards [consciousness of] itself. Historical men — 
 World-Historical Individuals — are those in whose aims such 
 a general principle lies. 
 
GREAT MEN. 
 
 31 
 
 Caesar, in danger of losing a position, not perhaps at that 
 time of superiority, yet at least of equality with the others 
 who were at the head of the State, and of succumbing to 
 those who were just on the point of becoming his enemies, 
 — belongs essentially to this category. These enemies — who 
 were at the same time pursuing their personal aims — had the 
 form of the constitution, and the power conferred by an ap- 
 pearance of justice, on their side. Caesar was contending for 
 the maintenance of his position, honour, and safety ; and, 
 since the power of his opponents included the sovereignty 
 over the provinces of the Roman Empire, his victory secured 
 for him the conquest of that entire Empire ; and he thus be- 
 came — though leaving the form of the constitution — the 
 Autocrat of the State. That which secured for him the exe- 
 cution of a design, which in the first instance was of negative 
 import — the Autocracy of Rome, — was, however, at the same 
 time an. independently necessary feature in the history of 
 Borne and of the world. It was not, then, his private gain 
 merely, but an unconscious impulse that occasioned the 
 accomplishment of that for which the time was ripe. Such 
 are all great historical men, — whose own particular aims 
 involve those large issues which are the will of the World- 
 Spirit. They may be called Heroes, inasmuch as they have 
 derived their purposes and their vocation, not from the calm, 
 regular course of things, sanctioned by the existing order ; 
 but from a concealed fount — one which has not attained to 
 phenomenal, present existence, — from that inner Spirit, still 
 hidden beneath the surface, which, impinging on the outer 
 world as on a shell, bursts it in pieces, because it is another 
 kernel than that which belonged to the shell in question. 
 They are men, therefore, who appear to draw the impulse of 
 their life from themselves ; and whose deeds have produced 
 a condition of things and a complex of historical relations 
 which appear to be only their interest, and their work. 
 
 Such individuals had no consciousness of the general 
 Idea they were unfolding, while prosecuting those aims of 
 theirs ; on the contrary, they were practical, political men. 
 But at the same time they were thinking men, who had an 
 insight into the requirements of the time — what ivas ripe 
 for development. This was the very Truth for their age, for 
 their world ; the species next in order, so to speak, and 
 
32 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 which was already formed in the womb of time. It was 
 theirs to know this nascent principle ; the necessary, directly 
 sequent step in progress, which their world was to take ; to 
 make this their aim, and to expend their energy in promot- 
 ing it. World-historical men— the Heroes of an epoch — 
 must, therefore, be recognised as its clear-sighted ones: their 
 deeds, their words are the best of that time. Great men 
 have formed purposes to satisfy themselves, not others. 
 Whatever prudent designs and counsels they might have 
 learned from others, would be the more limited and incon- 
 sistent features in their career ; for it was they who best 
 understood affairs ; from whom others learned, and approved, 
 or at least acquiesced in — their policy. For that Spirit which 
 had taken this fresh step in history is the inmost soul of all 
 individuals; but in a state of unconsciousness which the 
 great men in question aroused. Their fellows, therefore, 
 follow these soul-leaders ; for they feel the irresistible power 
 of their own inner Spirit thus embodied. If we go on to 
 cast a look at the fate of these World-Historical persons, 
 whose vocation it was to be the agents of the World-Spirit, 
 —we shall find it to have been no happy one. They attained 
 no calm enjoyment ; their whole life was labour and trouble ; 
 their whole nature was nought else but their master-passion. 
 When their object is attained they fall off like empty hulls 
 from the kernel. They die early, like Alexander; they are 
 murdered, like Caesar ; transported to St. Helena, like 
 Napoleon. This fearful consolation — that historical men have 
 not enjoyed what is called happiness, and of which only pri- 
 vate life (and this maybe passed under very various external 
 circumstances) is capable, — this consolation those may draw 
 from history, who stand in need of it ; and it is craved by 
 Envy — vexed at what is great and transcendant, — striving, 
 therefore, to depreciate it, and to find some flaw in it. Thus 
 in modern timts it has been demonstrated ad nauseam that 
 princes are generally unhappy on their thrones ; in conside- 
 ration of which the possession of a throne is tolerated, and 
 men acquiesce in the fact that not themselves but the per- 
 sonages in question are its occupants. The Tree Man, we 
 ma v observe, is not envious, but gladly recognises what is 
 great and exalted, and rejoices that it exists. 
 
 It is in the light of those common elements which con- 
 
GREAT ME JT. 
 
 33 
 
 stitutethe interest and therefore the passions of individuals, 
 that these historical men are to be regarded. They are great 
 men, because they willed and accomplished something great; 
 not a mere fancy, a mere intention, but that which met the 
 case and fell in with the needs of the age. This mode of 
 Wtasidering them also excludes the so-called "psychological" 
 view, which - serving the purpose of envy most effectually — 
 contrives so to refer all actions to the heart, — to bring 
 them under such a subjective aspect — as that their authors 
 appear to have done everything under the impulse of some 
 passion, mean or grand, — some morbid craving and on 
 account of these passions and cravings to have been not 
 moral men. Alexander of Macedon partly subdued Greece, 
 and then Asia ; therefore he was possessed by a morbid crav- 
 ing for conquest. He is alleged to have acted from a craving 
 for fame, for conquest ; and the proof that these were the 
 impelling motives is that he did that which resulted in fame. 
 What pedagogue has not demonstrated of Alexander the 
 Great — of Julius Caesar — that they were instigated by such 
 passions, and were consequently immoral men ? - whence the 
 conclusion immediately follows that he, the pedagogue, is a 
 better man than they, because he has not such passions ; a 
 proof of which lies in the fact that he does not conquer 
 Asia, — vanquish Darius and Porus, — but while he enjoys lite 
 himself, lets others enjoy it too. These psychologists are 
 particularly fond of contemplating those pecularities of great 
 historical figures which appertain to them as private persons. 
 Man must eat and drink ; he sustains relations to friends 
 and acquaintances ; he has passing impulses and ebullitions 
 of temper. " No man is a hero to his valet-de-chambre," is 
 a well-known proverb ; I have added — and Goethe repeated 
 it ten years later — " but not because the former is no hero, 
 but because the latter is a valet." He takes off the hero's 
 boots, assists him to bed, knows that he prefers cham- 
 pagne, &c. Historical personages waited upon in historical 
 literature by such psychological valets, come poorly off; they 
 are brought down by these their attendants to a level with 
 — or rather a few degrees below the level of— the morality 
 of such exquisite discerners of spirits. The Thersites of 
 Homer who abuses the kings is a standing figure for all 
 times. Blows — that is beating with a solid cudgel — he does 
 
 D 
 
34 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 not get in every age, as in the Homeric one ; but his envy, 
 his egotism, is the thorn which he has to carry in his flesh ; 
 and the undying worm that gnaws him is the tormenting 
 consideration that his excellent views and vituperations 
 remain absolutely without result in the world. But our 
 satisfaction at the fate of Thersitism also, may have its 
 sinister side. 
 
 A World-historical individual is not so unwise as to indulge 
 a variety of wishes to divide his regards. He is devoted to 
 the One Aim, regardless of all else. It is even possible that 
 such men may treat other great, even sacred interests, incon- 
 siderately ; conduct which is indeed obnoxious to moral repre- 
 hension. But so mighty a form must trample down many 
 an innocent flower — crush to pieces many an object in its 
 path. 
 
 The special interest of passion is thus inseparable from 
 the active development of a general principle : for it is from 
 the special and determinate and from its negation, that the 
 Universal results. Particularity contends with its like, and 
 some loss is involved in the issue. It is not the general idea 
 that is implicated in opposition and combat, and that is 
 exposed to danger. It remains in the background, untouched 
 and uninjured. This may be called the cunning of reason, — 
 that it sets the passions to w T ork for itself, while that which 
 develops its existence through such impulsion pays the 
 penalty, and suffers loss. Eor it is phenomenal being that is 
 so treated, and of this, part is of no value, part is positive 
 and real. The particular is for the most part of too trifling 
 value as compared with the general : individuals are sacri- 
 ficed and abandoned. The Idea pays the penalty of deter- 
 minate existence and of corruptibility, not from itself, but 
 from the passions of individuals. 
 
 But though we might tolerate the idea that individuals, 
 their desires and the gratification of them, are thus sacri- 
 ficed, and their happiness given up to the empire of chance, 
 to which it belongs ; and that as a general rule, individuals 
 come under the category of means to an ulterior end,— there 
 is one aspect of human individuality which we should hesitate 
 to regard in that subordinate light, even in relation to the 
 highest ; since it is absolutely no subordinate element, but 
 exists in those individuals as inherently eternal and divine. 
 
CLAIMS OF MOEALITY, ABSOLUTE. 
 
 35 
 
 I mean morality, ethics, religion. Even when speaking of 
 the realization of the great ideal aim by means of indivi- 
 duals, the subjective element in them — their interest and that 
 of their cravings and impulses, their views and judgments, 
 though exhibited as the merely formal side of their exist- 
 ence, — was spoken of as having an infinite right to be con- 
 sulted. The first idea that presents itself in speaking of 
 means is that of something external to the object, and hav- 
 ing no share in the object itself. But merely natural things — 
 even the commonest lifeless objects — used as means, must be 
 of such a kind as adapts them to their purpose ; they must 
 possess something in common with it. Human beings least 
 of all, sustain the bare external relation of mere means to 
 the great ideal aim. Not only do they in the very act of 
 realising it, make it the occasion of satisfying personal desires, 
 whose purport is diverse from that aim — but they share in 
 that ideal aim itself; and are for that very reason objects of 
 their own existence ; not formally merely, as the world of 
 living beings generally is, — whose individual life is essentially 
 subordinate to that of man, and is properly used up as an 
 instrument. Men, on the contrary, are objects of existence 
 to themselves, as regards the intrinsic import of the aim in 
 question. To this order belongs that in them which we would 
 exclude from the category of mere means, - Morality, Ethics, 
 Eeligion. That is to say, man is an object of existence in 
 himself only in virtue of the Divine that is in him, — that which 
 was designated at the outset as Reason ; which, in view 
 of its activity and power of self-determination, was called 
 Freedom. And we affirm — without entering at present on the 
 proof of the assertion — that Religion, Morality, &c. have their 
 foundation and source in that principle, and so are essentially 
 elevated above all alien necessity and chance. And here we 
 must remark that individuals, to the extent of their freedom, 
 are responsible for the depravation and enfeeblement of 
 morals and religion. This is the seal of the absolute and 
 sublime destiny of man — that he knows what is good and 
 what is evil ; that is, his destiny, his very ability to will 
 either good or evil, — in one word, that he is the subject of 
 moral imputation, imputation not only of evil, but of good ; 
 and not only concerning this or that particular matter, and 
 all that happens ab extra, but also the good and evil attach- 
 
3G 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 ing to his individual freedom. The brute alone is simply- 
 innocent. It would, however, demand an extensive expla- 
 nation — as extensive as the analysis of moral freedom itself — 
 to preclude or obviate all the misunderstandings which the 
 statement that what is called innocence imports the entire 
 unconsciousness of evil— is wont to occasion. 
 
 In contemplating the fate which virtue, morality, even 
 piety experience in history, we must not fall into the Litany 
 of Lamentations, that the good and pious often — or for the 
 most part — fare ill in the world, while the evil-disposed and 
 wicked prosper. The term prosperity is used in a variety 
 of meanings — riches, outward honour, and the like. But in 
 speaking of something w r hich in and for itself constitutes an 
 aim of existence, that so-called well or ill-faring of these or 
 those isolated individuals cannot be regarded as an essential 
 element in the rational order of the universe. With more 
 justice than happiness, - or a fortunate environment for in- 
 dividuals, - it is demanded of the grand aim of the world's 
 existence, that it should foster, nay involve the execution 
 and ratification of good, moral, righteous purposes. What 
 makes men morally discontented (a discontent, by the bye, 
 on w T hich they somewhat pride themselves), is that they do 
 not find the present adapted to the realization of aims which 
 they hold to be right and just (more especially in modern 
 times, ideals of political constitutions ) ; they contrast 
 unfavourably things as they are, with their idea of things as 
 they ought to be. In this case it is not private interest 
 nor passion that desires gratification, but Reason, Justice, 
 Liberty ; and equipped with this title, the demand in ques- 
 tion assumes a lofty bearing, and readily adopts a position 
 not merely of discontent, but of open revolt against the 
 actual condition of the world. To estimate such a feeling 
 and such views aright, the demands insisted upon, and the 
 very dogmatic opinions asserted, must be examined. At no 
 time so much as in our own, have such general principles and 
 notions been advanced, orw r ith greater assurance. If in days 
 gone by, history seems to present itself as a struggle of pas- 
 sions ; in our time — though displays of passion are not want- 
 ing — it exhibits partly a predominance of the struggle of 
 notions assuming the authority of principles ; partly that of 
 passions and interests essentially subjective, but under the 
 
BEALIZATION OF THE IDEAL. 
 
 37 
 
 mask of such higher sanctions. The pretensions thus con- 
 tended for as legitimate in the name of that which has been 
 stated as the ultimate aim of Reason, pass accordingly, for 
 absolute aims, — to the same extent as Religion, Morals, 
 Ethics. Nothing, as before remarked, is now more common 
 than the complaint that the ideals which imagination sets 
 up are not realized — that these glorious dreams are destroyed 
 by cold actuality. These Ideals — which in the voyage of life 
 founder on the rocks of hard reality — may be in the first 
 instance only subjective, and belong to the idiosyncrasy of 
 the individual, imagining himself the highest and wisest. Such 
 do not properly belong to this category. For the fancies 
 which the individual in his isolation indulges, cannot be the 
 model for universal reality ; just as universal law is not de- 
 signed for the units of the mass. These as such may, in fact, 
 fiud their interests decidedly thrust into the background. 
 But by the term " Ideal," we also understand the ideal of 
 Keason, of the Good, of the True. Poets, as e.g. Schiller, 
 have painted such ideals touchingly and with strong emotion, 
 and with the deeply melancholy conviction that they 
 could not be realized. In affirming, on the contrary, that 
 the Universal Reason does realize itself, we have indeed 
 nothing to do with the individual empirically regarded. 
 That admits of degrees of better and worse, since here 
 chance and speciality have received authority from the Idea 
 to exercise their monstrous power. Much, therefore, in 
 particular aspects of the grand phenomenon might be 
 found fault with. This subjective fault-finding, — which, how- 
 ever, only keeps in view the individual and its deficiency, 
 without taking notice of Reason pervading the whole, — is 
 easy ; and inasmuch as it asserts an excellent intention with 
 regard to the good of the whole, and seems to result from 
 a kindly heart, it feels authorized to give itself airs and as- 
 sume great consequence. It is easier to discover a deficiency 
 in individuals, in states, and in Providence, than to see their 
 real import and value. For in this merely negative fault- 
 finding a proud position is taken, — one which overlooks the 
 object, without having entered into it, — without having com- 
 prehended its positive aspect. Age generally makes men 
 more tolerant ; youth is always discontented. The tolerance 
 of age is the result of the ripeness of a judgment which, not 
 
33 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 merely as the result of indifference, is satisfied even with 
 what is inferior; but, more deeply taught by the grave ex- 
 perience of life, has been led to perceive the substantial, 
 solid worth of the object in question. The insight then to 
 which — in contradistinction from those ideals — philosophy is 
 to lead us, is, that the real world is as it ought to be — that 
 the truly good— the universal divine reason — is not a mere 
 abstraction, but a vital principle capable of realising itself. 
 This Good, this Reason, in its most concrete form, is God. 
 Grod governs the world ; the actual working of his govern- 
 ment — the carrying out of his plan— is the History of the 
 World. This plan philosophy strives to comprehend ; for 
 only that which has been developed as the result of it, pos- 
 sesses bond fide reality. That which does not accord with 
 it, is negative, worthless existence. Before the pure light of 
 this divine Idea — which is no mere Ideal — the phantom of a 
 world whose events are an incoherent concourse of fortuitous 
 circumstances, utterly vanishes. Philosophy wishes to dis- 
 cover the substantial purport, the real side of the divine idea, 
 and to justify the so much despised Reality of things ; fo 
 Reason is the comprehension of the Divine work. But as to 
 what concerns the perversion, corruption, and ruin of reli- 
 gious, ethical and moral purposes, and states of society 
 generally, it must be affirmed, that in their essence these are 
 infinite and eternal ; but that the forms they assume may be 
 of a limited order, and consequently belong to the domain 
 of mere nature, and be subject to the sway of chance. 
 They are therefore perishable, and exposed to decay and 
 corruption. Religion and morality — in the same way as in- 
 herently universal essences — have the peculiarity of being 
 present in the individual soul, in the full extent of their Idea, 
 and therefore truly and really ; although they may not mani- 
 fest themselves in it in extenso, and are not applied to fully 
 developed relations. The religion, the morality of a limited 
 sphere of life — that of a shepherd or a peasant, e.g. — in its in- 
 tensive concentration and limitation to a few perfectly simple 
 relations of life, — has infinite worth ; the same worth as the 
 religion and morality of extensive knowledge, and of an 
 existence rich in the compass of its relations and actions. 
 This inner focus — this simple region of the claimsof subjective 
 freedom,— the home of volition, resolution, and action, - the 
 
POSITIVE EXrSTENCK OF REASON". 
 
 30 
 
 abstract sphere of conscience, — that which comprises the 
 responsibility and moral value of the individual, remains 
 untouched ; and is quite shut out from the noisy din of the 
 World's History — includingnot merely external and temporal 
 changes, but also those entailed by the absolute necessity in- 
 separable from the realization of the Idea of Freedom itself. 
 But as a general truth this must be regarded as settled, 
 that whatever in the world possesses claims as noble and 
 glorious, has nevertheless a higher existence above it. The 
 claim of the World-Spirit rises above all special claims. 
 
 These observations may suffice in reference to the means 
 which the Wo rid- Spirit uses for realizing its Idea. Stated 
 simply and abstractly, this mediation involves the activity 
 of personal existences in whom Reason is present as their 
 absolute, substantial being ; but a basis, in the first instance, 
 still obscure and unknown to them. But the subject becomes 
 more complicated and difficult when we regard individuals 
 not merely in their aspect of activity, but more concretely, 
 in conjunction with a particular manifestation of that activity 
 in their religion and morality, — forms of existence which are 
 intimately connected with Reason, and share in its absolute 
 claims. Here the relation of mere means to an end disappears, 
 and the chief bearings of this seeming difficulty in reference 
 to the absolute aim of Spirit, have been briefly considered. 
 
 (3.) The third point to be analysed is, therefore — what 
 is the object to be realized by these means ; i. e. what is the 
 form it assumes in the realm of reality. We have spoken of 
 means ; but in the carrying out of a subjective, limited aim, 
 we have also to take into consideration the element of a 
 material, either already present or which has to be procured. 
 Thus the question would arise : What is the material in 
 which the Ideal of Reason is wrought out ? The primarv 
 answer would be, — Personality itself — human desires — Sub- 
 jectivity generally. In human knowledge and volition, as 
 its material element, Reason attains positive existence. 
 We have considered subjective volition where it has an 
 object which is the truth and essence of a reality, viz. where 
 it constitutes a great world-historical passion. As a subjec- 
 tive will, occupied with limited passions, it is dependent, and 
 can gratify its desires only within the limits of this depen- 
 dence. But the subjective will has also a substantial lite — 
 
40 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 a reality, — yl which it moves in the region of essential being, 
 and has the essential itself as the object of its exist- 
 ence. This essential being is the union of the subjective 
 with the rational "Will : it is the moral Whole, the State, which 
 is that form of reality in which the individual has and enjoys 
 his freedom ; but on the condition of his recognizing, believing 
 in and willing that which is common to the Whole. And this 
 must not be understood as if the subjective will of the social 
 unit attained its gratification and enjoyment through that 
 common Will ; as if this were a means provided for its benefit ; 
 as if the individual, in his relations to other individuals, thus 
 limited his freedom, in order that this universal limitation — 
 the mutual constraint of all — might secure a small space of 
 liberty for each. Bather, we affirm, are Law, Morality, 
 Government, and they alone, the positive reality and com- 
 pletion of Freedom. Freedom of a low and limited order, 
 is mere caprice ; which finds its exercise in the sphere of 
 particular and limited desires. 
 
 Subjective volition — Passion — is that which sets men in 
 activity, that which effects " practical" realization. The Idea is 
 the inner spring of action ; the State is the actually existing, 
 realized moral life. For it is the Unity of the universal, 
 essential Will, with that of the individual ; and this is "Mo- 
 rality." The Individual living in this unity has a moral 
 life ; possesses a value that consists in this substantiality 
 alone. Sophocles in his Antigone, says, " The divine com- 
 mands are not of yesterday, nor of to-day ; no, they have an 
 infinite existence, and no one could say whence they came." 
 The laws of morality are not accidental, but are the essen- 
 tially Eational. It is the very object of the State that what 
 is essential in the practical activity of men, and in their dis- 
 positions, should be duly recognized ; that it should have a 
 manifest existence, and maintain its position. It is the abso- 
 lute interest of Eeason that this moral Whole should exist ; 
 and herein lies the justification and merit of heroes who have 
 founded states, — however rude these may have been. In the 
 history of the World, only those peoples can come under our 
 notice which form a state. For it must be understood that 
 this latter is the realization of Freedom, i.e. of the absolute 
 final aim, and that it exists for its own sake. It must further 
 be understood that all the worth which the human being pos- 
 
IDEA OF THE STATE. 
 
 41 
 
 sesses — all spiritual reality, he possesses only through the 
 State. Tor his spiritual reality consists in this, that his own 
 essence— Reason — is objectively present to him, that it pos- 
 sesses objective immediate existence for him. Thus only is 
 he fully conscious ; thus only is he a partaker of morality — of 
 a just and moral social and political life. For Truth is the 
 Unity of the universal and subjective Will ; and the Universal 
 is to be found in the State, in its laws, its universal and ra- 
 tional arrangements. The State is the Divine Idea as it 
 exists on Earth. We have in it, therefore, the object of 
 History in a more definite shape than before ; that in which 
 Freedom obtains objectivity, and lives in the enjoyment of 
 this objectivity. For Law is the objectivity of Spirit ; volition 
 in its true form. Only that will which obeys law, is free; 
 for it obeys itself — it is independent and so free. When the 
 State or our country constitutes a community of existence ; 
 when the subjective will of man submits to laws, — the contra- 
 diction between Liberty and Necessity vanishes. The Ra- 
 tional has necessary existence, as being the reality and 
 substance of things, and we are free in recognizing it as law, 
 and following it as the substance of our own being. The 
 objective and the subjective will are then reconciled, 
 and present one identical homogeneous whole. For the 
 morality (Sittlichkeit) of the State is not of that ethical 
 (moralische) reflective kind, in which one's own conviction 
 bears sway ; this latter is rather the peculiarity of the 
 modern time, while the true antique morality is based on the 
 principle of abiding by one's duty [to the state at large]. 
 An Athenian citizen did what was required of him, as it 
 were from instinct : but if I reflect on the object of my 
 activity, I must have the consciousness that my will has 
 been called into exercise. But morality is Duty — substan- 
 tial Right— a "second nature" as it has been justly called ; 
 for the first nature of man is his primary merely animal ex- 
 istence. 
 
 The development in extenso of the Idea of the State be- 
 longs to the Philosophy of Jurisprudence ; but it must be 
 observed that in the theories of our time various errors are 
 current respecting it, which pass for established truths, and 
 have become fixed prejudices. We will mention only a few 
 of them, giving prominence to such as have a reference to 
 the object of our history. 
 
12 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 The error which first meets us is the direct contradictory 
 of our principle that the state presents the realization of 
 Freedom ; the opinion, viz., that man is free by nature, but 
 that in society, inthe State — to which nevertheless he is irresis- 
 tibly impelled — he must limit this natural freedom. That man 
 is free by Nature is quite correct in one sense ; viz., that he is 
 so according to the Idea of Humanity ; but we imply thereby 
 that he is such only in virtue of his destiny — that he has an 
 undeveloped power to become such ; for the " Nature" of an 
 object is exactly synonymous with its "Idea." But the view 
 in question imports more than this. When man is spoken 
 of as " free by Nature," the mode of his existence as well as 
 his destiny is implied. His merely natural and primary con- 
 dition is intended. In this sense a " state of Nature" is as- 
 sumed in which mankind at large are in the possession of 
 their natural rights with the unconstrained exercise and enjoy- 
 ment of their freedom. This assumption is not indeed raised 
 to the dignity of the historical fact ; it would indeed be dif- 
 ficult, were the attempt seriously made, to point out any such 
 condition as actually existing, or as having ever occurred. 
 Examples of a savage state of life can be pointed out, but 
 they are marked by brutal passions and deeds of violence ; 
 while, however rude and simple their conditions, they in- 
 volve social arrangements which (to use the common phrase) 
 restrain freedom. That assumption is one of those nebulous 
 images which theory produces ; an idea which it cannot avoid 
 originating, but which it fathers upon real existence, without 
 sufficient historical justification. 
 
 What we find such a state of Nature to be in actual experi- 
 ence, answers exactly to the Idea of a merely natural condition. 
 Freedom as the ideal of that which is original and natural, 
 does not exist as original and natural. Bather must it be 
 first sought out and won ; and that by an incalculable medial 
 discipline of the intellectual and moral powers. The state 
 of Nature is, therefore, predominantly that of injustice and 
 violence, of untamed natural impulses, of inhuman deeds and 
 feelings. Limitation is certainly produced by Society and 
 the State, but it is a limitation of the mere brute emotions 
 and rude instincts ; as also, in a more advanced stage of cul- 
 ture, of the premeditated self-will of caprice and passion. 
 This kind of constraint is part of the instrumentality by 
 
PRINCIPLE OF THE FAMILY. 
 
 43 
 
 winch only, the consciousness of Freedom and the desire lor 
 its attainment, in its true — that is .Rational and Ideal form — 
 can be obtained. To the Ideal of Freedom, Law and Morality 
 are indispensably requisite; andthey are in and for themselves, 
 universal existences, objects and aims ; which are discovered 
 only by the activity of thought, separating itself from the merely 
 sensuous, and developing itself, in opposition thereto ; and 
 which must on the other hand, be introduced into and incor- 
 porated with the originally sensuous will, and that contrarily 
 to its natural inclination. The perpetually recurring misap- 
 prehension of Freedom consists in regarding that term only in 
 its formal, subjective sense, abstracted from its essential 
 objects and aims ; thus a constraint put upon impulse, de- 
 sire, passion — pertaining to the particular individual as such. 
 
 a limitation of caprice and self-will is regarded as a fet- 
 tering of Freedom. AVe should on the contrary look upon 
 such limitation as the indispensable proviso of emancipation. 
 Society and the State are the very conditions in which Free- 
 dom is realized. 
 
 We must notice a second view, contravening the princi- 
 ple of the development of moral relations into a legal form. 
 The palriarchal condition is regarded — either in reference to 
 the entire race of man, or to some branches of it — as exclu- 
 sively that condition of things, in which the legal element is 
 combined with a due recognition of the moral and emotional 
 parts of our nature; and in w T hich justice as united with these, 
 truly and really influences the intercourse of the social units. 
 The basis of the patriarchal condition is the family relation ; 
 which develops the primary form of conscious morality, suc- 
 ceeded by that of the State as its second phase. The patri- 
 archal condition is one of transition, in which the family has 
 already advanced to the position of a race or people ; where 
 the union, therefore, has already ceased to be simply a bond 
 of love and confidence, and has become one of plighted ser- 
 vice. "We must first examine the ethical principle of the 
 Family. The Family may be reckoned as virtually a single 
 person ; since its members have either mutually surrendered 
 their individual personality, (and consequently their legal 
 position towards each other, with the rest of their particular 
 interests and desires) as in the case of the Parents ; or have 
 not yet attained such an independent personality, — (the 
 
44 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Children, — who are primarilyin that merely natural condition 
 already mentioned. They live, therefore, in a unity of feel- 
 ing, love, confidence, and faith in each other. And in a rela- 
 tion of mutual love, the one individual has the consciousness 
 of himself in the consciousness of the other ; he lives out of 
 self; and in this mutual self-renunciation each regains the 
 life that had been virtually transferred to the other; gains, 
 in fact, that other's existence and his own, as involved with 
 that other. The farther interests connected with the neces- 
 sities and external concerns of life, as well as the develop- 
 ment that has to take place within their circle, i. e. of the 
 children, constitute a common object for the members of the 
 Family. The Spirit of the Family — the Penates — form one 
 substantial being, as much as the Spirit of a People in the 
 State ; and morality in both cases consists in a feeling, a 
 consciousness, and a will, not limited to individual per- 
 sonality and interest, but embracing the common interests 
 of the members generally. But this unity is in the case of 
 the Family essentially one of feeling ; not advancing beyond 
 the limits of the merely natural. The piety of the Family 
 relation should be respected in the highest degree by the 
 State ; by its means the State obtains as its members indi- 
 viduals who are already moral (for as mere persons they are 
 not) and who in uniting to form a state bring with them 
 that sound basis of a political edifice — the capacity of feeling 
 one with a Whole. But the expansion of the Family to a 
 patriarchal unity carries us beyond the ties of blood-rela- 
 tionship — the simply natural elements of that basis ; and 
 outside of these limits the members of the community must 
 enter upon the position of independent personality. A re- 
 view of the patriarchal condition, in extenso, would lead us 
 to give special attention to the Theocratical Constitution. 
 The head of the patriarchal clan is also its priest. If the 
 Family in its general relations, is not yet separated from 
 civic society and the state, the separation of religion from it 
 has also not yet taken place ; and so much the less since the 
 piety of the hearth is itself a profoundly subjective state of 
 feeling. 
 
 We have considered two aspects of Freedom, — the objective 
 and the subjective ; if, therefore, Freedom is asserted to con- 
 sist in the individuals of a State all agreeing in its arrange- 
 
FALLACIOUS VIEWS OF TILE STATE. 
 
 15 
 
 merits, it is evident that only the subjective aspect is regarded. 
 The natural inference from this principle is, that no law can 
 be valid without the approval of all. This difficulty is at- 
 tempted to be obviated by the decision that the minority 
 must yield to the majority ; the majority therefore bear the 
 sway But long ago J. J. Rousseau remarked, that in that 
 case there would be no longer freedom, for the will of the 
 minority would cease to be respected At the Polish Diet 
 each single member had to give his consent before any politi- 
 cal step could be taken ; and this kind of freedom it was that 
 ruined the State. Besides, it is a dangerous and false preju- 
 dice, that the People alone have reason and insight, and 
 know what justice is ; for each popular faction may represent 
 itself as the People, and the question as to what constitutes 
 the State is one of advanced science, and not of popular 
 decision. 
 
 If the principle of regard for the individual will is recog- 
 nized as the only basis of political liberty, viz., that nothing 
 should be done by or for the State to which all the members 
 of the body politic have not given their sanction, we have, 
 properly speaking, no Constitution. The only arrangement 
 that would be necessary, would be, first, a centre having no 
 will of its own, but which should take into consideration 
 what appeared to be the necessities of the State ; and, 
 secondly, a contrivance for calling the members of the State 
 together, for taking the votes, and for performing the arith- 
 metical operations of reckoning and comparing the number 
 of votes for the different propositions, and thereby deciding 
 upon them. The State is an abstraction, having even its 
 generic existence in its citizens ; but it is an actuality, and 
 its simply generic existence must embody itself in individual 
 will and activity. The want of government and political 
 administration in general is felt ; this necessitates the selec- 
 tion and separation from the rest of those who have to take 
 the helm in political affairs, to decide concerning them, and 
 to give orders to other citizens, with a view to the execution 
 of their plans. If e.g. even the people in a Democracy 
 resolve on a war, a general must head the army. It is only by 
 a Constitution that the abstraction — the State — attains life 
 and reality ; but this involves the distinction between those 
 who command and those who obey. — Yet obedience seems 
 
46 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 inconsistent with liberty, and those who command appear to 
 do the very opposite of that which the fundamental idea of 
 the State, viz, that of Freedom, requires. It is, however, 
 urged that, — though the distinction between commanding and 
 obeying is absolutely necessary, because affairs could not go 
 on without it — and indeed this seems only a compulsory limi- 
 tation, external to and even contravening freedom in the 
 abstract — the constitution should be at least so framed, 
 that the citizens may obey as little as possible, and the 
 smallest modicum of free volition be left to the commands 
 of the superiors ; — that the substance of that for which 
 subordination is necessary, even in its most important bear- 
 ings, should be decided and resolved on by the People — by 
 the will of many or of all the citizens ; though it is supposed 
 to be thereby provided that the State should be possessed of 
 vigour and strength as a reality — an individual unity. — The 
 primary consideration is, then, the distinction between the 
 governing and the governed, and political constitutions in the 
 abstract have been rightly divided into Monarchy, Aristocracy, 
 and Democracy ; which gives occasion, however, to the remark 
 that Monarchy itself must be further divided into Des- 
 potism and Monarchy proper ; that in all the divisions to 
 which the leading Idea gives rise, only the generic character 
 is tobe made prominent, — it being not intended thereby that 
 the particular category under review should be exhausted as 
 a Form, Order, or Kind in its concrete development. But 
 especially it must be observed, that the above-mentioned divi- 
 sions admit of a multitude of particular modifications, - not 
 only such as lie within the limits of those classes themselves, 
 — -but also such as are mixtures of several of these essentially 
 distinct classes, and which are consequently misshapen, un- 
 stable, and inconsistent forms. In such a collision, the con- 
 cerning question is, what is the best constitution ; that is, by 
 what arrangement, organization, or mechanism of the power of 
 the State its object can be most surely attained. This object 
 may indeed be variously understood ; for instance, as the 
 calm enjoyment of life on the part of the citizens, or as Uni- 
 versal Happiness. Such aims have suggested the so-called 
 Ideals of Constitutions, and, — as a particular branch of the 
 subject, — Ideals of the Education of Princes (Fenelon), or of 
 the governing body — the aristocracy at large (Plato) ; for the 
 
CONSTITUTIONS DEPEND ON NATIONAL GENIUS. 47 
 
 chief point they treat of is the condition of those subjects 
 who stand at the head of affairs ; and in these Ideals the con- 
 crete details of political organization are not at all con- 
 sidered. The inquiry into the best constitution is frequently 
 treated as if not only the theory were an affair of subjective 
 independent conviction, but as if the introduction of a con- 
 stitution recognized as the best, — or as superior to others, 
 — could be the result of a resolve adopted in this theoretical 
 manner ; as if the form of a constitution were a matter of free 
 choice, determined by nothing else but reflection. Of this 
 artless fashion was that deliberation, — not indeed of the 
 Persian people, but of the Persian grandees, who had con- 
 spired to overthrow the pseudo-Smerdis and the Magi, after 
 their undertaking had succeeded, and when there was no 
 scion of the royal family living, — as to what constitution 
 they should introduce into Persia ; and Herodotus gives an 
 equally naive account of this deliberation. 
 
 In the present day, the Constitution of a country and 
 people is not represented as so entirely dependent on free 
 and deliberate choice. The fundamental but abstractly 
 (and therefore imperfectly ) entertained conception of Free- 
 dom, has resulted in the Republic being very generally re- 
 garded — in theory — as the only just and true political consti- 
 tution. Many even, who occupy elevated official positions 
 under monarchical constitutions — so far from being opposed 
 to this idea — are actually its supporters; only they see that 
 such a constitution, though the best, cannot be realized 
 under all circumstances ; and that — while men are what they 
 are — we must be satisfied with less freedom ; the monarchical 
 constitution — under the given circumstances, and the present 
 moral condition of the people — being even regarded as the 
 most advantageous. In this view also, the necessity of a 
 particular constitution is made to depend on the condition of 
 the people in such a way as if the latter were non-essential 
 and accidental. This representation is founded on the dis- 
 tinction which the reflective understanding makes between 
 an idea and the corresponding reality ; holding to an abstract 
 and consequently untrue idea ; not grasping it in its com- 
 pleteness, or —which is virtually, though not in point of form, 
 the same, — not taking a concrete view of a people and a state. 
 "We shall have to shew further on, that the constitution 
 
4S 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 adopted by a people makes one substance — one spirit; — with 
 its religion, its art and philosophy, or, at least, with its concep- 
 tions and thoughts — its culture generally ; not to expatiate 
 upon the additional influences, ab extra, of climate, of neigh- 
 bours, of its place in the World. A State is an individual 
 totality, of which you cannot select any particular side, 
 although a supremely important one, such as its political 
 constitution ; and deliberate and decide respecting it in that 
 isolated form. Not only is that constitution most intimately 
 connected with and dependent on those other spiritual forces ; 
 but the form of the entire moral and intellectual indivi- 
 duality — comprising all the forces it embodies — is only a step 
 in the development of the grand "Whole, — with its place pre- 
 appointed in the process ; a fact which gives the highest j 
 sanction to the constitution in question, and establishes its 
 absolute necessity. — The origin of a state involves imperious 
 lordship on the one hand, instinctive submission on the 
 other. But even obedience - lordly power, and the fear 
 inspired by a ruler — in itself implies some degree of voluntary 
 connection. En en in barbarous states this is the case ; it is 
 not the isolated will of individuals that prevails ; individual 
 pretensions are relinquished, and the general will is the 
 essential bond of political union. This unity of the general 
 and the particular is the Idea itself, manifesting itself as a 
 state, and which subsequently undergoes further development 
 within itself. The abstract yet necessitated process in the 
 development of truly independent states is as follows : — 
 They begin with regal power, whether of patriarchal or 
 military origin. In the next phase, particularity and indi- 
 viduality assert themselves in the form of Aristocracy and 
 Democracy. Lastly, we have the subjection of these separate 
 interests to a single power; but which can be absolutely 
 none other than one outside of which those spheres have an 
 independent position, viz. the Monarchical. Two phases 
 of royalty, therefore, must be distinguished, — a primary 
 and a secondary one. This process is necessitated, so 
 that the form of government assigned to a particular stage of 
 development must present itself: it is therefore no matter of 
 choice, but is that form which is adapted to the spirit of the 
 people. 
 
 In a Constitution the main feature of interest is the self- 
 
POLITICAL IDIOSYNCRASY. 
 
 40 
 
 development of the rational, that is, the political condition 
 of n people; the setting free of the successive elements of 
 the Idea : so that the several powers in the State manifest 
 themselves as separate,— attain their appropriate and special 
 perfection, — and yet in this independent condition, work 
 together for one object, and are held together by it -i.e. 
 form an organic whole. The State is thus the embo-. 
 diment of rational freedom, realizing and recognizing 
 itself in an objective form. For its objectivity consists in 
 this, — that its successive stages are not merely ideal, but are 
 present in an appropriate reality ; and that in their separate 
 and several working, they are absolutely merged in that 
 agency by which the totality — the soul— the individuate unity 
 — is produced, and of which it is the result. 
 
 The State is the Idea of Spirit in the external manifesta- 
 tion of human Will and its Freedom. It is to the State, 
 therefore, that change in the aspect of History indissolubly 
 attaches itself; and the successive phases of the Idea mani- 
 fest themselves in it as distinct political principles. The 
 Constitutions under which World-Historical peoples have 
 reached their culmination, are peculiar to them ; and there- 
 fore do not present a generally applicable political basis. Were 
 it otherwise, the differences of similar constitutions would 
 consist only in a peculiar method of expanding and develop- 
 ing that generic basis ; whereas they really originate in 
 diversity of principle. From the comparison therefore of the 
 political institutions of the ancient World-Historical peoples, 
 it so happens, that for the most recent principle of a Consti- 
 tution — for the principle of our own times — nothing (so to 
 speak) can be learned. In science and art it is quite other- 
 wise ; e.g., the ancient philosophy is so decidedly the basis of 
 the modern, that it is inevitably contained in the latter, and 
 constitutes its basis. In this case the relation is that of a 
 continuous development of the same structure, whose 
 foundation-stone, walls, and roof have remained what they 
 were. In Art, the Greek itself, in its original form, fur- 
 nishes us the best models. But in regard to political con- 
 stitution, it is quite otherwise : here the Ancient and 
 the Modern have not their essential principle in common. 
 Abstract definitions and dogmas respecting just government, 
 — importingthatintelligence and virtue ought to bear sway — 
 
 E 
 
50 
 
 INTRODUCTION". 
 
 are, indeed, common to both. But nothing is so absurd as to 
 look to Greeks, Romans, or Orientals, for models for the 
 political arrangements of our time. From the East may- 
 be derived beautiful pictures of a patriarchal condition, 
 of paternal government, and of devotion to it on the part ot 
 peoples ; from Greeks and Romans, descriptions of popular 
 liberty. Among the latter we find the idea of a Free Consti- 
 tution admitting all the citizens to a share in delibera- 
 tions and resolves respecting the affairs and laws of the 
 Commonwealth. In our times, too, this is its general accep- 
 tation ; only with this modification, that — since our states 
 are so large, and there are so many of "the Many," the latter 
 — direct action being impossible, — should by the indirect 
 method of elective substitution express their concurrence 
 with resolves affecting the common weal ; that is, that for 
 legislative purposes generally, the people should be repre- 
 sented by deputies. The so-called Representative Constitution 
 is that form of government with which we connect the idea 
 of a free constitution ; and this notion has become a rooted 
 prejudice. On this theory People and Government are 
 separated. But there is a perversity in this antithesis ; an ill- 
 intentioned ruse designed to insinuate that the People are 
 the totality of the State. Besides, the basis of this view is 
 the principle of isolated individuality — the absolute validity 
 of the subjective will — a dogma which we have already 
 investigated. The great point is, that Freedom in its Ideal 
 conception has not subjective will and caprice for its princi- 
 ple, but the recognition of the universal will ; and that the 
 process by which Freedom is realized is the free development 
 of its successive stages. The subjective will is a merely 
 formal determination— a carte blanche — not including what it 
 is that is willed. Only the rational will is that universal 
 principle which independently determines and unfolds its own 
 being, and develops its successive elemental phases as organic 
 members. Of this Gothic-cathedral architecture the aucients 
 knew nothing. 
 
 At an earlier stage of the discussion we established the 
 two elemental considerations : first, the idea of freedom as 
 the absolute and final aim ; secondly, the means for realizing 
 it, i.e. the subjective side of knowledge and will, with its life, 
 movement, and activity. "We then recognized the State as the 
 
RELIGION. 
 
 51 
 
 n oral Whole and the Reality of Freedom, and consequently 
 as the objective unity of these two elements. For although 
 we make this distinction into two aspects for our considera- 
 tion, it must be remarked that they are intimately connected ; 
 and that their connection is involved in the idea of each 
 when examined separately. We have, on the one hand, 
 recognized the Idea in the definite form of Freedom con- 
 scious of and willing itself, — having itself alone as its object : 
 involving at the same time, the pure and simple Idea 
 of Reason, and likewise, that which we have called subject 
 — self-consciousness — Spirit actually existing in the World. 
 If, on the other hand, we consider Subjectivity, we find that 
 subjective knowledge and will is Thought. But by the very 
 act of thoughtful cognition and volition, I w T ill the universal 
 object — the substance of absolute Reason. We observe, 
 therefore, an essential union between the objective side — the 
 Idea, — and the subjective side — the personality that conceives 
 and wills it. — The objective existence of this union is the 
 State, which is therefore the basis and centre of the other 
 concrete elements of the life of a people, — of Art, of Law, of 
 Morals, of Religion, of Science. All the activity of Spirit 
 has only this object — the becoming conscious of this union, 
 i. e., of its own Freedom. Among the forms of this conscious 
 union Religion occupies the highest position. In it, Spirit 
 — rising above the limitations of temporal and secular exist- 
 ence — becomes conscious of the Absolute Spirit, and in this 
 consciousness of the self-existent Being, renounces its indivi- 
 dual interest ; it lays this aside in Devotion — a state of mind 
 in which it refuses to occupy itself any longer with the 
 limited and particular. By Sacrifice man expresses his re- 
 nunciation of his property, his will, his individual feelings. 
 The religious concentration of the soul appears in the form 
 of feelmg ; it nevertheless passes also into reflection ; a form 
 of worship (cultus) is a result of reflection. The second form 
 of the union of the objective and subjective in the human 
 spirit is Art. This advances farther into the realm of the 
 actual and sensuous than Religion. In its noblest walk it is 
 occupied with representing, not indeed, the Spirit of Grod, 
 but certainly the Form of Grod; and in its secondary aims, that 
 which is divine and spiritual generally. Its office is to render 
 visible the Divine ; presenting it to the imaginative and 
 
52 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 intuitive faculty. But the True is the object not only of 
 conception and feeling, as in Religion,— and of intuition, as in 
 Art, — but also of the thinking faculty; and this gives us the 
 third form of the union in question — Philosophy. This is 
 consequently the highest, freest, and wisest phase. Of 
 course we are not intending to investigate these three phases 
 here ; they have only suggested themselves in virtue of their 
 occupying the same general ground as the object here con- 
 sidered — the State. 
 
 The general principle which manifests itself and becomes an 
 object of consciousness in the State, — the form under which 
 all that the State includes is brought, — is the whole of that 
 cycle of phenomena which constitutes the culture of a nation. 
 But the definite substance that receives the form of univer- 
 sality, and exists in that concrete reality which is the State, — 
 is the Spirit of the People itself. The actual State is animated 
 by this spirit, in all its particular affairs — its Wars, Institu- 
 tions, &c. But man must also attain a conscious realization 
 of this his Spirit and essential nature, and of his original 
 identity with it. For we said that morality is the identity 
 of the subjective or personal with the universal will. Now the 
 mind must give itself an express consciousness of this; and 
 the focus of this knowledge is Religion. Art and Science 
 are only various aspects and forms of the same substantial 
 being. — In considering Religion, the chief point of enquiry 
 is, whether it recognizes the True — the Idea — only in its 
 separate, abstract form, or in its true unity ; in separation — 
 God being represented in an abstract form as the Highest 
 Being, Lord of Heaven and Earth, living in a remote region 
 far from human actualities, — or in its unity, — God, as Unity 
 of the Universal and Individual ; the Individual itself assum- 
 ing the aspect of positive and real existence in the idea of 
 the Incarnation. Religion is the sphere in which a nation 
 gives itself the definition of that which it regards as the True. 
 A definition contains everything that belongs to the essence 
 of an object ; reducing its nature to its simple charac- 
 teristic predicate, as a mirror for every predicate, — the 
 generic soul pervading all its details. The conception of 
 God, therefore, constitutes the general basis of a people's 
 character. 
 
 In this aspect, religion stands in the closest connection 
 
RELIGION AND THE STATE. 
 
 53 
 
 with the political principle. Freedom can exist only where 
 Individuality is recognized as having its positive and real 
 existence in the Divine Being. The connection may be 
 further explained thus : — Secular existence, as merely tempo- 
 ral — occupied with particular interests — is consequently only 
 relative and unauthorized ; and receives its validity only in as 
 far as the universal soul that pervades it — its principle — 
 receives absolute validity ; which it cannot have unless it is 
 recognized as the definite manifestation, the phenomenal 
 existence of the Divine Essence. On this account it is that 
 the State rests on Religion. We hear this often repeated in 
 our times, though for the most part nothing further is meant 
 than that individual subjects as Grod-fearing men would be 
 more disposed and ready to perform their duty; since obedi- 
 ence to King and Law so naturally follows in the train of 
 reverence for G-od. This reverence, indeed, since it exalts 
 the general over the special, may even turn upon the latter, — 
 become fanatical, — and work with incendiary and destructive 
 violence against the State, its institutions, and arrangements. 
 Religious feeling, therefore, it is thought, should be sober, — 
 kept in a certain degree of coolness, — that it may not storm 
 against and bear down that which should be defended and 
 preserved by it. The possibility of such a catastrophe is at 
 least latent in it. 
 
 While, however, the correct sentiment is adopted, that the 
 State is based on Religion, the position thus assigned to Reli- 
 gion supposes the State already to exist; and that subsequently, 
 in order to maintain it, Religion must be brought into it — in 
 buckets and bushels as it were— and impressed upon people's 
 hearts. It is quite true that men must be trained to 
 religion, but not as to something whose existence has yet to 
 begin. For in affirming that the State is based on Religion 
 — that it has its root s in it — we virtually assert that the former 
 has proceeded from the latter ; and that this derivation is 
 going on now and will always continue ; i.e., the principles 
 of the State must be regarded as valid in and for them- 
 selves, which can only be in so far as they are recog- 
 nized as determinate manifestations of the Divine Nature. 
 The form of Religion, therefore, decides that of the State and 
 its constitution. The latter actually originated in the par- 
 ticular religion adopted by the nation ; so that, in fact, the 
 
54 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Athenian or the Soman State was possible only in connec- 
 tion with the specific form of Heathenism existing among the 
 respective peoples ; just as a Catholic State has a spirit and 
 constitution different from that of a Protestant one. 
 
 If that outcry — that urging and striving for the implanta- 
 tion of Religion in the community — were an utterance of 
 anguish and a call for help, as it often seems to be, express- 
 ing the danger of religion having vanished, or being about 
 to vanish entirely from the State, — that would be fearful 
 indeed, — worse, in fact, than this outcry supposes ; for it 
 implies the belief in a resource against the evil, viz., the im- 
 plantation and inculcation of religion ; whereas religion is by 
 no means a thing to be so produced ; its self-production (and 
 there can be no other) lies much deeper. 
 
 Another and opposite folly which we meet with in our 
 time, is that of pretending to invent and carry out political 
 constitutions independently of religion. The Catholic con- 
 fession, although sharing the Christian name with the Pro- 
 testant, does not concede to the State an inherent Justice and 
 Morality, — a concession which in the Protestant principle is 
 fundamental. This tearing away of the political morality of 
 the Constitution from its natural connection, is necessary to 
 the genius of that religion, inasmuch as it does not recognize 
 Justice and Morality as independent and substantial. But 
 thus excluded from intrinsicworth, — torn awayfrom their last 
 refuge — the sanctuary of conscience — the calm retreat where 
 religion has its abode, — the principles and institutions 
 of political legislation are destitute of a real centre, to the 
 same degree as they are compelled to remain abstract and 
 indefinite. 
 
 Summing up what has been said of the State, we find that 
 we have been led to call its vital principle, as actuating the 
 individuals who compose it, — Morality. The State, its laws, 
 its arrangements, constitute the rights of its members ; its 
 natural features, its mountains, air, and waters, are their 
 country, their fatherland, their outward material property ; 
 the history of this State, their deeds ; what their ancestors 
 have produced, belongs to them and lives in their memory. 
 All is their possession, just as they are possessed by it ; for it 
 constitutes their existence, their being. 
 
 Their imagination is occupied with the ideas thus pre- 
 
SriRIT OF A PEOPLE. 
 
 55 
 
 sented, while the adoption of these laws, and of a fatherland so 
 conditioned is the expression of their will. It is this matured 
 totality which thus constitutes one Being, the spirit of one 
 People. To it the individual members belong ; each unit is 
 the Son of his Nation, and at the same time — in as far as the 
 {State to which he belongs is undergoing development — the 
 Son of his Age. None remains behind it, still less advances 
 beyond it. This spiritual Being (the Spirit of his Time) is 
 his ; he is a representative of it ; it is that in which he ori- 
 ginated, and in which he lives. Among the Athenians the 
 word Athens had a double import ; suggesting primarily, 
 a complex of political institutions, but no less, in the second 
 place, that Goddess who represented the Spirit of the People 
 and its unity. 
 
 This Spirit of a People is a determinate and particular 
 Spirit, and is, as just stated, further modified by the degree 
 of its historical development. This Spirit, then, constitutes 
 the basis and substance of those other forms of a nation's 
 consciousness, which have been noticed. For Spirit in its 
 self-consciousness must become an object of contemplation 
 to itself, and objectivity involves, in the first instance, the rise 
 of differences which make up a total of distinct spheres of 
 objective spirit ; in the same way as the Soul exists only as 
 the complex of its faculties, which in their form of concen- 
 tration in a simple unity produce that Soul. It is thus One 
 Individuality which, presented in its essence as God, is 
 honoured and enjoyed in Religion; which is exhibited as an 
 object of sensuous contemplation in Art ; and is apprehended 
 as an intellectual conception, in Philosophy. In virtue of 
 the original identity of their essence, purport, and object, 
 these various forms are inseparably united with the Spirit of 
 the State. Only in connection with this particular religion, 
 can this particular political constitution exist ; just as in such 
 or such a State, such or such a Philosophy or order of Art. 
 
 The remark next in order is, that each particular National 
 genius is to be treated as only One Individual in the process 
 of Universal History. For that history is the exhibition of the 
 divine, absolute development of Spirit in its highest forms, — 
 that gradation by which it attains its truth and consciousness 
 of itself. The forms which these grades of progress assume are 
 the characteristic ''National Spirits" of History ; the peculiar 
 
5G 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 tenor of their moral life, of their Government, their Art, 
 Religion, and Science. To realize these grades is the bound- 
 less impulse of the World-Spirit — the goal of its irresistible 
 urging; for this division into organic members, and the full 
 development of each, is its Idea. — Universal History is exclu- 
 sively occupied with shewing how Spirit comes to a recogni- 
 tion and adoption of the Truth : the dawn of knowledge 
 appears ; it begins to discover salient principles, and at last it 
 arrives at full consciousness. 
 
 Having, therefore, learned the abstract characteristics of 
 the nature of Spirit, the means which it uses to realize its 
 Idea, and the shape assumed by it in its complete realization in 
 phenomenal existence — namely, the State — nothing further 
 remains for this introductory section to contemplate but 
 
 III. The course of the World's History. The mutations 
 which history presents have been long characterized in the 
 general, as an advance to something better, more perfect. The 
 changes that take place in Nature — how infinitely manifold 
 soever 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 emiui ; only in those changes which take place 
 in the region of Spirit does anything new arise. This pecu- 
 liarity in the world of mind has 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, & real capa- 
 city for change, and that for the better, — an impulse of 'per- 
 fectibility. This principle, which reduces change itself under 
 a law, has met with an unfavourable reception from religions 
 — such as the Catholic — and from States claiming as their just 
 right a stereotyped, or at least a stable position. If the muta- 
 bility of worldly things in general — political constitutions, for 
 instance — is conceded, either Religion (as the Religion of 
 Truth) is absolutely excepted, or the difficulty escaped by as- 
 cribing changes, revolutions, and abrogations of immaculate 
 theories and institutions, to accidents or imprudence, — but 
 principally to the levity and evil passions of man. The prin- 
 ciple of Perfectibility indeed is almost as indefinite a term as 
 mutability in general ; it is without scope or goal, and has 
 no standard by which to estimate the changes in question : 
 
NATU UAL AND SPIRITUAL JJETELCTMENT. 
 
 57 
 
 the improved, more perfect, state of things towards which it 
 professedly tends is altogether undetermined. 
 
 The principle of Development involves also the existence of 
 a latent germ of being — a capacity or potentiality striving to 
 realise itself. This formal conception finds actual existence 
 in Spirit ; which has the History of the World for its theatre, 
 its possession, and the sphere of its realization. It is not 
 of such a nature as to be tossed to and fro amid the superfi- 
 cial play of accidents, but is rather the absolute arbiter of 
 things ; entirely unmoved by contingencies, which, indeed, 
 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 of an internal unchangeable principle ; a 
 simple essence, — whose existence, i. e., 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 ; — a process 
 nevertheless, that results in the very contrary of change, and 
 is even transformed into a vis conservatrix of the organic 
 principle, and the form embodying it. Thus the organized 
 Individuum produces itself ; it expands itself actually to what 
 it 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 development (of natural organ- 
 isms) takes place in a direct, unopposed, unhindered manner. 
 Between the Idea audits realization— the essential constitu- 
 tion 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 realiza- 
 tion of its Idea is mediated by consciousness and will ; these 
 very faculties are, in the first instance, sunk in their pri- 
 mary 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] rich- 
 ness. Thus Spirit is 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, a mighty conflict with itself. What Spirit 
 
58 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 really strives 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 
 tranquillity of mere growth, as does that of organic life, but 
 a stern reluctant working against itself. It exhibits, more- 
 over, 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, i.e., Freedom. This is the fundamen- 
 tal object, and therefore also the leadiag principle of the deve- 
 lopment, — 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 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 pre- 
 vious culture appears to have been entirely lost ; 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 a former civilization, and by dint of 
 a renewed incalculable expenditure of strength and time,— 
 one of the regions which had been an ancient possession 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 one form of expansion supe- 
 riority 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 retro- 
 cessions they exhibit, — as external contingencies ; and can 
 only judge of particular modes of development from indeter- 
 minate 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 develop- 
 ment of that principle whose substantial purport is the 
 consciousness of Freedom. The analysis of the successive 
 grades, in their abstract form, belongs to Logic ; in their con- 
 
I 
 
 DEYKLOPHBNT OF SPIRIT. 
 
 59 
 
 crete aspect to the Philosophy of Spirit. Here it is sufficient 
 to state that the first step in the process presents that im- 
 mersion of Spirit in Nature which has been already referred 
 to; the second shows it as advancing to the consciousness of 
 its freedom. But this initial separation from Nature is imper- 
 fect 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. 
 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 of 
 them on the other hand involves within itself a process of 
 formation, — constituting the links in a dialectic of transition, 
 — to particularise this must be reserved for the sequel. 
 
 Here we have only to indicate that Spirit begins with a 
 germ of iufinite possibility, but only possibility, — containing 
 its substantial 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 advanc- 
 ing from the imperfect to the more perfect ; but the former 
 must not be understood abstractly as only the imperfect, but 
 as something which 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 Ivva^iiq is also potentia, power and 
 might. Thus the Imperfect, as 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 of consciousness, i. e. to itself. 
 
 We have already made the remark how the commencement 
 of the history of Spirit must be conceived so as to be in har- 
 mony with its Idea — in its bearing on the representations that 
 have been made of a primitive " natural condition," in which 
 freedom and justice are supposed to exist, or to have existed. 
 This was, however, nothing more than an assumption of his- 
 torical existence, conceived in the twilight of theorising 
 reflection. A pretension of quite another order, — not a mere 
 
60 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 inference of reasoning, but making the claim of historical 
 fact, and that supernaturally confirmed, — is put forth in 
 connection with a different view that is now widely pro- 
 mulgated by a certain class of speculatists. This view takes 
 up the idea of the primitive paradisaical condition of man, 
 which had been previously expanded by the Theologians, 
 after their fashion, — involving, e. g., the supposition that God 
 spoke with Adam in Hebrew, — but re-modelled to suit other 
 requirements. The high authority appealed to in the first 
 instance is the biblical narrative. But this depicts the pri- 
 mitive condition, partly only in the few well-known traits, 
 but partly either as in man generically, — human nature at 
 large, — 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 peop/e,and an historical con- 
 dition of such people, existing in 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."* Divine Truth is imagined 
 to have been equally manifest. It is even hinted, though 
 left in some degree of obscurity, that in this primary condi- 
 tion men were in possession of an indefinitely extended 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 ; though in 
 all the mythologies invented by Error, traces of that origin 
 and of those primitive true dogmas are supposed to be pre- 
 sent and cognizable. An important interest, therefore, 
 accrues to the investigation of the history of ancient peoples, 
 that, viz., of the endeavour to trace their annals up to the 
 point where such fragments of the primary revelation are to 
 be met with in greater purity than lower down.f 
 
 * Er. von Schlegel, "Philosophy of History," p. 91, Bohn's Standard 
 Library. 
 
 j Wc have to thank this interest for many valuable discoveries in 
 Oriental literature, and for a renewed study of treasures previously 
 known, in the department of ancient Asiatic Culture, Mythology, Keli- 
 
FREDERICK VON BCHLEGEl/S THEORY. 
 
 61 
 
 "We owe to the interest which has occasioned these inves- 
 tigations, very much that is valuable ; but this investigation 
 bears direct testimony against itself, for it would seemto be 
 awaiting the issue of an historical demonstration of that 
 which is presupposed by it as historically established. That 
 advanced condition of the knowledge of God, and of other 
 scientific, e. y. astronomical knowledge (such as has been 
 falsely attributed to the Hindoos ) ; 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 degene- 
 racy and depravation (as is represented in the rudely- 
 conceived so-called "Emanation System,") ;— all these are 
 suppositions which 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 philoso- 
 phical investigation can adopt, is to take up History where 
 
 gions, and History. In Catholic countries, where a refined literary taste 
 prevails, Governments have yielded to the requirements of speculative 
 inquiry, and have felt the necessity of allying themselves with learning 
 and philosophy. Eloquently and impressively has the Abbe Lamennais 
 reckoned it among the criteria of the true religion, that it must be the uni- 
 versal — that is, catholic — and the oldest in date; and the Congregation 
 has laboured zealously and diligently in France towards rendering such 
 assertions no longer mere pulpit tirades and authoritative dicta, such as 
 were deemed sufficient formerly. The religion of Buddha — a god-man — 
 which has prevailed to such an enormous extent, has especially attracted 
 attention. The Indian Timürtis, as also the Chinese abstraction of the 
 Trinity, has furnished clearer evidence in point of subject matter. The 
 savans, M. Abel Kemusat and M. Saint Martin, on the one hand, have 
 undertaken the most meritorious investigations in the Chinese literature, 
 with a view to make this also a base of operations for researches in tlie 
 Mongolian and, if such were possible, in the Thibetian; on the other 
 hand, Baron von Eckstein, in his way [i. e., adopting from Germany 
 superficial physical conceptions and mannerisms, in the style of Er. v. 
 Schlegel, though Avith more geniality than the latter) in his periodical, 
 "Le Catholique,"— has furthered the cause ofthat primitive Catholicism 
 generally, and in particular has gained for the savans of the Congrega- 
 tion the support of the Government ; so that it has even set on foot expe- 
 ditions to the East, in order to discover there treasures still concealed ; 
 (from which further disclosures have been anticipated, respecting pro- 
 found theological questions, particularly on the higher antiquity and 
 sources of Buddhism), and with a view to promote the interests of Catho- 
 licism by this circuitous but scientifically interesting method. 
 
62 
 
 INTRODUCTION". 
 
 Rationality begins to manifest itself in the actual 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 in- 
 organic existence of Spirit— that of abstract Freedom — uncon- 
 scious torpidity in respect to good and evil (and consequently 
 to laws ), or, if we please to term it so, " blessed ignorance," — 
 is itself not a subject of History. Natural, and at the same 
 time religious morality, is the piety of the family. In this 
 social relation, morality consists in the members behaving 
 towards each other not as individuals — possessing an inde- 
 pendent will ; not as persons. The Family therefore, is 
 excluded from that process of development in which History 
 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 centre of indifference, in which neither Nature 
 nor Spirit is open and transparent ; and for which Nature 
 and Spirit can become open and transparent only by means 
 of a further process, — a very lengthened culture of that AVill 
 at length become self-conscious. Consciousness alone is 
 clearness ; and is that alone for which God (or any other 
 existence) can be revealed. In its true form, — in absolute 
 universality — nothing can be manifested except to conscious- 
 ness made percipient of it. Freedom is nothing but the 
 recognition and adoption of such universal substantial objects 
 as Right and Law, and the production of 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 ante-historical period — consis- 
 tently with what has been said — lies out of our plan; 
 whether a real history followed it, or the peoples in question 
 never attained a political constitution. — It is a great dis- 
 covery in history — as of a new world — which has been made 
 within rather more than the last twenty years, respecting the 
 Sanscrit 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, 
 
CONDITIONS ESSENTIAL TO HISTORY. 
 
 63 
 
 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 re- 
 ferred to, between the languages of nations so widely sepa- 
 rated, we have a result before us, which proves the diffusion 
 of those nations from Asia as a centre, and the so dissimilar 
 development of what had been originally related, as an in- 
 contestable fact; not as an inference deduced by that favourite 
 method of combining, and reasoning from, circumstances 
 grave and trivial, which has already enriched and will con- 
 tinue 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 preceded it. 
 
 In our language the term History* unites the objective 
 with the subjective side, and denotes quite as much the 
 historia rerum gestarum, as the res gestae 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 of a higher order than 
 mere outward accident ; we must suppose historical narra- 
 tions to have appeared contemporaneously with historical 
 deeds and events. It is an internal vital principle common 
 to both that produces them synchronously, family me- 
 morials, patriarchal traditions, have an interest confined to 
 the family and the clan. The uniform course of events which 
 such a condition implies, is no subject of serious remem- 
 brance ; though distinct transactions or turns of fortune, may 
 rouse Mnemosyne to form conceptions of them, — in the same 
 way as love and the religious emotions provoke imagination 
 to oive shape to a previously formless impulse. But it is 
 the State which first presents subject-matter that is not 
 only adapted to the prose of History, but involves the pro- 
 duction of such history in the very progress of its owti being. 
 Instead of merely subjective mandates on the part of govern- 
 ment, — sufficing for the needs of the moment, — a community 
 that is acquiring a stable existence, and exalting itself into 
 a State, requires formal commands and laws — comprehensive 
 
 German, " Geschichte," from " Geschehen," to happen. Tr. 
 
64 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 and universally binding prescriptions ; and thus produces a 
 record as well as an interest concerned with intelligent, de- 
 finite — and, in their results — lasting transactions and occur- 
 rences ; on which Mnemosyne, for the behoof of the perennial 
 object of the formation and constitution of the State, is 
 impelled to confer perpetuity. Profound sentiments gene- 
 rally, such as that of love, as also religious intuition and its 
 conceptions, are in themselves complete, — constantly present 
 and satisfying ; 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 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 muta- 
 tions, — are on that very account destitute of objective history, 
 because they present no subjective history, no annals. We 
 need not suppose that the records 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 enduring record. It strikes 
 every one, in beginning to form an acquaintance with the 
 treasures of Indian literature, that a land so rich in intellec- 
 tual 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 remarkable, one 
 going back to the most ancient times. India has not only 
 ancient books relating to religion, and splendid poetical pro- 
 ductions, but also ancient codes ; the existence of which latter 
 kind of literature has been mentioned as a condition neces- 
 sary to the origination of History— and yet History itself 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 these dependent on natural 
 distinctions ; and are especially occupied with determining 
 the relations (Wrongs rather than Eights) of those classes 
 
ANTE- HISTORICAL PERIOD. 
 
 65 
 
 towards each other, i.e. the privileges of the higher over the 
 lower. Consequently, the element of morality is banished 
 from the pomp of Indian life and from its political institu- 
 tions. 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, no object 
 for Mnemosyne 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 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 sug- 
 gests so many instances of social complication, war, revolu- 
 tion, and ruin, — a process which is 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 voice- 
 less and dumb, — a stealthy, unnoticed advance. It 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, 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 poorer and ruder : a singular pheno- 
 menon — 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 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 theoretic intelligence itself, as 
 also its subsequent development, and the more concrete 
 
 P 
 
66 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 class of facts coDnected with it, — viz. the spreading of peoples 
 over the earth, their separation from each other, their com- 
 minglings and wanderings — remain involved in the obscurity 
 of 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 partak- 
 ing of this element of substantial, veritable existence, 
 those nations — notwithstanding the development of lan- 
 guage among them — 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 them- 
 selves. 
 
 After these remarks, relating to the form of the commence- 
 ment of the "World's History, and to that ante-historical 
 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 of arrangement. 
 
 Universal history — as already demonstrated — shews the de- 
 velopment of the consciousness of Freedom on the part of 
 Spirit, and of the consequent realization of that Freedom. 
 This development implies a gradation — a series of increasingly 
 adequate expressions or manifestations of Freedom, which 
 result from its Idea. The logical, and — as still more promi- 
 nent—the dialectical nature of the Idea in general, viz. that 
 it is self-determined — that it assumes successive forms which 
 it successively transcends; and by this very process of 
 transcending its earlier stages, gains an affirmative, and, in 
 fact, a richer and more concrete shape ; — this uecessity of its 
 nature, and the necessary series of pure abstract forms which 
 the Idea successively assumes— is exhibited in the department 
 of Logic. Here we need adopt only one of its results, viz. 
 that every step in the process, as differing from any other, 
 has its determinate peculiar principle. In history this prin- 
 ciple is idiosyncrasy of Spirit— peculiar National Grenius. It 
 is within the limitations of this idiosyncrasy that the spirit of 
 the nation, concretely manifested, expresses every aspect of 
 its consciousness and will— the whole cycle of its realization. 
 Its religion, its polity, its ethics, its legislation, and even its 
 
OBJECTIONS BROUGHT BY EMPIRICISM. 
 
 (57 
 
 science, art, and mechanical skill, all bear its stamp. These 
 special peculiarities find their key in that common peculiarity, 
 — the particular principle that characterises a people ; as, on 
 the other hand, in the facts which History presents in detail, 
 that common characteristic principle may be detected. That 
 such or such a specific quality constitutes the peculiar genius 
 of a people, is the element of our inquiry which must be de- 
 rived from experience, and historically proved. To accomplish 
 this,pre-supposes not only a disciplined faculty of abstraction, 
 but an intimate acquaintance with the Idea. The investigator 
 must be familiar a 'priori (if we like to call it so), with the 
 whole circle of conceptions to which the principles in ques- 
 tion belong — just as Keppler (to name the most illustrious 
 example in this mode of philosophizing) must have been 
 familiar a priori with ellipses, with cubes and squares, and 
 with ideas of their relations, before he could discover, from 
 the empirical data, those immortal "Laws" of his, w T hich 
 are none other than forms of thought pertaining to those 
 classes of conceptions. He who is unfamiliar with the 
 science that embraces these abstract elementary concep- 
 tions, is as little capable — though he may have gazed on the 
 firmament and the motions of the celestial bodies for a lite- 
 time — of understanding those Laws, as of discovering them. 
 From this want of acquaintance with the ideas that relate 
 to the development of Freedom, proceed a part of those 
 objections which are brought against the philosophical 
 consideration of a science usually regarded as one of mere 
 experience ; the so-called a priori method, and the attempt 
 to insinuate ideas into the empirical data of history, being 
 the chief points in the indictment. "Where this deficiency 
 exists, such conceptions appear alien — not lying within the 
 object of investigation. To minds whose training has been 
 narrow and merely subjective, — which have not an acquaint- 
 ance and familiarity with ideas, — they are something strange 
 — not embraced in the notion and conception of the subject 
 which their limited intellect forms. Hence the statement 
 that Philosophy does not understand such sciences. It must, 
 indeed, allow that it has not that kind of Understanding 
 which is the prevailing one in the domain of those sciences 
 that it does not proceed according to the categories of such 
 Understanding, but according to the categories of Reason. 
 
68 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 — though at the same time recognizing that Understanding, 
 and its true value and position. It must be observed that 
 in this very process of scientific Understanding, it is of 
 importance that the essential should be distinguished and 
 brought into relief in contrast with the so-called non-essen- 
 tial. But in order to render this possible, we must know 
 what is essential ; and that is — in view of the History of the 
 "World in general — the Consciousness of Freedom, and the 
 phases which this consciousness assumes in developing itself. 
 The bearing of historical facts on this category, is their 
 bearing on the truly Essential. Of the difficulties stated, 
 and the opposition exhibited to comprehensive conceptions 
 in science, part must be referred to the inability to grasp 
 and understand Ideas. If in Natural History some monstrous 
 hybrid growth is alleged as an objection to the recognition 
 of clear and indubitable classes or species, a sufficient reply 
 is furnished by a sentiment often vaguely urged, —that " the 
 exception confirms the rule ;" i.e. that is the part of a well- 
 defined rule, to shew the conditions in which it applies, or 
 the deficiency or hybridism of cases that are abnormal. 
 Mere Nature is too weak to keep its genera and species 
 pure, when conflicting with alien elementary influences. 
 If, e.g. on considering the human organization in its concrete 
 aspect, we assert that brain, heart, and so forth are essential 
 to its organic life, some miserable abortion may be adduced, 
 which has on the whole the human form, or parts of it, — which 
 has been conceived in a human body and has breathed after 
 birth therefrom, — in which nevertheless no brain and no heart 
 is found. If such an instance is quoted against the general 
 conception of a human being — the objector persisting in 
 using the name, coupled with a superficial idea respecting 
 it — it can be proved that a real, concrete human being is a 
 truly different object ; that such a being must have a brain 
 in its head, and a heart in its breast. 
 
 A similar process of reasoning is adopted, in reference to 
 the correct assertion that genius, talent, moral virtues, and sen- 
 timents, and piety, may be found in every zone, under all po- 
 litical constitutions and conditions ; in confirmation of which 
 examples are forthcoming in abundance. If in this assertion, 
 the accompanying distinctions are intended to be repudiated 
 as unimportant or non-essential, reflection evidently limits 
 
DISTINCTIONS IN NATIONAL GENIUS IGNORED. 
 
 09 
 
 itself to abstract categories ; and ignores the specialities of 
 the object in question, which certainly fall under no principle 
 recognized by such categories. That intellectual position 
 which adopts such merely formal points of view, presents a 
 vast field for ingenious questions, erudite views, and striking 
 comparisons ; for profound seeming reflections and declama- 
 tions, which may be rendered so much the more brilliant in 
 proportion as the subject they refer to is indefinite, and are 
 susceptible of new and varied forms in inverse proportion to 
 the importance of the results that can be gained from them, 
 and the certainty and rationality of their issues. Under 
 such an aspect the well known Indian Epopees may be com- 
 pared with the Homeric ; perhaps — since it is the vast- 
 ness of the imagination by which poetical genius proves 
 itself — preferred to them ; as, on account of the similarity of 
 single strokes of imagination in the attributes of the divi- 
 nities, it has been contended that Greek mythological forms 
 may be recognized in those of India. Similarly the Chinese 
 philosophy, as adopting the One [to tV] as its basis, has been 
 alleged to be the same as at a later period appeared as 
 Eleatic philosophy and as the Spinozistic System ; while in 
 virtue of its expressing itself also in abstract numbers and 
 lines, Pythagorean and Christian principles have been sup- 
 posed to be detected in it. Instances of bravery and indomi- 
 table courage, — traits of magnanimity, of self-denial, and 
 self-sacrifice, which are found among the most savage and the 
 most pusillanimous nations, — are regarded as sufficient to sup- 
 port the view that in these nations as much of social virtue 
 and morality may be found as in the most civilized Christian 
 states, or even more. And on this ground a doubt has been 
 suggested whether in the progress of history and of gene- 
 ral culture mankind have become better ; whether their 
 morality has been increased,— morality being regarded in a 
 subjective aspect and view, as founded on what the agent 
 holds to be right and wrong, good and evil ; not on a principle 
 which is considered to be in and for itself right and good, or 
 a crime and evil, or on a particular religion believed to be 
 the true one. 
 
 We may fairly decline on this occasion the task of tracing 
 the formalism and error of such a view, and establishing the 
 true principles of moralitv, or rather of social virtue in 
 
70 
 
 INTBODTTCTIOF. 
 
 opposition to false morality. Eor the History of the World 
 occupies a higher ground than that on which morality 
 has properly its position , which is personal character, — the 
 conscience of individuals, — their particular will and mode of 
 action ; these have a value, imputation, reward or punishment 
 proper to themselves. "What the absolute aim of Spirit re- 
 quires and accomplishes, — what Providence does, — -transcends 
 the obligations, and the liability to imputation and the 
 ascription of good or bad motives, which attach to indi- 
 viduality in virtue of its social relations. They who on mors 
 grounds, and consequently with noble intention, have re 
 sisted that which the advance of the Spiritual Idea makes 
 necessary, stand higher in moral worth than those whose 
 crimes have been turned into the means — under the directior 
 of a superior principle — of realizing the purposes of thai 
 principle. But in such revolutions both parties generally 
 stand within the limits of the same circle of transient an<" 
 corruptible existence. Consequently it is only a forma 
 rectitude — deserted by the living Spirit and by G-od— whict 
 those who stand upon ancient right and order maintain 
 The deeds of great men, who are the Individuals of the 
 World's History, thus appear not only justified in view ol 
 that intrinsic result of which they were not conscious, but 
 also from the point of view occupied by the secular 
 moralist. But looked at from this point, moral claims that 
 are irrelevant, must not be brought into collision with world- 
 historical deeds and their accomplishment. The Litany o 
 private virtues — modesty, humility, philanthropy and for- 
 bearance—must not be raised against them. The History o 
 the W orld might, on principle, entirely ignore the circle 
 within which morality and the so much talked of distinction 
 between the moral and the politic lies — not only in abstain- 
 ing from judgments, for the principles involved, and the 
 cessary reference of the deeds in question to those principles 
 are a sufficient judgment of them — but in leaving Individuals 
 quite out of view and unmentioned. What it has to 
 cord is the activity of the Spirit of Peoples, so that the 
 Individual forms which that spirit has assumed in the sphere 
 of outward reality, might be left to the delineation of specia 
 histories. 
 
 The same kind of formalism avails itself in its peculi* 
 
DISTINCTIONS IN NATIONAL GENIUS IGNORED. 71 
 
 manner of the indefiniteness attaching to genius, poetry, and 
 even philosophy ; thinks equally that it finds these every- 
 where. We have here products of reflective thought; and 
 it is familiarity with those general conceptions which single 
 out and name real distinctions without fathoming the true 
 depth of the matter, — that we call Culture. It is some- 
 thing merely formal, iuasmuch as it aims at nothing 
 more than the analysis of the subject, whatever it be, into 
 its constituent parts, and the comprehension of these in their 
 logical definitions and forms. It is not the free universality 
 of conception necessary for making an abstract principle the 
 object of consciousness. Such a consciousness of Thought 
 itself, and of its forms isolated from a particular object, is 
 Philosophy. This has, indeed, the condition of its existence 
 in culture ; that condition being the taking up of the object 
 of thought, and at the same time clothing it with the form of 
 universality, in such a way that the material content and the 
 form given by the intellect are held in an inseparable state ; — 
 inseparable to such a degree that the object in question — 
 which, by the analysis of one conception into a multitude 
 of conceptions, is enlarged to an incalculable treasure of 
 thought — is regarded as a merely empirical datum in whose 
 formation thought has had no share. 
 
 But it is quite as much an act of Thought - of the Under- 
 standing in particular — to embrace in one simple conception 
 object which of itself comprehends a concrete and large sig- 
 nificance (as Earth, Man, — Alexander or Caesar) and to 
 designate it by one word,— as to resolve such a conception — 
 duly to isolate in idea the conceptions which it contains, and 
 to give them particular names. And in reference to the view 
 which gave occasion to what has just been said, thus much 
 will be clear, — that as reflection produces what we include 
 under the general terms Genius, Talent, Art, Science, — formal 
 culture on every grade of intellectual development, not only 
 can, but must grow, and attain a mature bloom, while the 
 grade in question is developing itself to a State, and on this 
 basis of civilization is advancing to intelligent reflection and 
 to general forms of thought, — as in laws, so in regard to all 
 else. In the very association of men in a state, lies the ne- 
 cessity of formal culture — consequently of the rise of the 
 sciences and of a cultivated poetry and art generally. The 
 
72 
 
 INTKODUCTION. 
 
 arts designated "plastic," require besides, even in their 
 technical aspect, the civilized association of men. The poetic 
 art — which has less need of external requirements and means, 
 and which has the element of immediate existence, the voice, 
 as its material — steps forth with great boldness and with ma- 
 tured expression, even under the conditions presented by a 
 people not yet united in a political combination ; since, as re- 
 marked above, language attains on its own particular ground 
 a high intellectual development, prior to the commence- 
 ment of civilization. 
 
 Philosophy also must make its appearance where political 
 life ex«ists ; since that in virtue of which any series of pheno- 
 mena is reduced within the sphere of culture, as above stated, 
 is the Form strictly proper to Thought ; and thus for philoso- 
 phy, which is nothing other than the consciousness of this 
 form itself— the Thinking of Thinking, — the material of which 
 its edifice is to be constructed, is already prepared by general 
 culture. If in the development of the State itself, periods 
 are necessitated which impel the soul of nobler natures to 
 seek refuge from the Present in ideal regions, — in order to find 
 in them that harmony with itself which it can no longer 
 enjoy in the discordant real world, where the reflective intel- 
 ligence attacks all that is holy and deep, which had been spon- 
 taneously inwrought into the religion, laws and manners of 
 nations, and brings them down and attenuates them to ab- 
 stract godless generalities, — Thought will be compelled to be- 
 come Thinking Eeason, with the view of effecting in its own 
 element, the restoration of its principles from the ruin to 
 which they had been brought. 
 
 We find then, it is true, among all world-historical peoples, 
 poetry, plastic art, science, even philosophy ; but not only is 
 there a diversity in style and bearing generally, but still 
 more remarkably in subject-matter; and this is a diversity of 
 the most important kind, affecting the rationality ofthat sub- 
 ject-matter. It is useless for apretentious aesthetic criticism to 
 demand that our good pleasure should not be made the rule 
 for the matter — the substantial part of their contents — and to 
 maintain that it is the beautiful form as such, the grandeur 
 of the fancy, and so forth, which fine art aims at, and which 
 must be considered and enjoyed by a liberal taste and cul- 
 tivated mind. A healthy intellect does not tolerate such 
 
FALSE CLASSIFICATIONS. 
 
 73 
 
 abstractions, and cannot assimilate productions of the kind 
 above referred to. Granted that the Indian Epopees might 
 be placed on a level with the Homeric, on account of a num- 
 ber of those qualities of form — grandeur of invention and 
 imaginative power, liveliness of images and emotions, and 
 beauty of diction ; yet the infinite difference of matter 
 remains ; consequently one of substantial importance and in- 
 volving the interest of Reason, which is immediately con- 
 cerned with the consciousness of the Idea of Freedom, and its 
 expression in individuals. There is not only a classical form, 
 but a classical order of subject-matter ; and in a work of art 
 form and subject matter are so closely united that the former 
 can only be classical to the extent to which the latter is so. 
 "With a fantastical, indeterminate material — and Rule is the 
 essence of Reason — the form becomes measureless and form- 
 less, or mean and contracted. In the same way, in that com- 
 parison of the various systems of philosophy of which we have 
 already spoken, the only point of importance is overlooked, 
 namely, the character of that Unity which is found alike in the 
 Chinese, the Eleatic, and the Spinozistic philosophy — the 
 distinction between the recognition of that Unity as abstract 
 and as concrete — concrete to the extent of being a unity in 
 and by itself — a unity synonymous with Spirit. But that 
 co-ordination proves that it recognizes only such an abstract 
 unity ; so that while it gives judgment respecting philo- 
 sophy, it is ignorant of that very point which constitutes the 
 interest of philosophy. 
 
 But there are also spheres which, amid all the variety that 
 is presented in the substantial content of a particular form of 
 culture, remain the same. The difference above mentioned 
 in art, science, philosophy, concerns the thinking Keason and 
 Freedom, which is the self-consciousness of the former, and 
 which has the same one root with Thought. As it is not the 
 brute, but only theman thatthinks, he only — and only because 
 he is a thinking being — has Freedom. His consciousness im- 
 ports this, that the individual comprehends itself as & person, 
 that is, recognizes itself in its single existence as possessing 
 universality, — as capable of abstraction from, and of surren- 
 dering all speciality; and, therefore, as inherently infinite. 
 Consequently those spheres of intelligence which He beyond 
 the limits of this consciousness are a common ground among 
 
74 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 those substantial distinctions. Even morality, which is so 
 intimately connected with the consciousness of freedom, can 
 be very pure while that consciousness is still wanting ; as 
 far, that is to say, as it expresses duties and rights only as 
 objective commands ; or even as far as it remains satisfied 
 with the merely formal elevation of the soul — the surrender 
 of the sensual, and of all sensual motives — in a purely nega- 
 tive, self-denying fashion. The Chinese morality — since 
 Europeans have become acquainted with it and with the 
 writings of Confucius— has obtained the greatest praise and 
 proportionate attention from those who are familiar with the 
 Christian morality. There is a siaiilar acknowledgment of 
 the sublimity with which the Indian religion and poetry, 
 (a statement that must, however, be limited to the higher 
 kind), but especially the Indian philosophy, expatiate upon 
 and demand the removal and sacrifice of sensuality. Yet 
 both these nations are, it must be confessed, entirely wanting 
 in the essential consciousness of the Idea of Freedom. To 
 the Chinese their moral laws are just like natural laws, — 
 external, positive commands, — claims established by force, — 
 compulsory duties or rules of courtesy towards each other. 
 Ereedom, through which alone the essential determinations 
 of lleason become moral sentiments, is wanting. Morality 
 is a political affair, and its laws are administered by officers 
 of government and legal tribunals. Their treatises upon it, 
 (which are not law books, but are certainly addressed to the 
 subjective will and individual disposition) read, — as do the 
 moral writings of the Stoics, — like a string of commands 
 stated as necessary for realizing the goal of happiness ; so 
 that it seems to be left free to men, on their part, to 
 adopt such commands, — to observe them or not; while the 
 conception of an abstract subject, " a wise man" [Sapiens] 
 forms the culminating point among the Chinese, as also 
 among the Stoic moralists. Also in the Indian doctrine of the 
 renunciation of the sensuality of desires and earthly interests, 
 positive moral freedom is not the object and end, but the 
 annihilation of consciousness— spiritual and even physical 
 privation of life. 
 
 It is the concrete spirit of a people which we have dis- 
 tinctly to recognize, and since it is Spirit it can only be com- 
 prehended spiritually, that is, by thought. It is this alone 
 
PRIMA FACIE ASPECT OF IIISTORY. 
 
 75 
 
 which takes the lead in all the deeds and tendencies of that 
 people, and which is occupied in realizing itself, — in satisfying 
 its ideal and becoming self-conscious, — for its great business 
 is self-production. But for spirit, the highest attainment is 
 self-knowledge ; an advance not only to the intuition, but 
 to the thought — the clear conception of itself. This it 
 must and is also destined to accomplish; but the accom- 
 plishment is at the same time its dissolution, and the rise of 
 another spirit, another world-historical people, another 
 epoch of Universal History. This transition and connection 
 leads us to the connection of the whole — the idea of the 
 World's History as such — which we have now to consider 
 more closely, and of which we have to give a representation. 
 
 History in general is therefore the development of 
 Spirit in Time, as JNature is the development of the Idea in 
 Space. 
 
 If then we cast a glance over the World' s-History 
 generally, we see a vast picture of changes and transactions ; 
 of infinitely manifold forms of peoples, states, individuals, in 
 unresting succession. Everything that can enter into and 
 interest the soul of man — all our sensibility to goodness, 
 beauty, and greatness — is called into play. On every hand 
 aims are adopted and pursued, which we recognize, whose 
 accomplishment we desire — we hope and fear for them. In 
 all these occurrences and changes we behold human action 
 and suffering predominant ; everywhere something akin to 
 ourselves, and therefore everywhere something that excites 
 our interest for or against. Sometimes it attracts us by 
 beauty, freedom, and rich variety, sometimes by energy such 
 as enables even vice to make itself interesting. Sometimes 
 we see the more comprehensive mass of some general interest 
 advancing with comparative slowness, and subsequently 
 sacrificed to an infinite complication of trifling circumstances, 
 and so dissipated into atoms. Then, again, with a vast ex- 
 penditure of power a trivial result is produced ; while from 
 what appears unimportant a tremendous issue proceeds. On 
 every hand there is the motliest throng of events drawing 
 us within the circle of its interest, and when one combination 
 vanishes another immediately appears in its place. 
 
 The general thought — the category which first presents 
 itself in this restless mutation of individuals and peoples, 
 
76 INTEODÜCTION. 
 
 existing for a time and then vanishing — is that of change at 
 large. The sight of the ruins of some ancient sovereignty 
 directly leads us to contemplate this thought of change in 
 its negative aspect. What traveller among the ruins of 
 Carthage, of Palmyra, Persepolis, or Rome, has not been 
 stimulated to reflections on the transiency of kingdoms and 
 men, and to sadness at the thought of a vigorous and rich 
 life now departed - a sadness which does not expend itself 
 on personal losses and the uncertainty of one's own under- 
 takings, but is a disinterested sorrow at the decay of a splendid 
 and highly cultured national life ! But the next consideration 
 which allies itself with that of change, is, that change while 
 it imports dissolution, involves at the same time the rise of 
 a new life — that while death is the issue of life, life is also 
 the issue of death. This is a grand conception ; one which 
 the Oriental thinkers attained, and which is perhaps the 
 highest in their metaphysics. In the idea of Metempsychosis 
 we find it evolved in its relation to individual existence ; but 
 a myth more generally known, is that of the Phoenix as 
 a type of the Life of Nature ; eternally preparing for itself 
 its funeral pile, and consuming itself upon it ; but so that 
 from its ashes is produced the new, renovated, fresh life. But 
 this image is only Asiatic ; oriental not occidental. Spirit- 
 consuming the envelope of its existence — does not merely 
 pass into another envelope, nor rise rejuvenescent from the 
 ashes of its previous form ; it comes forth exalted, glorified, 
 a purer spirit. It certainly makes war upon itself — con- 
 sumes its own existence ; but in this very destruction it works 
 up that existence into a new form, and each successive phase 
 becomes in its turn a material, working on which it exalts 
 itself to a new grade. 
 
 If we consider Spirit in this aspect — regarding its changes 
 not merely as rejuvenescent transitions, i. e., returns to the 
 same form, but rather as manipulations of itself, by which it 
 multiplies the material for future endeavours — we see 
 it exerting itself in a variety of modes and directions ; 
 developing its powers and gratifying its desires in a variety 
 which is inexhaustible ; because every one of its creations, in 
 which it has already found gratification, meets it anew as 
 material, and is a new stimulus to plastic activity. The 
 abstract conception of mere change gives place to the thought 
 
ACTIVITY CHARACTERISTIC OF " SPIRIT." 
 
 77 
 
 of Spirit manifesting, developing, and perfecting its powers 
 in every direction which its manifold nature can follow. 
 What powers it inherently possesses we learn from the 
 variety of products and formations which it originates. In 
 this pleasurable activity, it has to do only with itself. As 
 involved with the conditions of mere nature— internal and 
 external — it will indeed meet in these not only opposition and 
 hindrance, but will often see its endeavours thereby fail ; 
 often sink under the complications in which it is entangled 
 either by Nature or by itself. But in such case it perishes 
 in fulfilling its own destiny and proper function, and even 
 thus exhibits the spectacle of self-demonstration as spiritual 
 activity. 
 
 The very essence of Spirit is activity ; it realizes its 
 potentiality — makes itself its own deed, its own work — and 
 thus it becomes an object to itself ; contemplates itself as an 
 objective existence. Thus is it with the Spirit of a people : it 
 is a Spirit having strictly defined characteristics, which erects 
 itself into an objective world, that exists and persists in a par- 
 ticular religious form of worship, customs, constitution, and 
 political laws, — in the whole complex of its institutions, — in 
 the events and transactions that malte up its history. That is 
 its work — that is what this particular Nation is. Nations are 
 what their deeds are. Every Englishman will say : We are 
 the men who navigate the ocean, and have the commerce of 
 the world ; to whom the East Indies belong and their riches ; 
 who have a parliament, juries, &c. The relation of the in- 
 dividual to that Spirit is that he appropriates to himself this 
 substantial existence ; that it becomes his character and capa- 
 bility, enabling him to have a definite place in the world— to 
 be something. For he finds the being of the people to which he 
 belongs an already established, firm world — objectively pre- 
 sent to him — with which he has to incorporate himself. In this 
 its work, therefore — its world — the Spirit of the people enjoys 
 its existence and finds its satisfaction. — A Nation is moral — 
 virtuous — vigorous — while it is engaged in realizing its grand 
 objects, and defends its work against external violence during 
 the process of giving to its purposes an objective existence. 
 The contradiction between its potential, subjective being — 
 its inner aim and life — and its actual being is removed ; it 
 has attained full reality, has itself objectively present to it. 
 
78 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 But this having been attained, the activity displayed by the 
 Spirit of the people in question is no longer needed ; it has 
 its desire. The Nation can still accomplish much in war and 
 peace at home and abroad ; but the living substantial soul j 
 itself may be said to have ceased its activity. The essential, 1 
 supreme interest has consequently vanished from its life, for 
 interest is present only where there is opposition. The 
 nation lives the same kind of life as the individual when 
 passing from maturity to old age, — in the enjoyment of itself, 
 — in the satisfaction of being exactly what it desired and was 
 able to attain. Although its imagination might have tran- 
 scended that limit, it nevertheless abandoned any such aspira- 
 tions as objects of actual endeavour, if the real world was 
 less than favourable to their attainment, — and restricted its 
 aim by the conditions thus imposed. This mere customary 
 life (the watch wound up and going on of itself) is that 
 which brings on natural death. Custom is activity without 
 opposition, for which there remains only a formal duration ; 
 in which the fulness and zest that originally characterised 
 the aim of life is out of the question, — a merely external 
 sensuous existence which has ceased to throw itself enthu- 
 siastically into its object. Thus perish individuals, thus 
 perish peoples by a natural death ; and though the latter may 
 continue in being, it is an existence without intellect or vita- 
 lity ; having no need of its institutions, because the need 
 for them is satisfied,— a political nullity and tedium. In 
 order that a truly universal interest may arise, the Spirit of 
 a People must advance to the adoption of some new purpose : 
 but whence can this new purpose originate ? It would be a 
 higher, more comprehensive conception of itself — a tran- 
 scending of its principle— but this very act would involve a 
 principle of a new order, a new National Spirit. 
 
 Such a new principle does in fact enter into the Spirit of 
 a people that has arrived at full development and self-realiza- 
 tion ; it dies not a simply natural death, — for it is not a mere 
 single individual, but a spiritual, generic life; in its case 
 natural death appears to imply destruction through its own 
 agency. The reason of this difference from the single 
 natural individual, is that the Spirit of a people exists as a 
 genus, and consequently carries within it its own negation, 
 in the very generality which characterizes it. A people can 
 
CHRONOS AND ZEUS. 
 
 79 
 
 only die a violent death when it has become naturally dead 
 in itself, as e. g., the German Imperial Cities, the German 
 Imperial Constitution. 
 
 It is not of the nature of the all-pervading Spirit to die 
 this merely natural death ; it does not simply sink into the 
 senile life of mere custom, but — as being a National Spirit 
 belonging to Universal History —attains to the conscious- 
 ness of what its work is ; it attains to a conception of itself. 
 In fact it is world-historical only in so far as a universal 
 principle has lain in its fundamental element, — in its grand 
 aim : only so far is the work which such a spirit produces, 
 a moral, political organization. If it be mere desires that 
 impel nations to activity, such deeds pass over without leav- 
 ing a trace ; or their traces are only ruin and destruction. 
 Thus, it was first Chronos — Time — that ruled ; the Golden 
 Age, without moral products ; and what was produced — the 
 offspring of that Chronos — was devoured by it. It was 
 Jupiter — from whose head Minerva sprang, and to whose 
 circle of divinities belongs Apollo and the Muses— that first 
 put a constraint upon Time, and set a bound to its principle 
 of decadence. He is the Political god, who produced a 
 moral work — the State. 
 
 In the very element of an achievement the quality of gene- 
 rality, of thought, is contained ; without thought it has no ob- 
 jectivity ; that is its basis. The highest point in the develop- 
 ment of a people is this, — to have gained a conception of its 
 life and condition, — to have reduced its laws, its ideas of jus- 
 tice and morality to a science ; for in this unity [of the 
 objective and subjective] lies the most intimate unity that 
 Spirit can attain to in and with itself. In its work it is 
 employed in rendering itself an object of its own contempla- 
 tion ; but it cannot develop itself objectively in its essential 
 nature, except in thinking itself. 
 
 At this point, then, Spirit is acquainted with its princi- 
 ples—the general character of its acts. But at the same 
 time, in virtue of its very generality, this work of thought 
 is different in point of form from the actual achievements of 
 the national genius, and from the vital agency by which those 
 achievements have been performed. We have then before 
 us a real and an ideal existence of the Spirit of the Nation. 
 If we wish to gain the general idea and conception of what 
 
80 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 the Greeks were, we find it in Sophocles and Aristophanes, 
 in Thucydides and Plato. In these individuals the Greek 
 spirit conceived and thought itself. This is the profounder 
 kind of satisfaction which the Spirit of a people attains ; but 
 it is "ideal," and distinct from its "real" activity. 
 
 At such a time, therefore, we are sure to see a people find- 
 ing satisfaction in the idea of virtue ; putting talk about 
 virtue partly side by side with actual virtue, but partly in 
 the place of it. On the other hand pure, universal thought, 
 since its nature is universality, is apt to bring the Special an 
 Spontaneous — Belief, Trust, Customary Morality — to reflec 
 upon itself, and its primitive simplicity ; to shew up the limi 
 tation with which it is fettered, — partly suggesting reason 
 for renouncing duties, partly itself demanding reasons, an 
 the connection of such requirements with Universal Thought 
 and not finding that connection, seeking to impeach the 
 authority of duty generally, as destitute of a sound founda- 
 tion. 
 
 At the same time the isolation of individuals from each 
 other and from the Whole makes its appearance ; their aggres- 
 sive selfishness and vanity ; their seeking personal advantage 
 and consulting this at the expense of the State at large. That 
 inward principle in transcending its outward manifestations 
 is subjective also inform — viz., selfishness and corruption 
 in the unbound passions and egotistic interests of men. 
 
 Zeus, therefore, who is represented as having put a limit 
 to the devouring agency of Time, and staid this transiency 
 by having established something inherently and indepen- 
 dently durable — Zeus and his race are themselves swallowed 
 up, and that by the very power that produced them, — the prin- 
 ciple of thought, perception, reasoning, insight derived from 
 rational grounds, and the requirement of such grounds. 
 
 Time is the negative element in the sensuous world. 
 Thought is the same negativity, but it is the deepest, the 
 infinite form of it, in which therefore all existence generally 
 is dissolved ; iirstßnite existence, — determinate, limited form: 
 but existence generally, in its objective character, is limited ; 
 it appears therefore as a mere datum — something immediate 
 — authority; — and is either intrinsically finite and limited, or 
 presents itself as a limit for the thinking subject, and its 
 infinite reflection on itself [unlimited abstraction]. 
 
SUMMART. 
 
 But first we must observe how the life which proceeds 
 from death, is itself, ou the other hand, only individual life ; 
 so that, regarding the species as the real and substantial in 
 this vicissitude, the perishing of the individual is a regress of 
 the species into individuality. The perpetuation of the race 
 is, therefore, none other than the monotonous repetition of 
 the same kind of existence. Further, we must remark how 
 perception, — the comprehension of beiug by thought, — is the 
 source and birthplace of a new, and in fact higher form, in 
 a principle which while it preserves, dignifies its material. 
 For Thought is that Universal — that Species which is im- 
 mortal, which preserves identity with itself. The particular 
 form of Spirit not merely passes away in the world by natural 
 causes in Time, but is annulled in the automatic self-mir- 
 roring activity of consciousness. Because this annulling is 
 an activity of Thought, it is at the same time conservative 
 and elevating in its operation. While then, on the one side, 
 Spirit annuls the reality, the permanence of that which it 
 is, it gains on the other side, the essence, the Thought, the 
 Universal element of that which it only teas [its transient 
 conditions]. Its principle is no longer that immediate 
 import and aim which it was previously, but the essence of 
 that import and aim. 
 
 The result of this process is then that Spirit, in render- 
 ing itself objective and making this its being an object of 
 thought, on the one hand destroys the determinate form of 
 its being, on the other hand gains a comprehension of the 
 universal element which it involves, and thereby gives a new 
 form to its inherent principle. In virtue of this, the sub- 
 stantial character of the National Spirit has been altered, — 
 that is, its principle has risen into another, and in fact a 
 higher principle. 
 
 It is of the highest importance in apprehending and com- 
 prehending History to have and to understand the thought 
 involved in this transition. The individual traverses as a 
 unity various grades of development, and remains the same 
 individual ; in like manner also does a people, till the Spirit 
 which it embodies reaches the grade of universality. In this 
 point lies the fundamental, the Ideal necessity of transition. 
 This is the soul — the essential consideration — of the philoso- 
 phical comprehension of History. 
 
 G 
 
82 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Spirit is essentially the result of its own activity: its 
 activity is the transcending of immediate, simple, unre- 
 flected^ existence, — the negation of that existence, and the 
 returning into itself. We may compare it with the seed ; 
 for with this the plant begins, yet it is also the result of the 
 plant's entire life. But the weak side of life is exhibited in 
 the fact that the commencement and the result are disjoined 
 from each other. Thus also is it in the life of individuals 
 and peoples. The life of a people ripens a certain fruit ; its 
 activity aims at the complete manifestation of the principle 
 which it embodies. But this fruit does not fall back into 
 the bosom of the people that produced and matured it ; on 
 the contrary, it becomes a poison-draught to it. That poison- 
 draught it cannot let alone, for it has an insatiable thirst for 
 it : the taste of the draught is its annihilation, though at the 
 same time the rise of a new principle. 
 
 We have already discussed the final aim of this progression. 
 The principles of the successive phases of Spirit that animate 
 the Nations in a necessitated gradation, are themselves only 
 steps in the development of the one universal Spirit, which 
 through them elevates and completes itself to a self-compre- 
 hending totality. 
 
 While we are thus concerned exclusively with the Idea of 
 Spirit, and in the History of the World regard everything 
 as only its manifestation, we have, in traversing the past, — 
 however extensive its periods, — only to do with what is pre- 
 sent ; for philosophy, as occupying itself with the True, has 
 to do with the eternally present. Nothing in the past is lost 
 for it, for the Idea is ever present ; Spirit is immortal ; with it 
 there is no past, no future, but an essential now. This 
 necessarily implies that the prese nt form of Spirit compre- 
 hends within it all earlier steps. These have indeed unfolded 
 themselves in succession independently ; but what Spirit is 
 it has always been essentially; distinctions are only the 
 development of this essential nature. The life of the ever 
 present Spirit is a circle of progressive embodiments, which 
 looked at in one aspect still exist beside each other, and only 
 as looked at from another point of view appear as past. 
 The grades which Spirit seems to have left behind it, it still 
 possesses in the depths of its present. 
 
S3 
 
 GEOGRAPHICAL BASIS OF HISTORY. 
 
 Contrasted with the universality of the moral "Whole and 
 with the unity of that individuality which is its active prin- 
 ciple, the natural connection that helps to produce the 
 Spi rit of a People, appears an extrinsic element ; but inasmuch 
 as we must regard it as the ground on which that Spirit 
 plays its part, it is an essential and necessary basis. We 
 began with the assertion that, in the History of the World, 
 the Idea of Spirit appears in its actual embodiment as a series 
 of external forms, each one of which declares itself as an 
 actually existing people. This existence falls under the 
 category of Time as well as Space, in the way of natural 
 existence ; and the special principle, which every world- 
 historical people embodies, has this principle at the same 
 time as a natural characteristic. Spirit, clothing itself in 
 this form of nature, suffers its particular phases to assume 
 separate existence ; for mutual exclusion is the mode of 
 existence proper to mere nature. These natural distinctions 
 must be first of all regarded as special possibilities, from 
 which the Spirit of the people in question germinates, and 
 among them is the Geographical Basis. It is not our concern 
 to become acquainted with the land occupied by nations as 
 an external locale, but with the natural type of the locality, 
 as intimately connected with the type and character of the 
 people which is the offspring of such a soil. This character 
 is nothing more nor less than the mode and form in which 
 nations make their appearance in History, and take place 
 
 : and position in it. Nature should not be rated too high nor 
 too low : the mild Ionic sky certainly contributed much to 
 the charm of the Homeric poems, yet this alone can produce 
 
 ! no Homers. Nor in fact does it continue to produce them ; 
 under Turkish government no bards have arisen. We must 
 
 1 first take notice of those natural conditions which have to 
 be excluded once for all from the drama of the World's 
 History. In the Frigid and in the Torrid zone the locality of 
 World-historical peoples cannot be found. For awakening 
 
 : consciousness takes its rise surrounded by natural in- 
 fluences alone, and every development of it is the reflection 
 of Spirit back upon itself in opposition to the immediate, 
 
£4 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 unreflected character of mere nature. Nature is therefore 
 oue element in this antithetic abstracting process ; Nature is 
 the first stand point from which man can gain freedom within 
 himself, and this liberation must not be rendered difficult by 
 natural obstructions. Nature, as contrasted with Spirit, is a 
 quantitative mass, whose power must not be so great as 
 to make its single force omnipotent. In the extreme zones 
 man cannot come to free movement ; cold and heat are here 
 too powerful to allow Spirit to build up a world for itself. 
 Aristotle said long ago, " When pressing needs are satisfied, 
 man turns to the general and more elevated." But in the 
 extreme zones sucli pressure may be said never to cease, 
 never to be warded off ; men are constantly impelled to 
 direct attention to nature, to the glowing rays of the sun, 
 and the icy frost. The true theatre of History is therefore 
 the temperate zone ; or rather, its northern half, because 
 the earth there presents itself in a continental form, and has 
 a broad breast, as the Greeks say. In the south, on the 
 contrary, it divides itself, and runs out into many points. 
 The same peculiarity shews itself in natural products. The 
 north has many kinds of animals and plants with common 
 characteristics ; in the south, where the land divides itself 
 into points, natural forms also present individual features 
 contrasted with each other. 
 
 The World is divided into Old and New ; the name of JSfew 
 having originated in the fact that America and Australia 
 have only lately became known to us. But these parts of 
 the world are not only relatively new, but intrinsically so in 
 respect of their entire physical and psychical constitution. 
 Their geological antiquity we have nothing to do with. I 
 will not deny the New World the honour of having emerged 
 from the sea at the world's formation contemporaneously 
 with the old : yet the Archipelago between South America 
 and Asia shews a physical immaturity. The greater part of 
 the islands are so constituted, that they are, as it were, only 
 a superficial deposit of earth over rocks, which shoot up from 
 the fathomless deep, and bear the character of novel origina- 
 tion. New Holland shews a not less immature geographical 
 character; for in penetrating from the settlements of the 
 English farther into the country, we discover immense 
 streams, which have not yet developed themselves to such a 
 
THE NEW WORLD. 
 
 85 
 
 degree as to dig a channel for themselves, but lose them- 
 selves in marshes. Of America and its grade of civilization, 
 especially in Mexico and Peru, we have information, but 
 it imports nothing more than that this culture was an 
 entirely national one, which must expire as soon as Spirit 
 approached it. America has always shewn itself physically 
 and psychically powerless, and still shews itself so. For the 
 aborigines, after the landing of the Europeans in America, 
 gradually vanished at the breath of European activity. In 
 the United States of North A.merica all the citizens are of 
 European descent, with whom the old inhabitants could not 
 amalgamate, but were driven back. The aborigines have 
 certainly adopted some arts and usages from the Europeans, 
 among others that of brandy- drinking, which has operated 
 with deadly effect. In the South the natives were treated 
 with much greater violence, and employed in hard labours to 
 which their strength was by no means competent. A mild 
 and passionless disposition, want of spirit, and a crouching 
 submissiveness towards a Creole, and still more towards a 
 European, are the chief characteristics of the native Ameri- 
 cans ; and it will be long before the Europeans succeed in 
 producing any independence of feeling in them. The infe- 
 riority of these individuals in all respects, even in regard to 
 size, is very manifest ; only the quite southern races in 
 Patagonia are more vigorous natures, but still abiding in 
 their natural condition of rudeness and barbarism. When the 
 Jesuits and the Catholic clergy proposed to accustom the In- 
 dians to European culture and manners (they have, as is well 
 known, founded a state in Paraguay and convents in Mexico 
 and California), they commenced a close intimacy with them, 
 and prescribed for them the duties of the day, which, sloth- 
 ful though their disposition was, they complied with under the 
 authority of the Eriars. These prescripts, (at midnight a bell 
 had to remind them even of their matrimonial duties,) were 
 first, and very wisely, directed to the creation of wants — the 
 springs of human activity generally. The weakness of the 
 American physique was a chief reason for bringing the 
 negroes to America, to employ their labour in the work that 
 had to be done in the New AVorld ; for the negroes are far 
 more susceptible of European culture than the Indians, and 
 an English traveller has adduced instances of negroes having 
 
86 
 
 INTRODUCTION - . 
 
 become competent clergymen, medical men, &c. (a negi 
 first discovered the use of the Peruvian bark), while only 
 single native was known to him whose intellect was suffi 
 ciently developed to enable him to study, but who had die 
 soon after beginning, through excessive brandy-drinkin 
 The weakness of the human physique of America has bee 
 aggravated by a deficiency in the mere tools and appliance 
 of progress, — the want of horses and iron, the chief instru 
 ments by which they were subdued. 
 
 The original nation having vanished or nearly so, th 
 effective population comes for the most part from Europe 
 and what takes place in America, is but an emanation fro - 
 Europe. Europe has sent its surplus population to Ameri 
 in much the same way as from the old Imperial Citie 
 where trade-guilds were dominant and trade was stereotype 
 many persons escaped to other towns which were not und 
 such a yoke, and where the burden of imposts was not 
 heavy. Thus arose, by the side of Hamburg, Altona, — b 
 Frankfort, Offenbach, — by Nürnburg, Eiirth, — and Carou 
 by Geneva. The relation between North America and Euro 
 is similar. Many Englishmen have settled there, whe 
 burdens and imposts do not exist, and where the combin 
 tion of European appliances and European ingenuity h 
 availed to realize some produce from the extensive and st~ 
 virgin soil. Indeed the emigration in question offers man 
 advantages. The emigrants have got rid of much tha 
 might be obstructive to their interests at home, while the 
 take with them the advantages of European independen 
 of spirit, and acquired skill ; while for those who are willin 
 to work vigorously, but who have not found in Euro 
 opportunities for doing so, a sphere of action is certainl 
 presented in America. 
 
 America, as is well known, is divided into two parts, con 
 nected indeed by an isthmus, but which has not been the mea~ 
 of establishing intercourse between them. Rather, the 
 two divisions are most decidedly distinct from each othe 
 North America shews us on approaching it, along its easte 
 shore a wide border of level coast, behind which is stretche 
 a chain of mountains — the blue mountains or Apalachians 
 further north the Alleghanies. Streams issuing from the 
 water the country towards the coast, which affords adv 
 
AMERICA. 
 
 87 
 
 tages of the most desirable kind to the United States, whose 
 origin belongs to this region. Behind that mountain-chain 
 the St. Lawrence river flows, (in connection with huge 
 lakes), from south to north, and on this river lie the northern 
 colonies of Canada. Farther west we meet the basin of the 
 vast Mississippi, and the basins of the Missouri and Ohio, 
 which it receives, and then debouches into the bay of Mexico. 
 On the western side of this region we have in like manner 
 a long mountain chain, running through Mexico and the 
 Isthmus of Panama, and under the names of the Andes or 
 Cordillera, cutting off an edge of coast along the whole 
 west side of South America. The border formed by this is 
 narrower and offers fewer advantages than that of North 
 America. There lie Peru and Chili. On the east side flow 
 eastwards the monstrous streams of the Orinoco and Ama- 
 zons ; they form great valleys, not adapted however for 
 cultivation, since they are only wide desert steppes. Towards 
 the south flows the Rio de la Plata, whose tributaries have 
 their origin partly in the Cordilleras, partly in the northern 
 chain of mountains which separates the basin of the Ama- 
 zons from its own. To the district of the Eio de la Plata 
 belong Brazil, and the Spanish Republics. Columbia is the 
 northern coast-land of South America, at the west of which, 
 flowing along the Andes, the Magdalena debouches into the 
 Caribbean Sea. 
 
 With the exception of Brazil, republics have come to 
 occupy South as well as North America. In comparing 
 South America (reckoning Mexico as part of it) with North 
 America, we observe an astonishing contrast. 
 
 In North America we witness a prosperous state of things, 
 an increase of industry and population, civil order and firm 
 freedom ; the whole federation constitutes but a single 
 state, and has its political centres. In South America, on 
 the contrary, the republics depend only on military force ; 
 their whole history is a continued revolution; federated 
 states become disunited ; others previously separated become 
 united ; and all these changes originate in military revolu- 
 tions. The more special differences between the two parts of 
 America shew us two opposite directions, the one in political 
 respects, the other in regard to religion. South America, 
 where the Spaniards settled and asserted supremacy, is Ca- 
 tholic; North America, although a land of sects of every name. 
 
SS 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 is yet fundamentally, Protestant. A wider distinction is pre- 
 sented in the fact, that South America was conquered, but 
 North America colonised. The Spaniards took possession 
 of South America to govern it, and to become rich through 
 occupying political offices, and by exactions. Depending 
 on a very distant mother-country, their desires found a 
 larger scope, and by force address and confidence they gained 
 a great predominance over the Indians. The North Ameri- 
 can States were, on the other hand, entirely colonised, by 
 Europeans. Since in England Puritans, Episcopalians, and 
 Catholics were engaged in perpetual conflict, and now one 
 party, now the other had the upper hand, many emigrated 
 to seek religious freedom on a foreign shore. These were 
 industrious Europeans, who betook themselves to agriculture, 
 tobacco and cotton planting, &c. Soon the whole attention 
 of the inhabitants was given to labour, and the basis of their 
 existence as a united body lay in the necessities that bind 
 man to man, the desire of repose, the establishment of civil 
 rights, security and freedom, and a community arising from 
 the aggregation of individuals as atomic constituents ; so that 
 the state was merely something external for the protection 
 of property. Erom the Protestant religion sprang the prin- 
 ciple of the mutual confidence of individuals, — trust in the 
 honourable dispositions of other men ; for in the Protestant 
 Church the entire life — its activity generally — is the field 
 for what it deems religious works. Among Catholics, on the 
 contrary, the basis of such a confidence cannot exist ; for 
 in secular matters only force and voluntary subservience are 
 the principles of action; and the forms which are called 
 Constitutions are in this case only a resort of necessity, and 
 are no protection against mistrust. 
 
 If we compare North America further w r ith Europe, we 
 shall find in the former the permanent example of a repub- 
 lican constitution. A subjective unity presents itself; for 
 there is a President at the head of the State, who, for the 
 sake of security against any monarchical ambition, is chosen 
 only for four years. Universal protection for property, and 
 a something approaching entire immunity from public bur- 
 dens, are facts which are constantly held up to commenda- 
 tion. We have in these facts the fundamental character of 
 the community, — the endeavour of the individual after ac- 
 quisition, commercial profit, and gain ; the preponderance of 
 
FORTH AMERICA. 
 
 80 
 
 private interest, devoting itself to that of the community 
 only for its own advantage. We find, certainly, legal rela- 
 tions — a formal code of laws; but respect for kw exists 
 apart from genuine probity, and the American merchants 
 commonly lie under the imputation of dishonest dealings 
 under legal protection. If, on the one side, the Protestant 
 Church develops the essential principle of confidence, as 
 already stated, it thereby involves on the other hand the re- 
 cognition of the validity of the element of feeling to such a 
 degree as gives encouragement to unseemly varieties of 
 caprice. Those who adopt this stand-point maintain, that, 
 as every one may have his peculiar way of viewing things 
 generally, so he may have also a religion peculiar to himself. 
 Thence the splitting up into so many sects, which reach the 
 very acme of absurdity ; many of which have a form of 
 worship consisting in convulsive movements, and sometimes 
 in the most sensuous extravagances. This complete freedom 
 of worship is developed to such a degree, that the various con- 
 gregations choose ministers and dismiss them accordingto their 
 absolute pleasure ; for the Church is no independent existence, 
 — having a substantial spiritual being, and correspondingly 
 permanent external arrangement, — but the affairs of religion 
 are regulated by the good pleasure for the time being of the 
 members of the community. In North America the most 
 unbounded licence of imagination in religious matters pre- 
 vails, and that religious unity is wanting which has been 
 maintained in European States, where deviations are limited 
 to a few confessions. As to the political condition of North 
 America, the general object of the existence of this State is 
 not yet fixed and determined, and the necessity for a firm 
 combination does not yet exist ; for a real State and a real 
 Government arise only after a distinction of classes has 
 arisen, when wealth and poverty become extreme, and when 
 such a condition of things presents itself that a large portion of 
 the people can no longer satisfy its necessities in the way in 
 which it has been accustomed so to do. But America is hitherto 
 exempt from this pressure, for it has the outlet of coloniza- 
 tion constantly and widely open, and multitudes are con- 
 tinually streaming into the plains of the Mississippi. By 
 this means the chief source of discontent is removed, and the 
 continuation of the existing civil condition is guaranteed. A 
 comparison of the United States of North America with 
 
00 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 European lands is therefore impossible ; for in Europe, such 
 a natural outlet for population, notwithstanding all the emi- 
 grations that take place, does not exist. Had the woods of 
 Germany been in existence, the Erench Revolution would 
 not have occurred. North America will be comparable with 
 Europe only after the immeasurable space which that 
 country presents to its inhabitants shall have been occupied, 
 and the members of the political body shall have begun to be 
 pressed back on each other. North America is still in the 
 condition of having land to begin to cultivate. Only when, 
 as in Europe, the direct increase of agriculturists is checked, 
 will the inhabitants, instead of pressing outwards to occupy 
 the fields, press inwards upon each other, — pursuing town 
 occupations, and trading with their fellow citizens ; and so 
 form a compact system of civil society, and require an organized 
 state. The North American Federation have no neighbouring 
 State, (towards which they occupy a relation similar to that of 
 European States to each other), one which they regard with 
 mistrust, and against which they must keep up a standing 
 army. Canada and Mexico are not objects of fear, and Eng- 
 land has had fifty years experience, that free America is 
 more profitable to her than it was in a state of dependence. 
 The militia of the North American Eepublic proved them- 
 selves quite as brave in the War of Independence, as the 
 Dutch under Philip II. ; but generally, where Independence 
 is not at stake, less power is displayed, and in the year 1814 
 the militia held out but indifferently against the English. 
 
 America is therefore the land of the future, where, in the 
 ages that lie before us, the burden of the World's History 
 shall reveal itself, — perhaps in a contest between North and 
 South America. It is a land of desire for all those who are 
 weary of the historical iumber-room of old Europe. Na- 
 poleon is reported to have said, " Cette vieille Europe 
 m'ennuie." It is for America to abandon the ground on 
 which hitherto the History of the World has developed itself. 
 What has taken place in the New World up to the present 
 time is only an echo of the Old World, — the expression of 
 a foreign Life ; and as a Land of the Future, it has no 
 interest for us here, for, as regards History, our concern 
 must be with that which has been and that which is. In re- 
 gard to Philosophy, on the other hand, we have to do with 
 
THE OLD WORLD. 
 
 01 
 
 that which (strictly speaking) is neither past nor future, but 
 with that which w, which has an eternal existence — with 
 Reason ; and this is quite sufficient to occupy U3. 
 
 Dismissing, then, the New World, and the dreams to 
 which it may give rise, we pass over to the Old "World — the 
 scene of the World's History ; and must first direct atten- 
 tion to the natural elements and conditions of existence 
 which it presents. America is divided into two parts, which 
 are indeed connected by an Isthmus, but which forms 
 only an external, material bond of union. The Old World, 
 on the contrary, which lies opposite to America, and is sepa- 
 rated from it by the Atlantic Ocean, has its continuity in- 
 terrupted by a deep inlet— the Mediterranean Sea. The 
 three Continents that compose it have an essential relation 
 to each other, and constitute a totality. Their peculiar fea- 
 ture is that they lie round this Sea, and therefore have an 
 easy means of communication ; for rivers and seas are not to 
 be regarded as disjoining, but as uniting. England and 
 Brittany, Norway and Denmark, Sweden and Livonia, have 
 been united. For the three quarters of the globe the Medi- 
 terranean Sea is similarly the uniting element, and the centre 
 of World-History. Greece lies here, the focus of light in 
 History. Then in Syria we have Jerusalem, the centre of 
 Judaism and of Christianity; south-east of it lie Mecca and 
 Medina, the cradle of the Mussulman faith ; towards the 
 west Delphi and Athens ; farther west still, Rome : on the 
 Mediterranean Sea we have also Alexandria and Carthage. 
 The Mediterranean is thus the heart of the Old World, for it 
 is that which conditioned and vitalized it. Without it the 
 History of the World could not be conceived : it would be 
 like ancient Eome or Athens without the forum, where all 
 the life of the city came together. The extensive tract of 
 eastern Asia is severed from the process of general historical 
 development, and has no share in it ; so also Northern Europe, 
 which took part in the World's History only at a later date, 
 and had no part in it while the Old World lasted ; for this was 
 exclusively limited to the countries lying round the Mediter- 
 ranean Sea. Julius Caesar's crossing the Alps — the conquest 
 of Gaul and the relation into which the Germans thereby 
 entered with the Eoman Empire— makes consequently an 
 epoch in History ; for in virtue of this it begins to extend its 
 
92 
 
 INTEODUCTION. 
 
 boundaries beyond the Alps. Eastern Asia and that trans- 
 Alpine country are the extremes of this agitated focus of 
 human life around the Mediterranean, — the beginning and 
 end of History, — its rise and decline. 
 
 The more special geographical distinctions must now be 
 established, and they are to be regarded as essential, rational 
 distinctions, in contrast with the variety of merely accidental 
 circumstances. Of these characteristic differences there are 
 three : — 
 
 (1.) The arid elevated land with its extensive steppes and 
 plains. 
 
 (2.) The valley plains, — the Land of Transition permeated 
 
 and watered by great Streams. 
 
 (3.) The coast region in immediate connection with the sea. 
 
 These three geographical elements are the essential ones, 
 and we shall see each quarter of the globe triply divided ac- 
 cordingly. The first is the substantial, unvarying, metallic, 
 elevated region, intractably shut up within itself, but per- 
 haps adapted to send forth impulses over the rest of the 
 world ; the second forms centres of civilization, and is the yet 
 undeveloped independence [of humanity] ; the third offers 
 the means of connecting the world together, and of main- 
 taining the connection. 
 
 (1.) The elevated land. We see such a description of 
 country in middle Asia inhabited by Mongolians, (using the 
 word in a general sense) : from the Caspian Sea these Steppes 
 stretch in a northerly direction towards the Black Sea. 
 As similar tracts may be cited the deserts of Arabia and of 
 Barbary in Africa ; in South America the country round the 
 Orinoco, and in Paraguay. The peculiarity of the inhabi- 
 tants of this elevated region, which is watered sometimes 
 only by rain, or by the overflowing of a river, (as are the 
 plains of the Orinoco) — is the patriarchal life, the division 
 into single families. The region which these families occupy 
 is unfruitful or productive only temporarily : the inhabitants 
 have their property not in the land, — from which they derive 
 only a trifling profit, — but in the animals that wander with 
 them. For a long time these find pasture in the plains, and 
 when they are depastured, the tribe moves to other parts of 
 the country. They are careless and provide nothing for the 
 winter, on which account therefore, half of the herd is fre- 
 
GEOGRAPHICAL DIVISIONS. 
 
 93 
 
 quently cut off. Among these inhabitants of the upland there 
 exist no legal relations, and consequently there are exhibited 
 among them the extremes of hospitality and rapine ; the last 
 more especially when they are surrounded by civilized na- 
 tions, as the Arabians, who are assisted in their depredations 
 by their horses and camels. The Mongolians feed on mare's 
 milk, and thus the horse supplies them at the same time with 
 appliances for nourishment and for war. Although this is 
 the form of their patriarchal life, it often happens that they 
 cohere together in great masses, and by an impulse of one 
 kind or another, are excited to external movement. Though 
 previously of peaceful disposition, they then rush as a devas- 
 tating inundation over civilized lands, and the revolution 
 which ensues has no other result than destruction and deso- 
 lation. Such an agitation was excited among those tribes 
 under Zengis Khan and Tamerlane : they destroyed all 
 before them ; then vanished again, as does an overwhelming 
 Forest-torrent, — possessing no inherent principle of vitality. 
 From the uplands ^hey rush down into the dells : there dwell 
 peaceful mountaineers, — herdsmen who also occupy them- 
 selves with agriculture, as do the Swiss. Asia has also such 
 a people : they are however on the whole a less important 
 element. 
 
 (2.) The valley plains. These are plains, permeated by 
 rivers, and which owe the whole of their fertility to the 
 streams by which they are formed. Such a Valley-Plain is 
 China, — India, traversed by the Indus and the Granges, — 
 Babylonia, where the Euphrates and the Tigris flow, — Egypt, 
 watered by the Nile. In these regions extensive Kingdoms 
 arise, and the foundation of great States begins. For agri- 
 culture, which prevails here as the primary principle of 
 subsistence for individuals, is assisted by the regularity of 
 seasons, which require corresponding agricultural operations ; 
 property in land commences, and the consequent legal rela- 
 tions; — that is to say, the basis and foundation of the State, 
 which becomes possible only in connection with such 
 relations. 
 
 (3.) The coast land. A River divides districts of country 
 from each other, but still more does the sea ; and we are 
 accustomed to regard water as the separating element. 
 Especially in recent times has it been insisted upon that States 
 
04 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 must necessarily have been separated by natural features. 
 Yet on the contrary, it may be asserted as a fundamental 
 principle that nothing unites so much as water, for countries 
 are nothing else than districts occupied by streams. Silesia, 
 for instance, is the valley of the Oder ; Bohemia and Saxony 
 are the valley of the Elbe ; Egypt is the valley of the Nile. 
 With the sea this is not less the case, as has been already 
 pointed out. Only Mountains separate. Thus the Pyrenees 
 decidedly separate Spain from France. The Europeans have 
 been in constant connection with America and the East 
 Indies ever since they were discovered; but they have 
 scarcely penetrated into the interior of Africa and Asia, 
 because intercourse by land is much more difficult than by 
 water. Only through the fact of being a sea, has the Medi- 
 terranean become a focus of national life. Let us now look 
 at the character of the nations that are conditioned by this 
 third element. 
 
 The sea gives us the idea of the indefinite, the unlimited, and 
 infinite ; and in feeling his own infinite in that Infinite, man 
 is stimulated and emboldened to stretch beyond the limited : 
 the sea invites man to conquest, and to piratical plunder, but 
 also to honest gain and to commerce. The land, the mere 
 Valley-plain attaches him to the soil ; it involves him in an 
 infinite multitude of dependencies, but the sea carries him 
 out beyond these limited circles of thought and action. 
 Those who navigate the sea, have indeed gain for their ob- 
 ject, but the means are in this respect paradoxical, inasmuch 
 as they hazard both property and life to attain it. The 
 means therefore are the very opposite of that which they 
 aim at. This is what exalts their gain and occupation above 
 itself, and makes it something brave and noble. Courage is 
 necessarily introduced into trade, daring is joined with wis- 
 dom. For the daring which encounters the sea must at the 
 same time embrace wariness — cunning— since ithas to do with 
 the treacherous, the most unreliable and deceitful element. 
 This boundless plain is absolutely yielding, — withstanding 
 no pressure, not even a breath of wind. It looks bound- 
 lessly innocent, submissive, friendly, and insinuating ; and 
 it is exactly this submissiveness which changes the sea into 
 the most dangerous and violent element. To this deceitful- 
 ness and violence man opposes merely a simple piece of wood ; 
 
AFItf CA. 
 
 95 
 
 confides entirely in his courage and presence of mind ; and 
 thus passes from a firm ground to an unstable support, 
 taking his artificial ground with him. The Ship, — that swan 
 of the sea, which cuts the watery plain in agile and arching 
 movements or describes circles upon it, — is a machine whose 
 invention does the greatest honour to the boldness of man 
 as well as to his understanding. This stretching out of the 
 sea beyond the limitations of the land, is wanting to the 
 splendid political edifices of Asiatic States, although they 
 themselves border on the sea, — as for example, China. For 
 them the sea is only the limit, the ceasing of the land ; they 
 have no positive relation to it. The activity to which the 
 sea invites, is a quite peculiar one : thence arises the fact 
 that the coast-lands almost always separate themselves from 
 the states of the interior although they are connected with 
 these by a river. Thus Holland has severed itself from 
 Germany, Portugal from Spain. 
 
 In accordance with these data we may now consider the 
 three portions of the globe with which History is concerned, 
 and here the three characteristic principles manifest them- 
 selves in a more or less striking manner : Africa has for its 
 leading classical feature the Upland, Asia the contrast of 
 river regions with the Upland, Europe the mingling of these 
 several elements. 
 
 Africa must be divided into three parts : one is that 
 which lies south of the desert of Sahara, — Africa proper, — the 
 Upland almost entirely unknown to us, with narrow coast- 
 tracts along the sea ; the second is that to the north of 
 the desert, — European Africa (if we may so call it), — a coast- 
 land ; the third is the river region of the Nile, the only 
 valley-land of Africa, and which is in connexion with Asia. 
 
 Africa proper, as far as History goes back, has remained — 
 for all purposes of connection with the rest of the World — 
 shut up ; it is the Gold-land compressed within itself, — the 
 land of childhood, which lying beyond the day of self- 
 conscious history, is enveloped in the dark mantle of Night. 
 Its isolated character originates not merely in its tropical 
 nature, but essentially in its geographical condition. The 
 triangle which it forms (if we take the West Coast, — which 
 in the Gulf of Guinea makes a strongly indented angle, — for 
 one side, and in the same way the East Coast to Cape Gar- 
 
90 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 dafu for another) is on two sides so constituted for the 
 most part, as to have a very narrow Coast Tract, habitable 
 only in a few isolated spots. Next to this towards the interior, 
 follows to almost the same extent, a girdle of marsh land 
 with the most luxuriant vegetation, the especial home of 
 ravenous beasts, snakes of all kinds, — a border tract whose 
 atmosphere is poisonous to Europeans. This border con- 
 stitutes the base of a cincture of high mountains, which 
 are only at distant intervals traversed by streams, and 
 where they are so, in such a way as to form no means of 
 union with the interior ; for the interruption occurs but 
 seldom below the upper part of the mountain ranges, 
 and only in individual narrow channels, where are frequently 
 found innavigable waterfalls and torrents crossing each other 
 in wild confusion. During the three or three and a half cen- 
 turies that the Europeans have known this border-land and 
 have taken places in it into their possession, they have only 
 here and there (and that but for a short time) passed these 
 mountains, and have nowhere settled down beyond them. 
 The land surrounded by these mountains is an unknown 
 Upland, from which on the other hand the Negroes have 
 seldom made their way through. In the sixteenth century 
 occurred at many very distant points, outbreaks of terrible 
 hordes which rushed down upon the more peaceful inhabi- 
 tants of the declivities. Whether any internal movement had 
 taken place, or if so, of what character, we do not know. What 
 we do know of these hordes, is the contrast between their con- 
 duct in their wars and forays themselves, — which exhibited 
 the most reckless inhumanity and disgusting barbarism, — and 
 the fact that afterwards, when their rage was spent, in the calm 
 time of peace, they shewed themselves mild and well disposed 
 towards the Europeans, when they became acquainted with 
 them. This holds good of the Fullahs and of the Mandiugo 
 tribes, who inhabit the mountain terraces of the Senegal 
 and Gambia. The second portion of Africa is the river 
 district of the Nile, — Egypt ; which was adapted to become a 
 mighty centre of independent civilization, and therefore is as 
 isolated and singular in Africa as Africa itself appears in rela- 
 tion to the other parts of the world. The northern part of 
 Africa, which may be specially called that of the coast-terri- 
 tory, (for Egypt has been frequently driven back on itself, by 
 
AFRICA. 
 
 97 
 
 the Mediterranean) lies on the Mediterranean and the 
 Atlantic ; a magnificent territory, on which Carthage once 
 lay, — the site of the modern Morocco, Algiers, Tunis, and 
 Tripoli. This part was to be — must be attached to 
 Europe : the French have lately made a successful effort in 
 this direction : like Hither-Asia, it looks Europe-wards. 
 Here in their turn have Carthaginians, Eomans and Byzan- 
 tines, Mussulmen, Arabians, had their abode, and the 
 interests of Europe have always striven to get a footing 
 in it. 
 
 The peculiarly African character is difficult to comprehend, 
 for the very reason that in reference to it, we must quite give 
 up the principle which naturally accompanies all our ideas, — 
 the category of Universality. In Negro life the characteristic 
 point is the fact that consciousness has not yet attained to 
 the realization of any substantial objective existence, — as for 
 example, God, or Law, — in which the interest of man's voli- 
 tion is involved and in which he realizes his own being. This 
 distinction between himself as an individual and the univer- 
 
 ; sality of his essential being, the African in the uniform, unde- 
 veloped oneness of his existence has not yet attained ; so that 
 the Knowledge of an absolute Being, an Other and a Higher 
 than his individual self, is entirely wanting. The Negro, 
 as already observed, exhibits the natural man in his com- 
 pletely wild and untamed state. We must lay aside all thought 
 of reverence and morality — all that we call feeling — if we 
 would rightly comprehend him ; there is nothing harmonious 
 with humanity to be found in this type of character. The 
 copious and circumstantial accounts of Missionaries com- 
 pletely confirm this, and Mahommedanism appears to be the 
 only thing which in any way brings the Negroes within the 
 range of culture. The Mahommedans too understand better 
 than the Europeans, how to penetrate into the interior of the 
 country. The grade of culture which the Negroes occupy 
 may be more nearly appreciated by considering the aspect 
 which Religion presents among them. That which forms 
 
 I the basis of religious conceptions is the consciousness on the 
 part of man of a Higher Power — even though this is con- 
 ceived only as a vis natures — in relation to w r hich he feels 
 himself a weaker, humbler being. Religion begins with the 
 consciousness that there is something higher than man. 
 
 H 
 
98 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 But even Herodotus called the Negroes sorcerers : — now in 
 Sorcery we have not the idea of a God, of a moral faith ; it 
 exhibits man as the highest power, regarding him as alone 
 occupying a position of command over the power of Nature. 
 We have here therefore nothing to do with a spiritual adora- 
 tion of God, nor with an empire of Eight. Grod thunders, 
 but is not on that account recognized as God. Tor the soul 
 of man, God must be more than a thunderer, whereas amoi]g 
 the Negroes this is not the case. Although they are necessa- 
 rily conscious of dependence upon nature, — for they need the 
 beneficial influence of storm, rain, cessation of the rainy 
 period, and so on, — yet this does not conduct them to the 
 consciousness of a Higher Power : it is they who command 
 the elements, and this they call " magic." The Kings have 
 si class of ministers through whom they command elemental 
 changes, and every place possesses such magicians, who 
 perform special ceremonies, with all sorts of gesticulations, 
 dances, uproar, and shouting, and in the midst of this con- 
 fusion commence their incantations. The second element 
 in their religion, consists in their giving an outward form to 
 this supernatural power — projecting their hidden might into 
 the world of phenomena by means of images. "What they 
 conceive of as the power in question, is therefore nothing 
 really objective, having a substantial being and different 
 from themselves, but the first thing that comes in their way. 
 This, taken quite indiscriminately, they exalt to the dignity 
 of a " Genius ;" it may be an animal, a tree, a stone, or 
 a wooden figure. This is their Fetish — a word to which 
 the Portuguese first gave currency, and which is derived from 
 feitizo, magic. Here, in the Fetish, a kind of objective in- 
 dependence as contrasted with the arbitrary fancy of the 
 individual seems to manifest itself ; but as the objectivity is 
 nothing other than the fancy of the individual projecting 
 itself into space, the human individuality remains master of 
 the image it has adopted. If any mischance occurs which 
 the Fetish has not averted, if rain is suspended, if there 
 is a failure in the crops, they bind and beat or destroy 
 the Fetish and so get rid of it, making another immediately, 
 and thus holding it in their own power. Such a Fetish has 
 no independence as an object of religious worship ; still less 
 has it aesthetic independence as a work of art ; it is merely a 
 
AFEICA. 
 
 99 
 
 creation that expresses the arbitrary choice of its maker, and 
 which always remains in his hands. In short there is no re- 
 lation of dependence in this religion. There is however one 
 feature that points to something beyond ; — the Worship of 
 the Dead, — in which their deceased forefathers and ancestors 
 are regarded by them as a power influencing the living. 
 Their idea in the matter is that these ancestors exercise 
 vengeance and inflict upon man various injuries — exactly in 
 the sense in which this was supposed of witches in the Middle 
 Ages. Yet the power of the dead is not held superior to 
 that of the living, for the Negroes command the dead and 
 lay spells upon them. Thus the power in question remains 
 substantially always in bondage to the living subject. 
 Death itself is looked upon by the Negroes as no universal 
 natural law ; even this, they think, proceeds from evil- 
 disposed magicians. In this doctrine is certainly involved 
 the elevation of man over Nature ; to such a degree that the 
 chance volition of man is superior to the merely natural, — 
 that he looks upon this as an instrument to which he does 
 not pay the compliment of treating it in a way conditioned 
 by itself, but which he commands.* 
 
 But from the fact that man is regarded as the Highest, it 
 follows that he has no respect for himself; for only with the 
 consciousness of a Higher Being does he reach a point of view 
 which inspires him with real reverence. For if arbitrary choice 
 is the absolute, the only substantial objectivity that is real- 
 ized, the mind cannot in such be conscious of any Univer- 
 sality. The Negroes indulge, therefore, that perfect contempt 
 for humanity, which in its bearing on Justice and Morality is 
 the fundamental characteristic of the race. They have more- 
 over no knowledge of the immortality of the soul, although 
 spectres are supposed to appear. The undervaluing of 
 humanity among them reaches an incredible degree of 
 intensity. Tyranny is regarded as no wrong, and cannibalism 
 is looked upon as quite customary and proper. Among us, 
 instinct deters from it, if we can speak of instinct at all as 
 appertaining to man. But with the Negro this is not the 
 case, and the devouring of human flesh is altogether conso- 
 nant with the general principles of the African race ; to the 
 
 * Vide Hegel's " Vorlesungen über die Philosophie der Religion," L 284 
 and 289. 2nd Ed. 
 
100 
 
 INTKODUCTIOX. 
 
 sensual Negro, human flesh is but an object of sense — mere 
 flesh. At the death of a King hundreds are killed and eaten; 
 prisoners are butchered and their flesh sold in the markets ; 
 the victor is accustomed to eat the heart of his slain foe. 
 When magical rites are performed, it frequently happens 
 that the sorcerer kills the first that comes in his way and 
 divides his body among the bystanders. Another character- 
 istic fact in reference to the Negroes is Slavery. Negroes are 
 enslaved by Europeans and sold to America. Bad as 
 this may be, their lot in their own land is even worse, 
 since there a slavery quite as absolute exists ; for it is the 
 essential principle of slavery, that man has not yet attained 
 a consciousness of his freedom, and consequently sinks down 
 to a mere Thing— an object of no value. Among the Negroes 
 moral sentiments are quite weak, or more strictly speaking, 
 non-existent. Parents sell their children, and conversely 
 children their parents, as either has the opportunity. 
 Through the pervading influence of slavery all those bonds 
 of moral regard which we cherish towards each other disap- 
 pear, and it does not occur to the Negro mind to expect 
 from others what we are enabled to claim. The polygamy 
 of the Negroes has frequently for its object the having many 
 children, to be sold, every one of them, into slavery ; and very 
 often naive complaints on this score are heard, as for instance 
 in the case of a Negro in London, who lamented that he was 
 now quite a poor man because he had already sold all his 
 relations. In the contempt of humanity displayed by the 
 Negroes, it is not so much a despising of death as a want of 
 regard for life that forms the characteristic feature. To this 
 want of regard for life must be ascribed the great courage, 
 supported by enormous bodily strength, exhibited by the 
 Negroes, who allow themselves to be shot down by thou- 
 sands in war with Europeans. Life has a value only when 
 it has something valuable as its object. 
 
 Turning our attention in the next place to the category of 
 'political constitution, we shall see that the entire nature of this 
 race is such as to preclude the existence of any such arrange- 
 ment. The stand-point of humanity at this grade is mere 
 sensuous volition with energy of will; since universal spiritual 
 laws (for example, that of the morality of the Eamily) cannot 
 be recognized here. Universality exists only as arbitrary 
 
AFRICA. 
 
 101 
 
 subjective choice. The political bond can therefore not 
 possess such a character as that free laws should unite the com- 
 munity. There is absolutely no bond, no restraint upon that 
 arbitrary volition. Nothing but external force can hold the 
 State together for a moment. A ruler stands at the head, for 
 sensuous barbarism can only be restrained by despotic power. 
 But since the subjects are of equally violent temper with their 
 master, they keep him on the other hand within limits. 
 Under the chief there are many other chiefs with whom 
 the former, whom we will call the King, takes counsel, and 
 whose consent he must seek to gain, if he wishes to under- 
 take a war or impose a tax. In this relation he can exercise 
 more or less authority, and by fraud or force can on occasion 
 put this or that chieftain out of the way. Besides this the 
 Kings have other specified prerogatives. Among the Ash- 
 antees the King inherits all the property left by his subjects 
 at their death. In other places all unmarried women belong 
 to the King, and whoever wishes a wife, must buy her from 
 him. If the Negroes are discontented with their King they 
 depose and kill him. In Dahomey, when they are thus 
 displeased, the custom is to send parrots' eggs to the King, 
 as a sign of dissatisfaction with his government. Sometimes 
 also a deputation is sent, which intimates to him, that the 
 burden of government must have been very troublesome to 
 him, and that he had better rest a little. The King then 
 thanks his subjects, goes into his apartments, and has himself 
 strangled by the women. Tradition alleges that in former 
 times a state composed of women made itself famous by its 
 conquests : it was a state at whose head was a woman. She 
 is said to have pounded her own son in a mortar, to have 
 besmeared herself with the blood, and to have had the blood 
 of pounded children constantly at hand. She is said to 
 have driven away or put to death all the males, and com- 
 manded the death of all male children. These furies 
 destroyed everything in the neighbourhood, and were driven 
 to constant plunderings, because they did not cultivate the 
 land. Captives in war were taken as husbands : pregnant 
 women had to betake themselves outside the encampment ; 
 and if they had born a son, put him out of the way. This 
 infamous state, the report goes on to say, subsequently dis- 
 appeared. Accompanying the King we constantly find in 
 
102 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Negro States, the executioner, whose office is regarded as of 
 the highest consideration, and by whose hands the King, 
 though he makes use ofhiinfor putting suspected persons to 
 death, may himself suffer death, if the grandees desire it. 
 Fanaticism, which, notwithstanding the yielding disposition 
 of the Negro in other respects, can be excited, surpasses, 
 when roused, all belief. An English traveller states that 
 when a war is determined on in Ashantee, solemn ceremonies 
 precede it : among other things the bones of the King's 
 mother are laved with human blood. As a prelude to the war, 
 the King ordains an onslaught upon his own metropolis, as 
 if to excite the due degree of frenzy. The King sent word 
 to the English Hutchinson : " Christian, take care, and 
 watch well over your family. The messenger of death has 
 drawn his sword and will strike the neck of many Ashantees; 
 when the drum sounds it is the death signal for multitudes. 
 Come to the King, if you can, and fear nothing for yourself." 
 The drum beat, and a terrible carnage was begun ; all who 
 came in the way of the frenzied Negroes in the streets 
 were stabbed. On such occasions the King has all whom he 
 suspects killed, and the deed then assumes the character of 
 a sacred act. Every idea thrown into the mind of the Negro 
 is caught up and realized with the whole energy of his will ; 
 but this realization involves a wholesale destruction. These 
 people continue long at rest, but suddenly their passions fer- 
 ment, and then they are quite besides themselves. The destruc- 
 tion which is the consequence of their excitement, is caused 
 by the fact that it is no positive idea, no thought which pro- 
 duces these commotions ; — a physical rather than a spiritual 
 enthusiasm. In Dahomey, when the King dies, the bonds 
 of society are loosed ; in his palace begins indiscriminate 
 havoc and disorganization. All the wives of the King (in 
 Dahomey their number is exactly 3333) are massacred, and 
 through the whole town plunder and carnage run riot. The 
 wives of the King regard this their death as a necessity ; 
 they go richly attired to meet it. The authorities have to 
 hasten to proclaim the new governor, simply to put a stop to 
 massacre. 
 
 From these various traits it is manifest that want of self- 
 control distinguishes the character of the Negroes. This 
 condition is capable of no development or culture, and as 
 
AFRICA. 
 
 103 
 
 we see them at this day, such have they always been. The 
 ouly essential connection that has existed and continued be- 
 tween the Negroes and the Europeans isthat of slavery. In 
 this the Negroes see nothing unbecoming them, and the Eng- 
 lish who have done most for abolishing the slave-trade and 
 slavery, are treated by the Negroes themselves as enemies. 
 Eor itis a point of first importance with the Kings to sell their 
 captured enemies, or even their own subjects ; and viewed in 
 the light of such facts, we may conclude slavery to have been 
 the occasion of the increase of human feeling among the 
 Negroes. The doctrine which we deduce from this condition 
 of slavery among the N egroes, and which constitutes the only 
 side of the question that has an interest for our enquiry, is that 
 which we deduce from the Idea : viz. that the " Natural con- 
 dition" itself is one of absolute and thorough injustice — con- 
 travention of the Eight and Just. Every intermediate grade 
 between this and the realization of a rational State retains — 
 as might be expected — elements and aspects of injustice ; 
 thereforewe find slavery even in the Greekand Eoman States, 
 as we do serfdom down to the latest times. But thus existing 
 in a State, slavery is itself a phase of advance from the merely 
 isolated sensual existence, — a phase of education, — a mode 
 of becoming participant in a higher morality and the culture 
 connected with it. Slavery is in and for itself injustice, for 
 the essence of humanity is Freedom ; but for this man must 
 be matured. The gradual abolition of slavery is therefore 
 wiser and more equitable than its sudden removal. 
 
 At this point we leave Africa, not to mention it again. 
 For it is no historical part of the World ; it has no move- 
 ment or development to exhibit. Historical movements in 
 it — that is in its northern part — belong to the Asiatic 
 or European World. Carthage displayed there an important 
 transitionary phase of civilization ; but, as a Phoenician 
 colony, it belongs to Asia. Egypt will be considered in re- 
 ference to the passage of the human mind from its Eastern 
 to its Western phase, but it does not belong to the African 
 Spirit. What we properly understand by Africa, is the 
 Unhistorical, Undeveloped Spirit, still involved in the condi- 
 tions of mere nature, and which had to be presented here 
 only as on the threshold of the World's History. 
 
 Having eliminated this introductory element, we find 
 
104 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 ourselves for the first time on the real theatre of History. 
 It now only remains for us to give a prefatory sketch of 
 the Geographical basis of the Asiatic and European world. 
 Asia is, characteristically, the Orient quarter of the globe, — 
 the region of origination. It is indeed a Western world foi 
 America ; but as Europe presents on the whole, the centre 
 and end of the old world, and is absolutely the West, — so 
 Asia is absolutely the East. 
 
 In Asia arose the Light of Spirit, and therefore the his- 
 tory of the World. 
 
 We must now consider the various localities of Asia. Its 
 physical constitution presents direct antitheses, and the 
 essential relation of these antitheses. Its various geogrs 
 phical principles are formations in themselves developed an( 
 perfected. 
 
 First, the northern slope, Siberia, must be eliminated. 
 This slope, from the Altai chain, with its fine streams, thai 
 pour their waters into the northern Ocean, does not al 
 all concern us here ; because the Northern Zone, as already 
 stated, lies out of the pale of History. But the remainder 
 includes three very interesting localities. The first is, as in 
 Africa, a massive Upland, with a mountain girdle which 
 contains the highest summits in the World. This Uplanc 
 is bounded on the South and South East, by the Mus-Tag 
 or Imaus, parallel to which, farther south, runs the Himma- 
 laya chain. Towards the East, a mountain chain running 
 from South to North, parts off the basin of the Amur. On 
 the North lie the Altai and Songarian mountains ; in con- 
 nection with the latter, in the North West the Musart anc 
 in the West the Belur Tag, which by the Hindoo Coosh 
 chain are again united with the Mus-Tag. 
 
 This high mountain-girdle is broken through by streams, 
 which are dammed up and form great valley plains. These, 
 more or less inundated, present centres of excessive luxu- 
 riance and fertility, and are distinguished from the European 
 river districts in their not forming, as those do, proper valleys 
 with valleys branching out from them, but river-plains. Oj 
 this kind are, — the Chinese Yalley Plain, formed by the 
 Hoang-Ho and Tang-tsc-Kiang(the yellow and blue streams), 
 — next that of India, formed by the Granges ; — less important 
 is the Indus, which in the north, gives character to the 
 
ASIA. 
 
 105 
 
 Punjaub, and in the south flows through plains of sand. 
 Farther on, the lands of the Tigris and Euphrates, which 
 rise in Armenia and hold their course along the Persian 
 mountains. The Caspian sea has similar river valleys ; in 
 the East those formed by the Oxus and Jaxartes (Gihon 
 and Sihon) which pour their waters into the Sea of Aral; on 
 the "West those of the Cyrus and Araxes (Kur and Aras). 
 —The Upland and the Plains must be distinguished from 
 each other ; the third element is their intermixture, which 
 occurs in Hither [Anterior] Asia. To this belongs Arabia, 
 the land of the Desert, the upland of plains, the empire of 
 fanaticism . To this belong Syria and Asia Minor, con- 
 nected with the sea, and having constant intercourse with 
 Europe. 
 
 In regard to Asia the remark above offered respecting 
 geographical differences is especially true ; viz. that the 
 rearing of cattle is the business of the Upland, — agriculture 
 and industrial pursuits that of the valley-plains, — while com- 
 merce and navigation form the third and last item. Patriarchal 
 independence is strictly bound up with the first condition of 
 society ; property and the relation of lord and serf with the 
 second ; civil freedom with the third. In the Upland, 
 where the various kinds of cattle breeding, the rearing of 
 horses, camels, and sheep, (not so much of oxen) deserve 
 attention, we must also distinguish the calm habitual life 
 of nomad tribes from the wild and restless character they 
 display in their conquests. These people, without developing 
 themselves in a really historical form, are swayed by a power- 
 ful impulse leading them to change their aspect as nations ; 
 and although they have not attained an historical character, 
 the beginning of History may be traced to them. It must 
 however be allowed that the peoples of the plains are more 
 interesting. In agriculture itself is involved, ipso facto, the 
 cessation of a roving life. It demands foresight and solicitude 
 for the future : reflection on a general idea is thus awakened ; 
 and herein lies the principle of property and productive 
 industry. China, India, Babylonia, have risen to the posi- 
 tion of cultivated lands of this kind. But as the peoples 
 that have occupied these lands, have been shut up within 
 themselves, and have not appropriated that element of civi- 
 lization which the sea supplies, (or at any rate only at the 
 
106 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 commencement of their civilization) and as their navigation 
 of it — to whatever extent it may have taken place — remained 
 without influence on their culture, — a relation to the rest of 
 History could only exist in their case, through their being 
 sought out, and their character investigated by others. 
 The mountain-girdle of the upland, the upland itself, and 
 the river-plains, characterize Asia physically and spiritually • 
 but they themselves are not concretely, really, historical ele- 
 ments. The opposition between the extremes is simply 
 recognized, not harmonized ; a firm settlement in the fertile 
 plains is for the mobile, restless, roving, condition of the 
 mountain and Upland races, nothing more than a constant 
 object of endeavour. Physical features distinct in the sphere 
 of nature, assume an essential historical relation. — Anterior 
 Asia has both elements in one, and has, consequently, a 
 relation to Europe ; for what is most remarkable in it, this 
 land has not kept for itself, but sent over to Europe. 
 It presents the origination of all religious and political 
 principles, but Europe has been the scene of their develop- 
 ment. 
 
 Europe, to which we now come, has not the physical 
 varieties which we noticed in Asia and Africa. The European 
 character involves the disappearance of the contrast exhibited 
 by earlier varieties, or at least a modification of it ; so that 
 we have the milder qualities of a transition state. "We have 
 in Europe no uplands immediately contrasted with plains. 
 The three sections of Europe require therefore a different 
 basis of classification. 
 
 The first part is Southern Europe — looking towards the 
 Mediterranean. North of the Pyrenees, mountain-chains 
 run through Erance, connected with the Alps that separate 
 and cut off Italy from Erance and Germany. Greece also 
 belongs to this part of Europe. Greece and Italy long pre- 
 sented the theatre of the World's History ; and while the 
 middle and north of Europe w r ere uncultivated, the World- 
 Spirit found its home here. 
 
 The second portion is the heart of Europe, which Caesar 
 opened when conquering Gaul. This achievement was one 
 of manhood on the part of the Roman General, and 
 more productive than that youthful one of Alexander, who 
 undertook to exalt the East to a participation in Greek life ; 
 
EUROPE. 
 
 107 
 
 and whose work, though in its purport the noblest and fair- 
 est for the imagination, soon vanished, as a mere Ideal, in 
 the sequel. — In this centre of Europe, France, Germany, 
 and England are the principal countries. 
 
 Lastly, the third part consists of the north-eastern States 
 of Europe, — Poland, Russia, and the Slavonic Kingdoms. 
 They come only late into the series of historical States, and 
 form and perpetuate the connection with Asia. In contrast 
 with the physical peculiarities of the earlier divisions, these 
 are, as already noticed, not present in a remarkable degree, 
 but counterbalance each other. 
 
 t 
 
109 
 
 THE PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY, 
 
 CLASSIFICATION OF HISTOEIC DATA. 
 
 In the geographical survey, the course of the World's 
 History has been marked out in its general features. The 
 Sun — the Light — rises in the East. Light is a simply self- 
 involved existence ; but though possessing thus in itself 
 universality, it exists at the same time as an individuality 
 in the Sun. Imagination has often pictured to itself the 
 
 I emotions of a blind man suddenly becoming possessed of 
 
 , sight, beholding the bright glimmering of the dawn, the 
 growing light, and the naming glory of the ascending Sun. 
 The boundless forgetfulness of his individuality in this pure 
 splendour, is his first feeling, — utter astonishment. But 
 
 ■ when the Sun is risen, this astonishment is diminished ; ob- 
 jects around are perceived, and from them the individual 
 proceeds to the contemplation of his own inner being, and 
 thereby the advance is made to the perception of the relation 
 between the two. Then inactive contemplation is quitted 
 
 i for activity ; by the close of day man has erected a 
 building constructed from his own inner Sun ; and when in 
 
 . the evening he contemplates this, he esteems it more highly 
 than the original external Sun. For now he stands in a 
 conscious relation to his Spirit, and therefore a free relation. 
 If we hold this image fast in mind, we shall find it sym- 
 bolizing the course of History, the great Day's work of 
 Spirit. 
 
 The History of the World travels from East to West, for 
 Europe is absolutely the end of History, Asia the beginning. 
 The History of the World has an East tear efaxw ; (the term 
 
110 THE PHILOSOPHY OF HISTOKT. 
 
 East in itself is entirely relative), for although the Earth 
 forms a sphere, History performs no circle round it, but has 
 on the contrary a determinate East, viz. Asia. Here rises 
 the outward physical Sun, and in the "West it sinks down 
 here consentaneously rises the Sun of self-consciousness, 
 which diffuses a nobler brilliance. The History of the World 
 is the discipline of the uncontrolled natural will, bringing it 
 into obedience to a Universal principle and conferring subjec- 
 tive freedom. The East knew and to the present day knows 
 only that One is Free ; the Greek and Roman world, that some 
 are free ; the German World knows that All are free. The 
 first political form therefore which we observe in History, is 
 Despotism, the second Democracy and Aristocracy, the third 
 Monarchy. 
 
 To understand this division we must remark that as the 
 State is the universal spiritual life, to which individuals by 
 birth sustain a relation of confidence and habit, and in which 
 they have their existence and reality, — the first question is, 
 whether their actual life is an unreflecting use and habit 
 combining them in this unity, or whether its constituent 
 individuals are reflective and personal beings having a pro- 
 perly subjective and independent existence. In view of this, 
 substantial [objective] freedom must be distinguished from 
 subjective freedom. Substantial freedom is the abstract un- 
 developed Reason implicit in volition, proceeding to develop 
 itself in the State. But in this phase of Reason there is 
 still wanting personal insight and will, that is, subjective 
 freedom ; which is realized only in the Individual, and which 
 constitutes the reflection of the Individual in his own con- 
 science.* Where there is merely substantial freedom, com- 
 mands and laws are regarded as something fixed and abstract, 
 
 * The essence of Spirit is self-determination or " Fivedom." Where 
 Spirit has attained mature growth, as in the man who acknowledges the 
 nbsolute validity of the dictates of Conscience, the Individual is " a law 
 to himself," and this Freedom is " realized." But in lower stages of mn- 
 mlity and civilization, he unconsciously projects this legislative principle 
 jnto some " governing power " (one or several), and obeys it as if it were 
 an alien, extraneous force, not the voice of that Spirit of which he himself 
 (though at this stage imperfectly) is an embodiment. The Philosophy of 
 History exhibits the successive stages by which he reaches the conscious- 
 ness, that it is his own inmost being that thus governs him — i.e. a conscious- 
 ness of self-determination or " Freedom." —Tu. 
 
CLASSIFICATION OF HISTORIC DATA. 
 
 Ill 
 
 to which the subject holds himself in absolute servitude. 
 These laws need not concur with the desire of the individual, 
 and the subjects are consequently like children,who obey their 
 parents without will or insight of their own. But as subject ive 
 freedom arises, and man descends from the contemplation 
 of external reality into his own soul, the contrast suggested 
 by reflection arises, involving the Negation of Reality. The 
 drawing back from the actual world forms ipso facto an 
 antithesis, of which one side is the absolute Being— the 
 Divine — the other the human subject as an individual. In 
 that immediate, unreflected consciousness which charac- 
 terizes the East, these two are not yet distinguished. The 
 substantial w T orld is distinct from the individual, but the 
 antithesis has not yet created a schism between [absolute 
 and subjective] Spirit. 
 
 The first phase — that with which we have to begin — is the 
 East. Unreflected consciousness, — substantial, objective, 
 spiritual existence, — forms the basis ; to which the subjec- 
 tive will first sustains a relation in the form of faith, confi- 
 dence, obedience. In the political life of the East we find a 
 realized rational freedom, developing itself without advanc- 
 
 . ing to subjective freedom. It is the childhood of History. 
 Substantial forms constitute the gorgeous edifices of Oriental 
 Empires, in which we find all rational ordinances and ar- 
 
 i rangements, but in such a way, that individuals remain as 
 mere accidents. These revolve round a centre, round the 
 sovereign, who, as patriarch, — not as despot in the sense of 
 
 ! the Roman Imperial Constitution, — stands at the head. Eor 
 he has to enforce the moral and substantial : he has to up- 
 
 \ hold those essential ordinances which are already established ; 
 
 < so that what among us belongs entirely to subjective freedom, 
 
 ! here proceeds from the entire and general body of the State. 
 
 ' The glory of Oriental conception is the One Individual as 
 that substantial being to which all belongs, so that no other 
 individual has a sepanite existence, or mirrors himself in his 
 subjective freedom. All the riches of imagination and Nature 
 are appropriated to that dominant existence in which sub- 
 jective freedom is essentially merged ; the latter looks for its 
 dignity not in itself, but in that absolute object. All the ele- 
 ments of a complete State — even subjectivity — may be found 
 there, but not yet harmonized with the grand substantial 
 
112 
 
 THE PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY. 
 
 being. For outside the One Power— before which nothing; 
 can maintain an independent existence— there is only revolt- 
 ing caprice, which, beyond the limits of the central power, 
 roves at will without purpose or result. Accordingly we 
 find the wild hordes breaking out from the Upland, — falling 
 upon the countries in question, and laying them waste, or 
 settling down in them, and giving up their wild life ; but 
 in all cases resultlessly lost in the central substance. 
 This phase of Substantiality, since it has not taken up its 
 antithesis into itself and overcome it, directly divides itself 
 into two elements. On the one side we see duration, sta- 
 bility, — Empires belonging to mere space, as it were, [as 
 distinguished from Time] — unhistorical History; — as for 
 example, in China, the State based on the Family relation ; 
 — a paternal Government, which holds together the consti- 
 tution by its provident care, its admonitions, retributive or 
 rather disciplinary inflictions ; — a prosaic Empire, because the 
 contrast of Substance — Form, Infinity, Ideality — has not yet 
 asserted itself. On the other side, the Form of Time stands 
 contrasted with this spatial stability. The States in ques- 
 tion, without undergoing any change in themselves, or in the 
 principle of their existence, are constantly changing their 
 position towards each other. They are in ceaseless conflict, 
 which brings on rapid destruction. The opposing principle 
 of individuality enters into these conflicting relations ; but 
 it is itself as yet only unconscious, merely natural Univer- 
 sality, — Light, which is not yet the light of the personal soul. 
 This History, too, (i. e. of the struggles before-mentioned) 
 is, for the most part, really unhistorical, for it is only the re- 
 petition of the same majestic ruin. The new element, which 
 in the shape of bravery, prowess, magnanimity, occupies the 
 place of the previous despotic pomp, goes through the 
 same circle of decline and subsidence. This subsidence is 
 therefore not really such, for through all this restless change 
 no advance is made. History passes at this point — and only 
 outwardly, i. e. without connection with the previous phase — 
 to Central Asia. Continuing the comparison with the ages of 
 the individual man, this would be the boyhood of History, no 
 longer manifesting the repose and trustingness of the child, 
 but boisterous and turbulent. The Greek World may then 
 be compared with the period of adolescence, for here we have 
 
CLASSIFICATION OF HISTORIC DATA. 
 
 113 
 
 individualities forming themselves. This is the second main 
 principle in human History. Morality is, as in Asia, a 
 principle ; but it is morality impressed on individuality, and 
 consequently denoting the free volition of Individuals. Here, 
 then, is the Union of the Moral with the subjective Will, or 
 the Kingdom of Beautiful Freedom, for the Idea is united 
 with a plastic form. It is not yet regarded abstractedly, but 
 immediately bound up with the Real, as in a beautiful work 
 of Art; the Sensuous bears the stamp and expression of the 
 Spiritual. This Kingdom is consequently true Harmony ; 
 the world of the most charming, but perishable or quickly 
 passing bloom : it is the natural, unreflecting observance of 
 what is becoming, — not yet true Morality. The individual will 
 of the Subject adopts unreflectingly the conduct and habit 
 prescribed by Justice and the Laws. The Individual is 
 therefore in unconscious unity with the Idea — the social 
 weal. That which in the East is divided into two extremes — 
 the substantial as such, and the individuality absorbed in 
 it — meets here. But these distinct principles are only 
 immediately in unity, and consequently involve the highest 
 degree of contradiction ; for this aesthetic Morality has not 
 yet passed through the struggle of subjective freedom, in its 
 second birth, its palingenesis ; it is not yet purified to the 
 standard of the free subjectivity that is the essence of true 
 morality. 
 
 The third phase is the realm of abstract Universality (in 
 which the Social aim absorbs all individual aims) : it is the 
 Homan State, the severe labours of the Manhood of History. 
 For true manhood acts neither in accordance with the 
 caprice of a despot, nor in obedience to a graceful caprice of 
 its own ; but works for a general aim, one in which the indi- 
 vidual perishes and realizes his own private object only in 
 that general aim. The State begins to have an abstract 
 existence, and to develope itself for a definite object, in 
 accomplishing which its members have indeed a share, but 
 not a complete and concrete one [calling their whole being 
 into play]. Free individuals are sacrificed to the severe 
 demands of the Xational objects, to which they must sur- 
 render themselves in this service of abstract generalization. 
 The Roman State is not a repetition of such a State of Indi- 
 viduals as the Athenian Polis was. The geniality and joy of 
 
 i 
 
114 
 
 THE PHILOSOPHY OF HISTOKT. 
 
 soul that existed there have given place to harsh and rigorous 
 toil. The interest of History is detached from individuals, 
 but these gain for themselves abstract, formal Universality. 
 The Universal subjugates the individuals ; they have to merge 
 their own interests in it ; but in return the abstraction 
 which they themselves embody — that is to say, their per- 
 sonality — is recognized: in their individual capacity they 
 become persons with definite rights as such. In the same 
 sense as individuals may be said to be incorporated in the 
 abstract idea of Person, National Individualities (those of the 
 Roman Provinces) have also to experience this fate : in this 
 form of Universality their concrete forms are crushed, and 
 incorporated with it as a homogeneous and indifferent mass. 
 Rome becomes a Pantheon of all deities, and of all Spiritual 
 existence, but these divinities and this Spirit do not retain 
 their proper vitality. — The development of the State in ques- 
 tion proceeds in two directions. On the one hand, as based 
 on reflection — abstract Universality— it has the express out- 
 spoken antithesis in itself: it therefore essentially involves 
 in itself the struggle which that antithesis supposes ; with 
 the necessary issue, that individual caprice — the purely con- 
 tingent and thoroughly worldly power of one despot — gets the 
 better of that abstract universal principle. At the very out- 
 set we have the antithesis between the Aim of the State as 
 the abstract universal principle on the one hand, and the 
 abstract personality of the individual on the other hand. 
 But when subsequently, in the historical development, indi- 
 viduality gains the ascendant, and the breaking up of the 
 community into its component atoms can only be restrained 
 by external compulsion, then the subjective might of indivi- 
 dual despotism comes forward to play its part, as if summoned 
 to fulfil this task. For the mere abstract compliance with 
 Law implies on the part of the subject of law the supposition 
 that he has not attained to self-organization and self-control ; 
 and this principle of obedience, instead of being hearty and 
 voluntary, has for its motive and ruling power only the 
 arbitrary and contingent disposition of the individual; so 
 that the latter is led to seek consolation for the loss of his 
 freedom in exercising and developing his private right. This 
 is the purely worldly harmonization of the antithesis. But 
 in the next place, the pain inflicted by Despotism begins to 
 
CHRISTIANITY AND THE GERMAN WORLD. 1J5 
 
 be felt, and Spirit driven back into its utmost depths, leaves 
 the godless world, seeks for a harmony in itself, and begins 
 now an inner life, -a complete concrete subjectivity, which 
 possesses at the same time a substantiality that is not 
 grounded in mere external existence. Within the soul 
 therefore arises the Spiritual pacification of the struggle, in 
 the fact that the individual personality, instead of following 
 its own capricious choice, is purified and elevated into uni- 
 versality ; — a subjectivity that of its own free will adopts 
 principles tending to the good of all, — reaches, in fact, a 
 divine personality. To that worldly empire, this Spiritual 
 one wears a predominant aspect of opposition, as the empire 
 of a subjectivity that has attained to the knowledge of 
 itself, — itself in its essential nature, — the Empire of Spirit 
 in its full sense. 
 
 The German world appears at this point of development, — 
 the fourth phase of World-Hi story. This would answer in 
 the comparison with the periods of human life to its Old Age. 
 The Old Age of Nature is weakness ; but that of Spirit is 
 its perfect maturity and strength, in which it returns to 
 unity with itself, but in its fully developed character as 
 Spirit. — This fourth phase begins with the Reconciliation 
 presented in Christianity ; but only in the germ, without 
 national or political development. We must therefore regard 
 it as commencing rather with the enormous contrast between 
 the spiritual, religious principle, and the barbarian Real 
 World. For Spirit as the consciousness of an inner World is, 
 at the commencement, itself still in an abstract form. All 
 that is secular is consequently given over to rudeness and 
 
 : capricious violence. The Mohammedan principle — the en- 
 lightenment of the Oriental World — is the first to contra- 
 vene this barbarism and caprice. We find it developing 
 itself later and more rapidly than Christianity ; for the latter 
 needed eight centuries to grow up into a political form. But 
 that principle of the German World which we are now dis- 
 
 ; cussing, attained concrete reality only in the history of the 
 German Nations. The contrast of the Spiritual principle 
 animating the Ecclesiastical State, with the rough and wild 
 barbarism of the Secular State, is here likewise present. 
 The Secular ought to be in harmony with the Spiritual prin- 
 ciple, but we find nothing more than the recognition of that 
 
 i 2 
 
116 THE PHILOSOPHY OP HISTOET. 
 
 obligation. The Secular power forsaken by the Spirit, must 
 in the first instance vanish in presence of . the Ecclesiastical 
 [as representative of Spirit] ; but while this latter degrades 
 itself to mere secularity, it loses its influence with the loss 
 of its proper character and vocation. From this corruption 
 of the Ecclesiastical element — that is, of the Church — results 
 the higher form of rational thought. Spirit once more ( 
 driven back upon itself, produces its work in an intellectual 
 shape, and becomes capable of realizing the Ideal of Eeason 
 from the Secular principle alone. Thus it happens, that in 
 virtue of elements of Universality, which have the principle 
 of Spirit as their basis, the empire of Thought is established 
 actually and concretely. The antithesis of Church and State 
 vanishes. The Spiritual becomes reconnected with the Secu- 
 lar, and develops this latter as an independently organic 
 existence. The State no longer occupies a position of real 
 inferiority to the Church, and is no longer subordinate to it. 
 The latter asserts no prerogative, and the Spiritual is no 
 longer an element foreign to the State. Ereedom has found 
 the means of realizing its Ideal, — its true existence. This is 
 the ultimate result which the process of History is intended 
 to accomplish, and we have to traverse in detail the long 
 track which has been thus cursorily traced out. Yet length 
 of Time is something entirely relative, and the element of 
 Spirit is Eternity. Duration, properly speaking, cannot be 
 said to belong to it. 
 
 PAET I. 
 
 THE ORIENTAL WORLD. 
 
 "VVe have to begin with the Oriental World, but not before 
 the period in which we discover States in it. The diffusion of 
 Language and the formation of races lie beyond the limits of 
 History. History is prose, and myths fall short of History. 
 The consciousness of external definite existence only arises 
 in connection with the power to form abstract distinctions and 
 assign abstract predicates ; and in proportion as a capacity 
 for expressing Laws [of natural or social life] is acquired, in 
 
PART I. THE ORIENTAL WOULD. 
 
 117 
 
 the same proportion does the ability manifest itself, to com- 
 prehend objects in an unpoetical form. While the ante-his- 
 torical is that which precedes political life, it also lies beyond 
 self-cognizant life ; though surmises and suppositions may 
 be entertained respecting that period, these do not amount to 
 facts. The Oriental World has as its inherent and distinc- 
 tive principle the Substantial, [the Prescriptive,] in Morality. 
 We have the first example of a subjugation of the mere 
 arbitrary will, which is merged in this substantiality. Moral 
 distinctions and requirements are expressed as Laws, but so 
 that the subjective will is governed by these Laws as by an 
 external force. Nothing subjective in the shape of disposi- 
 tion, Conscience, formal Freedom, is recognized. Justice is 
 administered only on the basis of external morality, and 
 (xovernment exists only as the prerogative of compulsion. 
 Our civil law contains indeed some purely compulsory ordi- 
 nances. I can be compelled to give up another man's 
 property, or to keep an agreement which I have made ; but 
 the Moral is not placed by us in the mere compulsion, but 
 in the disposition of the subjects — their sympathy with the 
 requirements of law. Morality is in the East likewise a 
 subject of positive legislation, and although the moral pre- 
 scriptions (the substance of their Ethics) may be perfect, what 
 should be internal subjective sentiment is made a matter of 
 external arrangement. There is no want of a will to command 
 moral actions, but of a will to perform them because com- 
 manded from within. Since Spirit has not yet attained sub- 
 jectivity, it wears the appearance of spirituality still involved 
 in the conditions of Nature. Since the external and the in- 
 ternal, Law and Moral Sense, are not yet distinguished — still 
 form an undivided unity — so also do Eeligion and the State. 
 The Constitution generally is a Theocracy, and the Kingdom 
 of Ood is to the same extent also a secular Kingdom as the 
 secular Kingdom is also divine. What w r e call God has not 
 yet in the East been realized in consciousness, for our idea of 
 G-od involves an elevation of the soul to the supersensual. 
 While ice obey, because what we are required to do is con- 
 firmed by an internal sanction, there the Law is regarded as 
 inherently and absolutely valid without a sense of the w r ant 
 of this subjective confirmation. In the law men recognize 
 not their own will, but one entirely foreign. 
 
IIS PART I. THE ORIENTAL WOELD. 
 
 Of the several parts of Asia we have already eliminated 
 as unhistorical, Upper Asia (so far and so long as its No- 
 mad population do not appear on the scene of history), and 
 Siberia. The rest of the Asiatic World is divided into four 
 districts : first, the River-Plains, formed by the Yellow and 
 Blue Stream, and the Upland of farther Asia, — China and 
 the Mongols. Secondly, the valley of the Granges and that of 
 the Indus. The third theatre of History comprises the river- 
 plains of the Oxus and Jaxartes, the Upland of Persia, and 
 the other valley-plains of the Euphrates and Tigris, to 
 which Hither Asia attaches itself. Fourthly, the Eiver- 
 plain of the Nile. 
 
 "With China and the Mongols — the realm of theocratic des- 
 potism — History begins. Both have the patriarchal constitu- 
 tion for their principle, — so modified in China, as to admit 
 the development of an organized system of secular polity ; 
 while among the Mongols it limits itself to the simple form 
 of a spiritual, religious sovereignty. In China the Monarch 
 is Chief as Patriarch. The laws of the state are partly civil 
 ordinances, partly moral requiremnets ; so that the internal 
 law, — the knowledge on the part of the individual of the na- 
 ture of his volition, as his own inmost self, — even this is 
 the subject of external statutory enactment. The sphere of 
 subjectivity does not then, attain to maturity here,since moral 
 laws are treated as legislative enactments, and law on its 
 part has an ethical aspect. All that we call subjectivity is 
 concentrated in the supreme head of the State, who, in all 
 his legislation has an eye to the health, wealth, and benefit 
 of the whole. Contrasted with this secular Empire is the 
 spiritual sovereignty of the Mongols, at the head of which 
 stands the Lama, who is honoured as God. In this Spiritual 
 Empire no secular political life can be developed. 
 
 In the second phase — the Indian realm — we see the 
 unity of political organization, — a perfect civil machinery, 
 such as exists in China, — in the first instance, broken up. 
 The several powers of society appear as dissevered and free 
 in relation to each other. The different castes are indeed, 
 fixed ; but in view of the religious doctrine that established 
 them, they wear the aspect of natural distinctions. Indivi- 
 duals are thereby still further stripped of proper personality, 
 — although it might appear as if they derived gain from the 
 
PART I. TIIE ORIENTAL WORLD. 
 
 119 
 
 : development of the distinctions in question. For though we 
 find the organization of the State no longer, as in China, deter- 
 I mined and arranged by the one all-absorbing personality [the 
 head of the State] the distinctions that exist are attributed 
 to Nature, and so become differences of Caste. The unity in 
 which these divisions must finally meet, is a religious one ; 
 and thus arises Theocratic Aristocracy and its despotism. 
 Here begins, therefore, the distinction between the spiritual 
 consciousness and secular conditions ; but as the sepa- 
 \ ration implied in the above mentioned distinctions is the 
 cardinal consideration, so also we find in the religion the 
 principle of the isolation of the constituent elements of the 
 Idea ; — a principle which posits the harshest antithesis — 
 I the conception of the purely abstract unity of Grod, and of 
 t the purely sensual Powers of Nature. The connection of 
 I the two is only a constant change, — a restless hurrying from 
 one extreme to the other, — a wild chaos of fruitless varia- 
 tion, which must appear as madness to a duly regulated, 
 intelligent consciousness. 
 
 The third important form, — presenting a contrast to 
 the immoveable unity of China and to the wild and tur- 
 bulent unrest of India, — is the Persian Realm. China is 
 quite peculiarly Oriental ; India we might compare with 
 Greece ; Persia on the other hand with Borne. In Persia 
 namely, the Theocratic power appears as a Monarchy. Now 
 Monarchy is that kind of constitution which does indeed 
 unite the members of the body politic in the head of the 
 government as in a point ; but regards that head neither as 
 the absolute director nor the arbitrary ruler, but as a power 
 whose will is regulated by the same principle of law as the 
 obedience of the subject. We have thus a general principle, 
 a Law, lying at the basis of the whole, but which, still re- 
 garded as a dictum of mere Nature [not as free and absolute 
 Truth] is clogged by an antithesis, [that of formal freedom 
 on the part of man as commanded to obey positive alien 
 requirements.] The representation, therefore, which Spirit 
 makes of itself is, at this grade of progress, of a purely 
 natural kind, — Light. This Universal principle is as much 
 a regulative one for the monarch as for each of his subjects, 
 and the Persian Spirit is accordingly clear, illuminated, — the 
 
120 
 
 PAKT I. THE ORIENTAL WORLD. 
 
 idea of a people living in pure morality, as in a sacred com- 
 munity. But this has on the one hand as a merely natural 
 Ecclesia, the above antithesis still unreconciled ; and its 
 sanctity displays the characteristics of a compulsory, externa] 
 one. On the other hand this antithesis is exhibited in Persia 
 in its being the Empire of hostile peoples, and the union of the 
 most widely differing nations. The Persian Unity is not that 
 abstract one of the Chinese Empire ; it is adapted to rule over 
 many and various nationalities, which it unites under the 
 mild power of Universality as a beneficial Sun shining over 
 all, — waking them into life and cherishing their growth. 
 This Universal principle, — occupying the position of a 
 root only, — allows the several members a free growth for 
 unrestrained expansion and ramification. In the organi 
 zation of these several peoples, the various principles and 
 forms of life have full play and continue to exist togethe 
 We find in this multitude of nations, roving Nomades ; the 
 Ave see in Babylonia and Syria commerce and industri 
 pursuits in full vigour, the wildest sensuality, the mos 
 uncontrolled turbulence. The coasts mediate a connec 
 tion with foreign lands. In the midst of this confusio 
 the spiritual God of the Jews arrests our attention, — like 
 Brahm, existing only for Thought, yet jealous and excludin 
 from his being and abolishing all distinct speciality o 
 manifestations [avatars], such as are freely allowed in othe 
 religions. This Persian Empire, then, — since it can tolerat 
 these several principles, exhibits the Antithesis in a livel 
 active form, and is not shut up within itself, abstract an 
 calm, as are China and India, — makes a real transition i 
 the History of the World. 
 
 If Persia forms the external transition to Greek life, th 
 internal, mental transition is mediated by Egypt. Here th 
 antitheses in their abstract form are broken through ; a break 
 ing through which effects their nullification. This undevelope 
 reconciliation exhibits the struggle of the most contradictor 
 principles, which are not yet capable of harmonizing them 
 selves, but, setting up the birth of this harmony as the pro 
 blem to be solved, make themselves a riddle for themselve 
 and for others, the solution of which is only to be found i 
 the Greek "World. 
 
SECT. I. CHINA. 
 
 121 
 
 If we compare these kingdoms in the light of their various 
 fates, we find the empire of the two Chinese rivers the only- 
 durable kingdom in the World. Conquests cannot affect 
 such an empire. The world of the Granges and the Indus 
 has also been preserved. A state of things so destitute of 
 [distinct] thought is likewise imperishable, but it is in its 
 very nature destined to be mixed with other races, — to be 
 conquered and subjugated. "While these two realms have 
 remained to the present day, of the empires of the Tigris 
 and Euphrates on the contrary nothing remains, except, at 
 most, a heap of bricks ; for the Persian Kingdom, as that of 
 Transition, is by nature perishable, and the Kingdoms of the 
 Caspian Sea are given up to the ancient struggle of Iran and 
 Turan. The Empire of the solitary Nile is only present be- 
 neath the ground, in its speechless Dead, ever and anon 
 stolen away to all quarters of the globe, and in their ma- 
 jestic habitations ; — for what remains above ground is 
 nothing else but such splendid tombs. 
 
 SECTION I. 
 CHINA. 
 
 With the Empire of China History has to begin, for it is 
 the oldest, as far as history gives us any information ; and 
 its principle has such substantiality, that for the empire in 
 question it is at once the oldest and the newest. Early do 
 we see China advancing to the condition in which it is found 
 at this day ; for as the contrast between objective existence 
 and subjective freedom of movement in it, is still wanting, 
 every change is excluded, and the fixedness of a character 
 which recurs perpetually, takes the place of what we should 
 call the truly historical, China and India lie, as it were, still 
 outside the World's History, as the mere presupposition of 
 elements whose combination must be waited for to consti- 
 tute their vital progress. The unity of substantiality and 
 subjective freedom so entirely excludes the distinction and 
 contrast of the two elements, that by this very fact, substance 
 cannot arrive at reflection on itself — at subjectivity. The 
 Substantial [Positive] in its moral aspect, rules therefore, 
 
122 PART I. THE ORIENTAL WORLD. 
 
 not as the moral disposition of the Subject, but as the 
 despotism of the Sovereign. 
 
 No People has a so strictly continuous series of Writers 
 of History as the Chinese. Other Asiatic peoples also have 
 ancient traditions, but no History. The Vedas of the 
 Indians are not such. The traditions of the Arabs are very 
 old, but are not attached to a political constitution and its 
 development. But such a constitution exists in China, and 
 that in a distinct and prominent form. The Chinese tradi- 
 tions ascend to 3000 years before Christ ; and the Shu-King, 
 their canonical document, beginning with the government 
 of Yao, places this 2357 years before Christ. It may here 
 be incidentally remarked, that the other Asiatic kingdoms 
 also reach a high antiquity. According to the calculation 
 of an English writer, the Egyptian history {e.g.) reaches to 
 2207 years before Christ, the Assyrian to 2221, the Indian 
 to 2204. Thus the traditions respecting the principal king- 
 doms of the East reach to about 2300 years before the birth 
 of Christ. Comparing this with the history of the Old 
 Testament, a space of 2400 years, according to the common 
 acceptation, intervened between the Noachian Deluge and 
 the Christian era. But Johannes von Müller has adduced 
 weighty objections to this number. He places the , 
 Deluge in the year 3473 before Christ,— thus about 1000 
 years earlier, — supporting his view by the Septuagint. I 
 remark this only with the view of obviating a difficulty that 
 may appear to arise when we meet with dates of a higher 
 age than 2400 years before Christ, and yet find nothing about 
 the Elood. — The Chinese have certain ancient canonical 
 documents, from which their history, constitution, and reli- j 
 gion can be gathered. The Vedas and the Mosaic records 
 are similar books ; as also the Homeric poems. Among the 
 Chinese these books are called Kings, and constitute the 
 foundation of all their studies. The Shu-King contains their 
 history, treats of the government of the ancient kings, and 
 gives the statutes enacted by this or that monarch. The 
 Y-King consists of figures, which have been regarded as the 
 bases of the Chinese written character, and this book is also 
 considered the groundwork of the Chinese Meditation. Eor 
 it begins with the abstractions of Unity and Duality, and 
 then treats of the concrete existences pertaining to these 
 
SECT. I. CniNA. 
 
 123 
 
 abstract forms of thought. Lastly, the Shi-King is the book 
 of the oldest poems in a great variety of styles. The 
 high officers of the kingdom were anciently commissioned to 
 bring with them to the annual festival all the poems com- 
 posed in their province within the year. The Emperor in 
 full court was the judge of these poems, and those recog- 
 nized as good received public approbation. Besides these 
 three books of archives which are specially honoured and 
 studied, there are besides two others, less important, viz. 
 the Li-Ki (or Li-King) which records the customs and 
 ceremonial observances pertaining to the Imperial dignity, 
 and that of the State functionaries (with an appendix, To- 
 King, treating of music) ; and the Tshun-tsin, the chronicle 
 of the kingdom Lu, where Confucius appeared. These books 
 are the groundwork of the history, the manners and the laws 
 : of China. 
 
 This empire early attracted the attention of Europeans, 
 although only vague stories about it had reached them. It 
 was always marvelled at as a country which, self-originated, 
 appeared to have no connection with the outer world. 
 
 In the 13th century a Venetian (Marco Polo) explored it 
 for the first time, but his reports were deemed fabulous. In 
 later times, every thing that he had said respecting its extent 
 and greatness was entirely confirmed. By the lowest cal- 
 culation, China has 150 millions of inhabitants ; another 
 
 • makes the number 200, and the highest raises it even to 300 
 millions. From the far north it stretches towards the south 
 
 , to India ; on the east it is bounded by the vast Pacific, 
 and on the west it extends towards Persia and the Cas- 
 
 . pian. China Proper is over-populated. On both rivers, the 
 Hoang-ho and the Tang-tse-Kiang, dwell many millions of 
 human beings, living on rafts adapted to all the requirements 
 
 ' of their mode of life. The population and the thoroughly 
 organized State-arrangements, descending even to the mi- 
 nutest details, have astonished Europeans ; and a matter of 
 especial astonishment is the accuracy with which their his- 
 torical works are executed. Eor in China the Historians 
 are some of the highest functionaries. Two ministers con- 
 stantly in attendance on the Emperor, are commissioned to 
 keep a journal of everything the Emperor does, commands, 
 and says, and their notes are then worked up and made use 
 
124 PART I. THE ORIENTAL WORLD. 
 
 of by the Historians. We cannot go further into the 
 minutiae of their annals, which, as they themselves exhibit 
 no development, would only hinder us in ours. Their His- 
 tory ascends to very ancient times, in which Fohi is named 
 as the Diffuser of culture, he having been the original civi- 
 lizer of China. He is said to have lived in the 29th century 
 before Christ, — before the time, therefore, at which the Shu 
 King begins ; but the mythical and pre-historical is treate 
 by Chinese Historians as perfectly historical. The firs 
 region of Chinese history is the north-western corner, 
 China Proper, — towards that point where the Hoang-ho de~ 
 cends from the mountains ; for only at a later period did th 
 Chinese empire extend itself towards the south, to the Yan 
 tse-Kiang. The narrative begins with the period in whic 
 men lived in a wild state, i.e. in the woods, when they fed o 
 the fruits of the earth, and clothed themselves with the ski" 
 of wild beasts. There was no recognition of definite law 
 among them. To Fohi (who must be duly distinguishe 
 from Fo, the founder of a new religion) is ascribed th 
 instruction of men in building themselves huts and makin 
 dwellings. He is said to have directed their attention to th 
 change and return of seasons, to barter and trade ; to hav 
 established marriage ; to have taught that Reason came fro 
 Heaven, and to have given instructions for rearing silk 
 worms, building bridges, and making use of beasts of bürde 
 The Chinese historians are very diffuse on the subject of thes 
 various origins. The progress of the history is the exten 
 sion of the culture thus originated, to the south, and th 
 beginning of a state and a government. The great Empi 
 which had thus gradually been formed, was soon broken u 
 into many provinces, which carried on long wars with eac 
 other, and were then re-united into a Whole. The dynasti 
 in China have often been changed, and the one now domi 
 nant is generally marked as the 22nd. In connection wit 
 the rise and fall of these dynasties arose the different capital 
 cities that are found in this empire. For a long time Nankin 
 was the capital ; now it is Pekin ; at an earlier period other 
 cities. China has been compelled to wage many wars with 
 the Tartars, who penetrated far into the country. The long 
 wall built by Shi-hoang-ti, — and which has always been 
 regarded as a most astounding achievement, — was raised as a 
 
SECT I. CHINA. 
 
 125 
 
 barrier against the inroads of the northern Nomades. This 
 prince divided the whole empire into 36 provinces, and made 
 himself especially remarkable by his attacks on the old lite- 
 rature, especially on the historical books and historical 
 studies generally. He did this with the design of strength- 
 ening his own dynasty, by destroying the remembrance of 
 the earlier one. After the historical books had been col- 
 lected and burned, many hundreds of the literati fled to the 
 mountains, in order to save what remained. Every one that 
 fell into the Emperor's hands experienced the same fate as 
 the books. This Book-burning is a very important circum- 
 stance, for in spite of it the strictly canonical books were 
 saved, as is generally the case. The first connection of China 
 with the West occurred about 64 a d. At that epoch a 
 Chinese emperor dispatched ambassadors (it is said) to visit 
 the wise sages of the "West. Twenty years later a Chinese 
 general is reported to have penetrated as far as Judea. At 
 the beginning of the 8th century, a.D., the first Christians 
 are reputed to have gone to China, of which visit later visi- 
 tors assert that they found traces and monuments. A Tartar 
 kingdom, Lyau-Tong, existing in the north of China, is said 
 to have been reduced and taken possession of by the Chinese 
 with the help of the Western Tartars, about 1100 a.d. This, 
 nevertheless, gave these very Tartars an opportunity of 
 securing a footing in China. Similarly they admitted the 
 Mantchoos with whom they engaged in war in the 16th and 
 17th centuries, which resulted in the present dynasty's 
 obtaining possession of the throne. Yet this new dynasty 
 has not effected farther change in the country, any more 
 than did the earlier conquest of the Mongols in the year 
 1281. The Mantchoos that live in China have to conform 
 to Chinese laws, and study Chinese sciences. 
 
 We pass now from these few dates in Chinese history to 
 the contemplation of the Spirit of the constitution, which 
 has always remained the same. We can deduce it from the 
 general principle, which is, the immediate unity of the sub- 
 stantial Spirit and the Individual ; but this is equivalent to 
 the Spirit of the Family, which is here extended over the 
 most populous of countries. The element of Subjectivity, — 
 that is to say, the reflection upon itself of the individual 
 ; will in antithesis to the Substantial (as the power in which 
 
12G PA ET I. THE ORIENTAL WOBLD. 
 
 it is absorbed) or the recognition of this power as one with 
 its own essential being, in which it knows itself free, — is 
 not found on this grade of development. The universal 
 Will displays its activity immediately through that of the in- 
 dividual : the latter has no self-cognizance at all in antithesis 
 to Substantial, positive being, which it does not yet regard 
 as a power standing over against it, — as, (e.g.) in Judaism, the 
 " Jealous God" is known as the negation of the Individual. 
 In China the Universal Will immediately commands what 
 the Individual is to do, and the latter complies and obeys 
 with proportionate renunciation of reflection and personal 
 independence. If he does not obey, if he thus virtually sepa- 
 rates himself from the Substance of his being, inasmuch 
 as this separation is not mediated by a retreat within a per- 
 sonality of his own, the punishment he undergoes does not 
 affect Iiis subjective and internal, but simply his outward 
 existence. The element of subjectivity is therefore as much 
 wanting to this political totality as the latter is on its side 
 altogether destitute of a foundation in the moral disposition 
 of the subject. For the Substance is simply an individual, 
 — the Emperor, — whose law constitutes all the disposition. 
 Nevertheless, this ignoring of inclination does not imply 
 caprice, which would itself indicate inclination — that is, sub- 
 jectivity and mobility. Here we have the One Being of the 
 State supremely dominant, — the Substance, which, still hard 
 and inflexible, resembles nothing but itself — includes no 
 other element. 
 
 This relation, then, expressed more definitely and more 
 conformably with its conception, is that of the Family. On 
 this form of moral union alone rests the Chinese State, and 
 it is objective Family Piety that characterizes it. The 
 Chinese regard themselves as belonging to their family, and 
 at the same time as children of the State. In the Family 
 itself they are not personalities, for the consolidated unity' 
 in which they exist as members of it is consanguinity and 
 natural obligation. In the State they have as little inde- 
 pendent personality ; for there the patriarchal relation is 
 predominant, and the government is based on the paternal 
 management of the Emperor, who keeps all departments of 
 the State in order. Five duties are stated in the Shu-King 
 as involving grave and unchangeable fundamental relations. 
 
SECT. I. CHINA. 
 
 127 
 
 1. The mutual one of the Emperor and people. 2. Of the 
 Fathers and Children. 3. Of an elder and younger brother. 
 4. Of Husband and Wife. 5. Of Friend and Friend. It may- 
 be here incidentally remarked, that the number Five is 
 regarded as fundamental among the Chinese, and presents 
 itself as often as the number Three among us. They have five 
 Elements of Nature — Air, Water, Earth, Metal, and Wood. 
 They recognize four quarters of Heaven and a centre. Holy 
 places, where altars are erected, consist of four elevations, 
 and one in the centre. 
 
 The duties of the Family are absolutely binding, and 
 established and regulated by law. The son may not accost 
 
 • the father, when he comes into the room ; he must seem to 
 contract himself to nothing at the side of the door, and may 
 
 , not leave the room without his father's permission. When 
 
 > the father dies, the son must mourn for three years — 
 abstaining from meat and wine. The business in which he 
 was engaged, even that of the State, must be suspended, for 
 he is obliged to quit it. Even the Emperor, who has just 
 commenced his government, does not devote himself to his 
 duties during this time. No marriage may be contracted in 
 the family within the period of mourning. Only the having 
 reached his fiftieth year exempts the bereaved from the ex- 
 
 : cessive strictness of the regulations, which are then relaxed 
 that he may not be reduced in person by them. The sixtieth 
 year relaxes them still further, and the seventieth limits 
 mourning to the colour of the dress. A mother is honoured 
 equally with a father. When Lord Macartney saw the Em- 
 peror, the latter was sixty-eight years old, (sixty years is 
 among the Chinese a fundamental round number, as one 
 hundred is among us), notwithstanding which he visited his 
 mother every morning on foot, to demonstrate his respect 
 for her. The New Tear's congratulations are offered even to 
 the mother of the Emperor ; and the Emperor himself cannot 
 receive the homage of the grandees of the court until he has 
 paid his to his mother. The latter is the first and constant 
 counsellor of her son, and all announcements concerning his 
 family are made in her name. — The merits of a son are 
 ascribed not to him, but to his father. When on one occa- 
 sion the prime minister asked the Emperor to confer titles 
 of honour on his father, the Emperor issued an edict in 
 
128 PAKT I. THE ORIENTAL "WORLD. 
 
 which it was said : " Famine was desolating the Empire 
 Thy father gave rice to the starving. What beneficence 
 The Empire was on the edge of ruin : Thy father defended 
 it at the hazard of his life. What fidelity ! The government 
 of the kingdom was entrusted to thy father: he made 
 excellent laws, maintained peace and concord with the 
 neighbouring princes, and asserted the rights of my crown. 
 What wisdom ! The title therefore which I award to him 
 is : Beneficent, Eaithful and Wise." — The Son had done all 
 that is here ascribed to the Father. In this way ancestors— a 
 fashion the reverse of our's — obtain titles of honour through 
 their posterity. But in return, every Father of a Family is 
 responsible for the transgressions of his descendants ; duties 
 ascend, but none can be properly said to descend. 
 
 It is a great object with the Chinese, to have children 
 who may give them the due honours of burial, pay respect 
 to their memory after death, and decorate their grave. 
 Although a Chinese may have many wives, one only is the 
 mistress of the house, and the children of the subordinate 
 wives have to honour her absolutely as a mother. If a Chinese 
 husband has no children by any of his wives, he may pro- 
 ceed to adoption with a view to this posthumous honour. 
 For it is an indispensable requirement that the grave 
 of parents be annually visited. Here lamentations are 
 annually renewed, and many, to give full vent to their grief, 
 remain there sometimes one or two months. The body of a 
 deceased father is often kept three or four months in the 
 house, and during this time no one may sit down on a chair 
 or sleep in a bed. Every family in China has a Hall of 
 Ancestors where all the members annually assemble ; there 
 are placed representations of those who have filled exalted 
 posts, while the names of those men and women who have been 
 of less importance in the family are inscribed on tablets ; the 
 whole family then partake of a meal together, and the poor 
 members are entertained by the more wealthy. It is said 
 that a Mandarin who had become a Christian, having ceased 
 to honour his ancestors in this way, exposed himself to 
 great persecutions on the part of his relatives. The same 
 minuteness of regulation which prevails in the relation 
 between father and children, characterizes also that be- 
 tween the elder brother and the younger ones. The 
 
SECT. I. CHINA. 
 
 129 
 
 former has, though in a less degree than parents, claims to 
 reverence. 
 
 This family basis is also the basis of the Constitution, if 
 we can speak of such. For although the Emperor has the 
 right of a Monarch, standing at the summit of a political 
 edifice, he exercises it paternally. He is the Patriarch, and 
 everything in the State that can make any claim to reverence 
 is attached to him. For the Emperor is chief both in reli- 
 gious affairs and in science, — a subject which will be treated 
 of in detail further on. — This paternal care on the part of the 
 Emperor, and the spirit of his subjects, — who like children 
 do not advance beyond the ethical principle of the family 
 circle, and can gain for themselves no independent and civil 
 freedom, — makes the whole an empire, administration, and 
 social code, which is at the same time moral and thoroughly 
 prosaic, — that is, a product of the Understanding without 
 free Reason and Imagination. 
 
 The Emperor claims the deepest reverence. In virtue of 
 his position he is obliged personally to manage the govern- 
 ment, and must himself be acquainted with and direct the 
 legislative business of the Empire, although the Tribunals 
 give their assistance. Notwithstanding this, there is little 
 room for the exercise of his individual will ; for the whole 
 government is conducted on the basis of certain ancient 
 maxims of the Empire, while his constant oversight is not 
 the less necessary. The imperial princes are therefore edu- 
 cated on the strictest plan. Their physical frames are 
 hardened by discipline, and the sciences are their occupation 
 from their earliest years. Their education is conducted 
 , under the Emperor's superintendence, and they are early 
 i taught that the Emperor is the head of the State and there- 
 t fore must appear as the first and best in everything. An 
 i examination of the princes takes place every year, and a 
 circumstantial report of the affair is published through the 
 whole Empire, which feels the deepest interest in these 
 i matters. China has therefore succeeded in getting the great- 
 i est and best governors, to whom the expression " Solomonian 
 Wisdom " might be applied ; and the present Mantchoo 
 dynasty has especially distinguished itself by abilities of 
 mind and body. All the ideals of princes and of princely 
 education which have been so numerous and varied since the 
 
 K 
 
130 
 
 PART I. THE ORIENTAL WORLD. 
 
 appearance of Eenelon's "Telemaque" are realized her 
 In Europe there can be no Solomons. But here is the pla 
 and the necessity for such government ; since the rectitud 
 the prosperity, the security of all, depend on the one impul 
 given to the first link in the entire chain of this hierarchy 
 The deportment of the Emperor is represented to us as 1 
 the highest degree simple, natural, noble and intelligen 
 Eree from a proud taciturnity or repelling hauteur in speec 
 or manners, he lives in the consciousness of his own dignit 
 and in the exercise of imperial duties to whose observane 
 he has been disciplined from his earliest youth. Beside 
 the imperial dignity there is properly no elevated rank, n 
 nobility among the Chinese ; only the princes of the imperial 
 house, and the sons of the ministers enjoy any precedence 
 of the kind, and they rather by their position than by their 
 birth. Otherwise all are equal, and only those have a share 
 in the administration of affairs who have ability for it. Offi- 
 cial stations are therefore occupied by men of the greatest 
 intellect and education. The Chinese State has conse- 
 quently been often set up as an Ideal which may serve even 
 us for a model. 
 
 The next thing to be considered is the administration of 
 the Empire. We cannot speak, in reference to China, of a 
 Constitution; for this would iir ply that individuals and cor- 
 porations have independent rights — partly in respect of their 
 particular interests, partly in respect of the entire State. 
 This element must be wanting here, and we can only speak 
 of an administration of the Empire. In China, we have the 
 reality of absolute equality, and all the differences that exist 
 are possible only in connection with that administration, 
 and in virtue of the worth which a person may acquire, 
 enabling him to fill a high post in the Government. 
 Since equality prevails in China, but without any freedom, 
 despotism is necessarily the mode of government. Among 
 us, men are equal only before the law, and in the respect 
 paid to the property of each ; but they have also many inte- 
 rests and peculiar privileges, which must be guaranteed, if 
 we are to have what we call freedom. But in the Chinese 
 Empire these special interests enjoy no consideration on their 
 own account, and the government proceeds from the Empe- 
 ror alone, who sets it in movement as a hierarchy of officials 
 
SECT. t. cmxA. 
 
 131 
 
 or Mandarins. Of these, there are two kinds — learned and 
 military Mandarins — the latter corresponding to our Officers. 
 The Learned Mandarins constitute the higher rank, for, in 
 China, civilians take precedence of the military. Govern- 
 ment officials are educated at the schools ; elementary schools 
 are instituted for obtaining elementary knowledge. Insti- 
 tutions for higher cultivation, such as our Universities, may, 
 perhaps, be said not to exist. Those who wish to attain 
 high official posts must undergo several examinations, — usu- 
 ally three in number. To the third and last examination — at 
 which the Emperor himself is present — only those can be 
 admitted who have passed the first and second with credit ; 
 and the reward for having succeeded in this, is the imme- 
 diate introduction into the highest Council of the Empire. 
 The sciences, an acquaintance with which is especially re- 
 quired, are the History of the Empire, Jurisprudence, and 
 the science of customs and usages, and of the organization 
 and administration of government. Besides this, the Man- 
 darins are said to have a talent for poetry of the most refined 
 ! order. "We have the means of judging of this, particularly 
 from the Eomance, Ju-kiao-li, or, " The Two Cousins," trans- 
 lated by Abel Eemusat : in this, a youth is introduced who 
 having finished his studies, is endeavouring to attain high dig- 
 nities. The officers of the army, also, must have some mental 
 acquirements ; they too are examined ; but civil functionaries 
 enjoy, as stated above, far greater respect. At the great 
 festivals the Emperor appears with a retinue of two thousand 
 Doctors, i.e. Mandarins in Civil Offices, and the same num- 
 ber of military Mandarins. (In the whole Chinese State, 
 there are about 15,000 civil, and 20,000 military Mandarins.) 
 The Mandarins who have not yet obtained an office, never- 
 theless belong to the Court, and are obliged to appear at 
 the great festivals in the Spring and Autumn, when the 
 Emperor himself guides the plough. These functionaries 
 are divided into eight classes. The first are those that, at- 
 tend the Emperor, then follow the viceroys, and so on. The 
 Emperor governs by means of administrative bodies, for the 
 most part composed of Mandarins. The Council of the 
 Empire is the highest body of the kind : it consists of the 
 most learned and talented men. Erom these are chosen the 
 presidents of the other colleges. The greatest publicity 
 
 e 2 
 
132 
 
 PAET I. THE OEIENTAL WOELD. 
 
 prevails in the business of government. The subordinate 
 officials report to the Council of the Empire, and the latter 
 lay the matter before the Emperor, whose decision is made 
 known in the Court Journal. The Emperor often accuses 
 himself of faults ; and should his princes have been unsuc- 
 cessful in their examination, he blames them severely. In 
 every Ministry, and in various parts of the Empire, there is 
 a Censor (Ko-tao), who has to give the Emperor an account 
 of everything. These Censors enjoy a permanent office, 
 and are very much feared. They exercise a strict surveil- 
 lance over everything that concerns the government, and the 
 public and private conduct of the Mandarins, and make their 
 report immediately to the Emperor. They have also the 
 right of remonstrating with and blaming Am. The Chinese 
 History gives many examples of the noble-mindedness and 
 courage of these Ko-taos. For example : A Censor had 
 remonstrated with a tyrannical sovereign, but had been se- 
 verely repulsed. Nevertheless, he was not turned away 
 from his . purpose, but betook himself once more to the 
 Emperor to renew his remonstrances. Foreseeing his death, 
 he had the coffin brought in with him, in which he was to be 
 buried. It is related of the Censors, that, — cruelly lacerated 
 by the torturers and unable to utter a sound, — they have 
 even written their animadversions with their own blood in the 
 sand. These Censors themselves form yet another Tribunal 
 which has the oversight of the whole Empire. The Manda- 
 rins are responsible also for performing duties arising from 
 unforeseen exigencies in the State. If famine, disease, 
 conspiracy, religious disturbances occur, they have to report 
 the facts; not, however, to wait for further orders from 
 government, but immediately to act as the case requires. * 
 The whole of the administration is thus covered by a net- 
 work of officials. Functionaries are appointed to superin- 
 tend the roads, the rivers, and the coasts. Everything is | 
 arranged with the greatest minuteness. In particular, great 
 attention is paid to the rivers ; in the Shu-King are to be 
 found many edicts of the Emperor, designed to secure the I 
 land from inundations. The gates of every town are guarded i 
 by a watch, and the streets are barred all night. Grovern- 1 
 ment officers are always answerable to the higher Council. I 
 Every Mandarin is also bound to make known the faults he I 
 
SECT. I. CHINA. 
 
 133 
 
 has committed, every five years ; and the trustworthiness of 
 his statement is attested by a Board of Control — the Cen- 
 sorship. In the case of any grave crime not confessed, the 
 Mandarins and their families are punished most severely. 
 Prom all this it is clear that the Emperor is the centre, around 
 which everything turns ; consequently the well-being of 
 the country and people depends on him . The whole hierarchy 
 of the administration works more or less according to a set- 
 tled routine, which in a peaceful condition of things becomes 
 a convenient habit. Uniform and regular, like the course 
 of nature, it goes its own way, at one time as at another 
 time ; but the Emperor is required to be the moving, ever 
 wakeful, spontaneously active Soul. If then the per- 
 sonal character of the Emperor is not of the order described, 
 — namely, thoroughly moral, laborious, and while maintaining 
 dignity, full of energy, — every thing is relaxed, and the 
 government is paralyzed from head to foot, and given over 
 to carelessness and caprice. Eor there is no other legal 
 power or institution extant, but this superintendence and 
 oversight of the Emperor. It is not their own conscience, 
 their own honour, which keeps the officers of government 
 up to their duty, but an external mandate and the severe 
 sanctions by which it is supported. In the instance of the 
 revolution that occurred in the middle of the seventeenth 
 century, the last Emperor of the dynasty was very amiable 
 and honourable ; but through the mildness of his character, 
 the reins of government were relaxed, and disturbances 
 naturally ensued. The rebels called the Mantchoos into the 
 country. The Emperor killed himself to avoid falling into 
 the hands of his enemies, and with his blood wrote on the 
 border of his daughter's robe a few words, in which he com- 
 plained bitterly of the injustice of his subjects. A. Man- 
 darin, who was with him, buried him, and then killed himself 
 on his grave. The Empress and her attendants followed the 
 example. The last prince of the imperial house, who was 
 besieged in a distant province, fell into the hands of the 
 enemy and was put to death. All the other attendant 
 Mandarins died a voluntary death. 
 
 Passing from the administration to the Jurisprudence of 
 China, we find the subjects regarded as in a state of nonage, 
 in virtue of the principle of patriarchal government. Iso 
 
134 
 
 PAKT I. THE ORIENTAL WORLD. 
 
 independent classes or orders, as in India, have interests of 
 their own to defend. All is directed and superintended 
 from above. All legal relations are definitely settled by 
 rules ; free sentiment — the moral stand-point generally — is 
 thereby thoroughly obliterated.* It is formally determined 
 by the laws in what way the members of the family should be 
 disposed towards each other, and the transgression of these 
 laws entails in some cases severe punishment. The second 
 point to be noticed here, is the legal externality of the 
 Family relations, which becomes almost slavery. Every one 
 has the power of selling himself and his children; every 
 Chinese buys his wife. Only the chief wife is a free woman. 
 The concubines are slaves, and — like the children and every 
 other chattel — may be seized upon in case of confiscation. 
 
 A third point is, that punishments are generally corporal 
 chastisements. Among us, this would be an insult to 
 honour ; not so in China, where the feeling of honour 
 has not yet developed itself. A dose of cudgelling is the 
 most easily forgotten ; yet it is the severest punishment 
 for a man of honour, who desires not to be esteemed physi- 
 cally assailable, but who is vulnerable in directions implying 
 a more refined sensibility. But the Chinese do not recognize 
 a subjectivity in honour ; they are the subjects rather of 
 corrective than retributive punishment — as are children 
 among us ; for corrective punishment aims at improvement, 
 that which is retributive implies veritable imputation of guilt. 
 In the corrective, the deterring principle is only the fear of 
 punishment, not any consciousness of wrong ; for here we 
 cannot presume upon any reflection upon the nature of the 
 action itself. Among the Chinese all crimes — those com- 
 mitted against the laws of the Family relation, as well as 
 against the State — are punished externally. Sons who fail in 
 paying due honour to their Father or Mother, younger 
 
 * It is evident that the term rt moral stand-point" is used here in ttie 
 strict sense in which Hegel has defined it, in his " Philosophy of Law," 
 as that of the self-determination of subjectivity, free conviction of the 
 Good. The reader, therefore, should not misunderstand the use thatcon- 
 tinues to be made of the terms, morality, moral government, &c. in 
 reference to the Chinese ; as they denote morality only in the loose 
 and ordinary meaning of the word,— precepts or commands given with a 
 view to producing good behaviour, — without bringing into relief the 
 element of internal conviction. — Ed. 
 
SECT. I. CHINA. 
 
 135 
 
 brothers who are not sufficiently respectful to elder ones, are 
 bustinadoed. If a son complains of injustice done to him by 
 his father, or a younger brother by an elder, he receives a 
 hundred blows with a bamboo, and is banished for three 
 years, if he is in the right ; if not, he is strangled. If a 
 son should raise his hand against his father, he is condemned 
 to have his flesh torn from his body with red-hot pincers. 
 The relation between husband and wife is, like all other 
 family relations, very highly esteemed, and unfaithfulness, — 
 which, however, on account of the seclusion in which the 
 women are kept, can very seldom present itself, — meets 
 with severe animadversion. Similar penalties await the 
 exhibition on the part of a Chinese of greater affection to 
 one of his inferior wives than to the matron who heads his 
 establishment, should the latter complain of such disparage- 
 ment. In China, every Mandarin is authorized to inflict 
 blows with the bamboo ; even the highest and most 
 illustrious,— Ministers, Viceroys, and even the favourites of 
 the Emperor himself, — are punished in this fashion. The 
 friendship of the Emperor is not withdrawn on account of 
 such chastisement, and they themselves appear not sensibly 
 touched by it. "When, on one occasion, the last English 
 embassy to China was conducted home from the palace by 
 the princes and their retinue, the Master of the Ceremonies, 
 in order to make room, without any ceremony cleared the 
 way among the princes and nobles with a whip. 
 
 As regards responsibility, the distinction between malice 
 prepense and blameless or accidental commission of an act 
 is not regarded ; for accident among the Chinese is as much 
 charged with blame, as intention. Death is the penalty of ac- 
 cidental homicide. This ignoring of the distinction between 
 accident and intention occasions most of the disputes between 
 the English and the Chinese ; for should the former be at- 
 tacked by the latter, — should a ship of war, believing itself at- 
 tacked, defend itself, and a Chinese be killed as the conse- 
 quence, — the Chinese are accustomed to require that the 
 Englishman who fired the fatal shot should lose his life. Every 
 one who is in anyway connectedwith the transgressor, shares, 
 — especially in the case of crimes against the Emperor, — the 
 ruin of the actual offender: all his near kinsmen are tortured 
 to death. The printers of an objectionable book and thos* 
 
13G 
 
 PA ET I. TIIE ORIENTAL WORLD. 
 
 who read it, are similarly exposed to the vengeance of the law 
 The direction which this state of things gives to private r~ 
 venge is singular. It may be said of the Chinese that the 
 are extremely sensitive to injuries and of a vindictive natur 
 To satisfy his revenge the offended person does not venture t 
 kill his opponent, because the whole family of the assassi 
 would be put to death ; he therefore inflicts an injury o 
 himself, to ruin his adversary. In many towns it has bee 
 deemed necessary to contract the openings of wells, to put 
 stop to suicides by drowning. For when any one h 
 committed suicide, the laws ordain that the strictest investi- 
 gation shall be made into the cause. All the enemies of th 
 suicide are arrested and put to the torture, and if the perso 
 who has committed the insult which led to the act, can b 
 discovered, he and his whole family are executed. In case o 
 insult therefore, a Chinese prefers killing himself rather th 
 his opponent ; since in either case he must die, but in th 
 former contingency will have the due honours of burial, an 
 may cherish the hope that his family will acquire the pro 
 perty of his adversary. Such is the fearful state of thin 
 in regard to responsibility and non-responsibility ; all sub 
 jective freedom and moral concernment with an action i 
 ignored. In the Mosaic Laws, where the distinction betwee 
 dolus, culpa, and casus, is also not yet clearly recognized 
 there is nevertheless an asylum opened for the innocent homi 
 cide, to which he may betake himself. — There is in Chi" 
 no distinction in the penal code between higher and lowe 
 classes. A field-marshal of the Empire, who had very muc 
 distinguished himself, was traduced on some account, t 
 the Emperor ; and the punishment for the alleged crime, w 
 that he should be a spy upou those who did not fulfil the - ' 
 duty in clearing away the snow from the streets. — Amon 
 the legal relations of the Chinese we have also to noti 
 changes in the rights of possession and the introductio 
 of slavery, which is connected there with it. The soil 
 China, in which the chief possessions of the Chinese consis 
 was regarded only at a late epoch as essentially the propert 
 of the State. At that time the Ninth of all monies fro 
 estates was allotted by law to the Emperor. At a still late 
 epoch serfdom was established, and its enactment has bee 
 ascribed to the Emperor Shi-hoang-ti, who in the year 21 
 
SECT. I. CHINA. 
 
 137 
 
 B. C, built the Great Wall ; who had all the writings that 
 recorded the ancient rights of the Chinese, burned ; and who 
 brought many independent principalities of China under his 
 dominion. His wars caused the conquered lands to become 
 private property, and the dwellers on these lands, serfs. In 
 China, however, the distinction between Slavery and freedom 
 is necessarily, not great, since all are equal before the Em- 
 peror — that is, all are alike degraded. As no honour exists, 
 and no one has an individual right in respect of others, the 
 consciousness of debasement predominates, and this easily 
 passes into that of utter abandonment. With this aban- 
 donment is connected the great immorality of the Chinese. 
 They are notorious for deceiving wherever they can. Friend 
 deceives friend, and no one resents the attempt at deception 
 on the part of another, if the deceit has not succeeded 
 in its object, or comes to the knowledge of the person sought 
 to be defrauded. Their frauds are most astutely and craft- 
 ily performed, so that Europeans have to be painfully cautious 
 in dealing with them. Their consciousness of moral aban- 
 donment shews itself also in the fact that the religion of Eo 
 is so widely diffused ; a religion which regards as the Highest 
 and Absolute — as God— pure Nothing ; which sets up con- 
 tempt for individuality, for personal existence, as the 
 highest perfection. 
 
 We come, then, to the consideration of the religious side 
 of the Chinese Polity. In the patriarchal condition the 
 religious exaltation of man has merely a human reference, — 
 simple morality and right-doing. The Absolute itself, is 
 regarded partly as the abstract, simple rule of this right- 
 doing — eternal rectitude ; partly as the power whichis its sanc- 
 tion. Except in these simple aspects, all the relations of the 
 natural world, the postulates of subjectivity — of heart and 
 soul — are entirely ignored. The Chinese in their patriarchal 
 despotism need no such connection or mediation with the 
 Highest Being ; for education, the laws of morality and 
 courtesy, and the commands and government of the Emperor 
 embody all such connection and mediation as far as they feel 
 , the need of it. The Emperor, as he is the Supreme Head of 
 ; the State, is also the Chief of its religion. Consequently, 
 religion is in China essentially State-E-eligion. The distinc- 
 tion between it and Lamaism must be observed, since the 
 
138 
 
 PAKT I. THE ORIENTAL WORLD. 
 
 latter is not developed to a State, but contains religion as 
 free, spiritual, disinterested consciousness. That Chine 
 religion therefore, cannot be what we call religion. P 
 to us religion means the retirement of the Spirit with" 
 itself, in contemplating its essential nature, its inmost Bein 
 In these spheres, then, man is withdrawn from his relatio 
 to the State, and betaking himself to this retirement, is ab 
 to release himself from the power of secular government. B 
 in China religion has not risen to this grade, for true fait 
 is possible only where individuals can seclude themselve 
 — can exist for themselves independently of any extern 
 compulsory power. In China the individual has no such lifi 
 — does not enjoy this independence : in any direction 
 is therefore dependent ; in religion as well as in other thing 
 that is, dependent on objects of nature, of which the mo 
 exalted is the material heaven. On this depend harvest, t* 
 seasons of the year, the abundance and sterility of crops. T 
 Emperor, as crown of all, — the embodiment of power, — akr 
 approaches heaven ; individuals, as such, enjoy no such p 
 vilege. He it is, who presents the offerings at the fo 
 feasts ; gives thanks at the head of his court, for the harves 
 and invokes blessings on the sowing of the seed. Th 
 "heaven" might be taken in the sense of our term " God, 
 as the Lord of Nature ; (we say, for example, u Heaven p" 
 tect us ! ") ; but such a relation is beyond the scope 
 Chinese thought, for here the one isolated self-consciousne 
 is substantial being, the Emperor himself, the Supre 
 Power. Heaven has therefore no higher meaning than N 
 ture. The Jesuits indeed, yielded to Chinese notions so fr 
 as to call the Christian Grod, " Heaven" — "Tien but th 
 were on that account accused to the Pope by other Christi 
 Orders. The Pope consequently sent a Cardinal to Chi 
 who died there. A bishop who was subsequently dispatche 
 enacted that instead of "Heaven," the term "Lord 
 Heaven " should be adopted . The relation to Tien is su 
 posed to be such, that the good conduct of individuals an 
 of the Emperor brings blessing ; their transgressions on t' 
 other hand cause want and evil of all kinds. The Chine 
 religion involves that primitive element of magical influen 
 over nature, inasmuch as human conduct absolutely dete 
 mines the course of events. If the Emperor behaves well, 
 
SECT. T. CHINA. 
 
 139 
 
 prosperity cannot but ensue ; Heaven must ordain prosperity. 
 A second side of this religion is, that as the general aspect 
 of the relation to Heaven is bound up with the person of 
 the Emperor, he has also its more special bearings in his 
 hands ; viz. the particular well-being of individuals and 
 provinces. These have each an appropriate Genius (Chen), 
 which is subject to the Emperor, who pays adoration only 
 to the general Power of Heaven, while the several Spirits 
 of the natur.il world follow his laws. He is thus made 
 the proper legislator for Heaven as well as for earth. To 
 these Genii, each of which enjoys a worship peculiar to 
 itself, certain sculptured forms are assigned. These are dis- 
 gusting idols, which have not yet attained the dignity of art, 
 because nothing spiritual is represented in them. They are 
 therefore only terrific, frightful and negative ; they keep 
 watch, — as among the Greeks do the River-Gods, the 
 Nymphs, and Dryads, — over single elements and natural 
 objects. Each of the five Elements has its genius, distin- 
 guished by a particular colour. The sovereignty of the 
 dynasty that occupies the throne of China also depends on 
 a Genius, and this one has a yellow colour. Not less does 
 every province and town, every mountain and river possess 
 an appropriate Genius. All these Spirits are subordinate to 
 the Emperor, and in the Annual Directory of the Empire are 
 registered the functionaries and genii to whom such or such 
 a brook, river, &c, has been entrusted. If a mischance 
 occurs in any part, the Genius is deposed as a Mandarin 
 would be. The Genii have innumerable temples (in Pekin 
 nearly 1 0,000) to which a multitude of priests and convents 
 are attached. These " Bonzes" live unmarried, and in all 
 cases of distress are applied to by the Chinese for counsel. 
 In other respects, however, neither they nor the temples are 
 much venerated. Lord Macartney's Embassy was even quar- 
 tered in a temple, — such buildings being used as inns. The 
 Emperor has sometimes thought fit to secularise many 
 thousands of these convents ; to compel the Bonzes to 
 return to civil life ; and to impose taxes on the estates 
 appertaining to the foundations. The Bonzes are sooth- 
 sayers and exorcists : for the Chinese are given up to 
 boundless superstitions. This arises from the want of 
 subjective independence, and pre-supposes the very opposite 
 
140 PAltT I. THE ORIENTAL WORLD. 
 
 of freedom of Spirit. In every undertaking, — e.g. if the site 
 of a house,or of a grave, &c, is to be determined, — the advice 
 of the Soothsayers is asked. In the T-King certain lines 
 are given, which supply fundamental forms and categories, — 
 on account of which this book is called the " Book of Fates." 
 A certain meaning is ascribed to the combination of such 
 lines, and prophetic' announcements are deduced from this 
 groundwork. Or a number of little sticks are thrown into 
 the air, and the fate in question is prognosticated from the 
 way in which they fall. What we regard as chance, as na- 
 tural connection, the Chinese seek to deduce or attain by 
 magical arts ; and in this particular also, their want of 
 spiritual religion is manifested. 
 
 With this deficiency of genuine subjectivity is connected 
 moreover, the form which Chinese Science assumes. In 
 mentioning Chinese sciences we encounter a considerable 
 clamour about their perfection and antiquity. Approaching 
 the subject more closely, we see that the sciences enjoy very 
 great respect, and that they are even publicly extolled and 
 promoted by the Government. The Emperor himself stands 
 at the apex of literature. A college exists whose special 
 business it is to edit the decrees of the Emperor, with a 
 view to their being composed in the best style ; and this 
 redaction assumes the character of an important affair of 
 State. The Mandarins in their notifications have to study 
 the same perfection of style, for the form is expected to 
 correspond with the excellence of the matter. One of the 
 highest Governmental Boards is the Academy of Sciences. 
 The Emperor himself examines its members ; they live in the 
 palace, and perform the functions of Secretaries, Historians of 
 the Empire, Natural Philosophers, and Geographers. Should 
 a new law be proposed, the Academy must report upon it. 
 By way of introduction to such report it must give the 
 history of existing enactments ; or if the law in question 
 affects foreign countries, a description of them is required. 
 The Emperor himself writes the prefaces to the works thus 
 composed. Among recent Emperors Kien-long especially 
 distinguished himself by his scientific acquirements. He 
 himself wrote much, but became far more remarkable 
 by publishing the principal works that China had pro- 
 duced. At the head of the commission appointed to correct 
 
SECT. I. CHTNA. 
 
 141 
 
 the press, was a Prince of the Empire ; and after the work 
 had passed through the hands of all, it came once more back 
 to the Emperor, who severely punished every error that had 
 been committed. 
 
 Though in one aspect the sciences appear thus preeminently 
 honoured and fostered, there is wanting to them on the 
 other side that free ground of subjectivity, and that properly 
 scientific interest, which makes them a truly theoretical oc- 
 cupation of the mind. A free, ideal, spiritual kingdom has 
 here no place. What may be called scientific is of a merely 
 empirical nature, and is made absolutely subservient to the 
 Useful on behalf of the State — its requirements and those 
 of individuals. The nature of their Written Language is at 
 the outset a great hindrance to the development of the 
 sciences. Rather, conversely, because a true scientific in- 
 terest does not exist, the Chinese have acquired no better 
 instrument for representing and imparting thought. The} r 
 have, as is well known, beside a Spoken Language, a 
 Written Language ; which does not express, as our does, in- 
 dividual sounds — does not present the spoken words to the eye, 
 but represents the ideas themselves by signs. This appears 
 at first sight a great advantage, and has gained the suffrages 
 of many great men, — among others, of Leibnitz. In reality 
 it is anything but such. For if we consider in the first place, 
 the effect of such a mode of writing on the Spoken Language, 
 we shall find this among the Chinese very imperfect, on 
 account of that separation. Eor our Spoken Language is 
 matured to distinctness chiefly through the necessity of 
 finding signs for each single sound, which latter, by reading, 
 we learn to express distinctly. The Chinese, to whom such 
 a means of orthoepic development is wanting, do not mature 
 the modifications of sounds in their language to distinct ar- 
 ticulations capable of being represented by letters and syl- 
 lables. Their Spoken Language consists of an inconsiderable 
 number of monosyllabic words, which are used with more 
 than one signification. The sole methods of denoting dis- 
 tinctions of meaning are the connection, the accent, and the 
 pronunciation, — quicker or slower, softer or louder. The ears 
 of the Chinese have become very sensible to such distinctions. 
 Thus I find that the word Po has eleven different meanings 
 according to the tone: denoting "glass" — "to boil" — 
 
142 
 
 PART I. THE ORIENTAL WORLD. 
 
 " to winnow wheat " — u to cleave asunder" — "to water'* — 
 " to prepare " — an old woman "—"a slave" — " a liberal 
 man" — "a wise person" — " a little." — As to their Written 
 Language, I will specify only the obstacles which it presents 
 to the advance of the sciences. Our Written Language is 
 very simple for a learner, as we analyse our Spoken Lan- 
 guage into about twenty-five articulations, by which ana- 
 lysis, speech is rendered definite, the multitude of possible 
 sounds is limited, and obscure intermediate sounds are 
 banished : we have to learn only these signs and their 
 combinations. Instead of twenty-five signs of this sort, the 
 Chinese have many thousands to learn. The number neces- 
 sary for use is reckoned at 9353, or even 10,516, if we add 
 those recently introduced ; and the number of characters 
 generally, for ideas and their combinations as they are 
 presented in books, amounts to from 80 to 90,000. As 
 to the sciences themselves, History among the Chinese com- 
 prehends the bare and definite facts, without any opinion or 
 reasoning upon them. In the same way their Jurisprudence 
 gives only fixed laws, and their Ethics only determinate 
 duties, without raising the question of a subjective founda- 
 tion for them. The Chinese have, however, in addition to 
 other sciences, a Philosophy, whose elementary principles 
 are of great antiquity, since the Y-King — the Booh of Fata 
 — treats of Origination and Destruction. In this book are 
 found the purely abstract ideas of Unity and Duality ; the 
 Philosophy of the Chinese appears therefore to proceed from 
 the same fundamental ideas as that of Pythagoras.* The 
 fundamental principle recognised is Reason — Tao ; that es- 
 sence lying at the basis of the whole, which effects everything. 
 To become acquainted with its forms is regarded among the 
 Chinese also as the highest science ; yet this has no connec- 
 tion with the educational pursuits which more nearly concern 
 the State. The works of Lao-tse, and especially his work 
 " Tao-te-King," are celebrated. Confucius visited this philo- 
 sopher in the sixth century before Christ, to testify his re- 
 verence lor him. Although every Chinaman is at liberty to 
 study these philosophical works, a particular sect, calling 
 itself Tao-tse, " Honourers of Reason," makes this study 
 
 * Vide Hegel's " Vorlesungen über die Geschichte der Philosophic" 
 vol. i. p. 138, &c. 
 
SECT. I. CHINA. 
 
 143 
 
 its special business. Those who compose it are isolated 
 from civil life ; and there is much that is enthusiastic and 
 mystic intermingled with their views. They believe, for 
 instance, that he who is acquainted with Reason, possesses 
 an instrument of universal power, which may be regarded as 
 all-powerful, and which communicates a supernatural might ; 
 so that the possessor is enabled by it to exalt himself to 
 Heaven, and is not subject to death (much the same as the 
 universal Elixir of Life once talked of among us.) With the 
 works of Confucius we have become more intimately ac- 
 quainted. To him, China owes the publication of the 
 Kings, and many original works on Morality besides, which 
 form the basis of the customs and conduct of the Chinese. 
 In the principal work of Confucius, which has been trans- 
 lated into English, are found correct moral apophthegms ; 
 but there is a circumlocution, a reflex character, and cir- 
 cuitousness in the thought, which prevents it from rising 
 above mediocrity. As to the other sciences, they are not 
 regarded as such, but rather as branches of knowledge for 
 the behoof of practical ends. The Chinese are far behind 
 in Mathematics, Physics, and Astronomy, notwithstanding 
 their quondam reputation in regard to them. They knew 
 many things at a time when Europeans had not discovered 
 them, but they have not understood how to apply their 
 knowledge : as e. g. the Magnet, and the Art of Printing. 
 But they have made no advance in the application of these 
 discoveries. In the latter, for instance, they continue to 
 engrave the letters in wooden blocks and then print them 
 off: they know nothing of moveable types. Gunpowder, 
 too, they pretended to have invented before the Europeans ; 
 but the Jesuits were obliged to found their first cannon. 
 As to Mathematics, they understand well enough how to 
 reckon, but the higher aspect of the science is unknown. 
 The Chinese also have long passed as great astronomers. 
 Laplace has investigated their acquisitions in this department, 
 and discovered that they possess some ancient accounts and 
 notices of Lunar and Solar Eclipses ; but these certainly do 
 not constitute a science. The notices in question are, more- 
 over, so indefinite, that they cannot properly be put in the 
 category of knowledge. In the Shu-King, e. g. we have 
 two eclipses of the sun mentioned in a space of ioOO years. 
 
144 
 
 PART I. THE ORIENTAL WORLD. 
 
 The best evidence of the state of Astronomy among the 
 Chinese, is the fact that for many hundred years the Chinese 
 calendars have been made by Europeans. In earlier times, 
 when Chinese astronomers continued to compose the calendar, 
 false announcements of lunar and solar eclipses often oc- 
 curred, entailing the execution of the authors. The teles- 
 copes which the Chinese have received as presents from the 
 Europeans, are set up for ornament ; but they have not an 
 idea how to make further use of them. Medicine, too, is 
 studied by the Chinese, but only empirically ; and the 
 grossest superstition is connected with its practice. The 
 Chinese have as a general characteristic, a remarkable skill 
 in imitation, which, is exercised not merely in daily life, but 
 also in art. They have not yet succeeded in representing 
 the beautiful, as beautiful ; for in their painting, perspective 
 and shadow are wanting. And although a Chinese 
 painter copies European pictures (as the Chinese do every- 
 thing else) correctly ; although he observes accurately how 
 many scales a carp has ; how many indentations there are in 
 the leaves of a tree ; what is the form of various trees, and 
 how the branches bend ; — the Exalted, the Ideal and Beau- 
 tiful is not the domain of his art and skill. The Chinese 
 are, on the other hand, too proud to learn anything from \ 
 Europeans, although they must often recognize their su- 
 periority. A merchant in Canton had a European ship 
 built, but at the command of the Governor it was imme- 
 diately destroyed. The Europeans are treated as beggars, ■ 
 because they are compelled to leave their home, and seek 
 for support elsewhere than in their own country. Besides, 
 the Europeans, just because of their intelligence, have not j 
 yet been able to imitate the superficial and perfectly natural ■ 
 cleverness of the Chinese. Their preparation of varnishes, 
 — their working of metals, and especially their art of casting 
 them extremely thin, — their porcelain manufacture and many 1 
 other things, have not yet been completely mastered by 
 Europeans. 
 
 This is the character of the Chinese people in its various 
 aspects. Its distinguishing feature is, that everything 
 which belongs to Spirit, — unconstrained morality, in practice 
 and theory, Heart, inward Religion, Science and Art pro- 
 perly so called, — is alien to it. The Emperor always speaks 
 
SECT. II. INDIA. 
 
 145 
 
 with majesty and paternal kindness and tenderness to the 
 people ; who, however, cherish the meanest opinion of them- 
 selves, and believe that they are born only to drag the car of 
 Imperial Power. The burden which presses them to the 
 ground, seems to them to be their inevitable destiny ; aud 
 it appears nothing terrible to them to sell themselves as 
 slaves, and to eat the bitter bread of slavery. Suicide, the 
 result of revenge, and the exposure of children, as a com- 
 mon, even daily occurrence, shew the little respect in whicli 
 they hold themselves individually, and humanity in general. 
 And though there is no distinction conferred by birth, and 
 every one can attain the highest dignity, this very equality 
 testifies to no triumphant assertion of the worth of the inner 
 man, but a servile consciousness — one which has not yet 
 matured itself so far as to recognise distinctions. 
 
 SECTION II. 
 
 INDIA. 
 
 India, like China, is a phenomenon antique as well as 
 modern ; one which has remained stationary and fixed, and 
 has received a most perfect home-sprung development. It 
 has always been the land of imaginative aspiration, and 
 appears to us still as a Fairy region, an enchanted World. 
 In contrast with the Chinese State, which presents only 
 the most prosaic Understanding,* India is the region of 
 phantasy and sensibility. The point of advance in principle 
 which it exhibits to us may be generally stated as follows : — 
 In China the patriarchal principle rules a people in a condi- 
 tion of nonage, the part of whose moral resolution is oc- 
 cupied by the regulating law, and the moral oversight of the 
 Emperor. Now it is the interest of Spirit that external con- 
 ditions should become internal ones ; that the natural and 
 the spiritual world should be recognized in the subjective 
 aspect belonging to intelligence ; by which process the unity of 
 subjectivity and [positive] Being generally — or the Idealism 
 of Existence — is established. This Idealism, then, is found 
 
 * "Verstand" — "receptive understanding," in contrast with "Ver- 
 nunft," — " substantial and creative intellect." — Tr. 
 
 L 
 
146 
 
 PAßT I. THE ORIENTAL WOELD. 
 
 in India, but only as an Idealism of imagination, without 
 distinct conceptions ; — one which does indeed free existence 
 from Beginning and Matter, [liberates it from temporal 
 limitations and gross materiality], but changes everything 
 into the merely Imaginative ; for although the latter appears 
 interwoven with definite conceptions and Thought presents 
 itself as an occasional concomitant, this happens only 
 through accidental combination. Since, however, it is the 
 abstract and absolute Thought itself that enters into these 
 dreams as their material, we may say that Absolute Being 
 is presented here as in the ecstatic state of a dreaming 
 condition. For we have not the dreaming of an actual 
 Individual, possessing distinct personality, and simply unfet- 
 tering the latter from limitation, but we have the dreaming 
 of the unlimited absolute Spirit. 
 
 There is a beauty of a peculiar kind in women, in which 
 their countenance presents a transparency of skin, a light 
 and lovely roseate hue, which is unlike the complexion of 
 mere health and vital vigour, — a more refined bloom, breathed, 
 as it were, by the soul within, — and in which the features, 
 the light of the eye, the position of the mouth, appear soft, 
 yielding, and relaxed. This almost unearthly beauty is per- 
 ceived in women in those days which immediately succeed 
 child-birth ; when freedom from the burden of pregnancy and 
 the pains of travail is added to the joy of soul that welcomes 
 the gift of a beloved infant. A similar tone of beauty is 
 seen also in women during the magical somnambulic sleep, 
 connecting them with a world of superterrestrial beauty- A 
 great artist (Schoreel) has moreover given this tone to the 
 dying Mary, whose spirit is already rising to the regions of 
 the blessed, but once more, as it were, lights up her dying 
 countenance for a farewell kiss. Such a beauty we find also 
 in its loveliest form in the Indian World ; a beauty of ener- 
 vation in which all that is rough, rigid and contradictory is 
 dissolved, and we have only the soul in a state of emotion, — 
 a soul, however, in which the death of free self-reliant Spirit 
 is perceptible. For should we approach the charm of this 
 Flower-life, — a charm rich in imagination and genius, — in 
 which its whole environment and all its relations are per- 
 meated by the rose-breath of the Soul, and the "World is 
 transformed into a Garden of Love, — should we look at it 
 
SECT. II. INDIA. 
 
 147 
 
 more closely, and examine it in the light of Human Dignity 
 and Freedom, — the more attractive the first sight of it had 
 been, so much the more unworthy shall we ultimately find 
 it in every respect. 
 
 The character of Spirit in a state of Dream, as the generic 
 principle of the Hindoo Nature, must be further defined. 
 In a dream, the individual ceases to be conscious of self as 
 such, in contradistinction from objective existences. "When 
 awake, I exist for myself, and the rest of creation is an ex- 
 ternal, fixed objectivity, as I myself am for it. As exter- 
 nal, the rest of existence expands itself to a rationally con- 
 nected whole ; a system of relations, in which my individual 
 being is itself a member — an individual being united with 
 that totality. This is the sphere of Understanding. In the 
 state of dreaming, on the contrary, this separation is sus- 
 pended. Spirit has ceased to exist for itself in contrast with 
 alien existence, and thus the separation of the external and 
 individual dissolves before its universality — its essence. The 
 dreaming Indian is therefore all that we call finite and indi- 
 vidual ; and, at the same time — as infinitely universal and un- 
 limited — a something intrinsically divine. The Indian view 
 of things is a Universal Pantheism, a Pantheism, however, 
 of Imagination, not of Thought. One substance pervades 
 the Whole of things, and all individualizations are directly 
 vitalized and animated into particular Powers. The sensuous 
 matter and content is in each case simply and in the rough 
 taken up, and carried over into the sphere of the Universal 
 and Immeasurable. It is not liberated by the free power of 
 Spirit into a beautiful form, and idealized in the Spirit, so 
 that the sensuous might be a merely subservient and com- 
 pliant expression of the spiritual ; but [the sensuous object 
 itself] is expanded into the immeasurable and undefined, 
 and the Divine is thereby made bizarre, confused, and 
 ridiculous. These dreams are not mere fables — a play of 
 the imagination, in which the soul only revelled in fan- 
 tastic gambols : it is lost in them ; hurried to and fro by 
 these reveries, as by something that exists really and se- 
 riously for it. It is delivered over to these limited objects 
 as to its Lords and Gods. Everything, therefore — Sun, 
 Moon, Stars, the Ganges, the Indus, Beasts, Flowers — every- 
 thing is a God to it. And while, in this deification, the 
 
 l 2 
 
148 
 
 PART I. THE ORIENTAL WORLD. 
 
 finite loses its consistency and substantiality, intelligent 
 conception of it is impossible. Conversely the Divine, re- 
 garded as essentially changeable and unfixed, is also by the 
 base form which it assumes, defiled and made absurd. In 
 this universal deification of all finite existence, and conse- 
 quent degradation of the Divine, the idea of Theanthropy, 
 the incarnation of God, is not a particularly important con- 
 ception. The parrot, the cow, the ape, &c. are likewise 
 incarnations of God, yet are not therefore elevated above 
 their nature. The Divine is not individualized to a subject, 
 to concrete Spirit, but degraded to vulgarity and senseless- 
 ness. This gives us a general idea of the Indian view of the 
 Universe. Things are as much stripped of rationality, of 
 finite consistent stability of cause and effect, as man is of the 
 stedfastness of free individuality, of personality, and freedom. 
 
 Externally, India sustains manifold relations to the His- 
 tory of the World. In recent times the discovery has been 
 made, that the Sanscrit lies at the foundation of all those 
 farther developments which form the languages of Europe ; 
 e. g. the Greek, Latin, German. India, moreover, was the 
 centre of emigration for all the western world; but this 
 external historical relation is to be regarded rather as a 
 merely physical diffusion of peoples from this point. Al- 
 though in India the elements of further developments might 
 be discovered, and although we could find traces of their 
 being transmitted to the West, this transmission has been 
 nevertheless so abstract [so superficial], that that which 
 among later peoples attracts our interest, is not anything de- 
 rived from India, but rather something concrete, which they 
 themselves have formed, and in regard to which they have 
 done their best to forget Indian elements of culture. "The 
 spread of Indian culture is pre-historical, for History is 
 limited to that which makes an essential epoch in the deve- 
 lopment of Spirit. On the whole, the diffusion of Indian 
 culture is only a dumb, deedless expansion ; that is, it pre- 
 sents no political action. The people of India have achieved 
 no foreign conquests, but have been on every occasion van- 
 quished themselves. And as in this sileut way, Northern 
 India has been a centre of emigration, productive of merely 
 physical diffusion, India as a Land of Desire forms an essen- 
 tial element in General History. Erom the most ancient 
 
SECT. II. INDIA. 
 
 149 
 
 times downwards, all nations have directed their wishes and 
 longings to gaining access to the treasures of this land of 
 marvels, the most costly which the Earth presents ; trea- 
 sures of Nature — pearls, diamonds, perfumes, rose-essences, 
 elephants, lions, &c. — as also treasures of wisdom. The way 
 by which these treasures have passed to the West, has at ail 
 times been a matter of "World-historical importance, bound 
 up with the fate of nations. Those wishes have been realized ; 
 this Land of Desire has been attained ; there is scarcely any 
 great nation of the East, nor of the Modern European West, 
 that has not gained for itself a smaller or larger portion of it. 
 In the old world, Alexander the Great was the first to 
 penetrate by land to India, but even he only just touched 
 it. The Europeans of the modern world have been able to 
 enter into direct connection with this land of marvels only 
 circuitously from the other side ; and by way of the sea, 
 which, as has been said, is the general uniter of countries. 
 The English, or rather the East India Company, are the 
 lords of the land; for it is the necessary fate of Asiatic 
 Empires to be subjected to Europeans ; and China will, some 
 day or other, be obliged to submit to this fate. The num- 
 ber of inhabitants is near 200 millions, of whom from 100 to 
 112 millions are directly subject to the English. The 
 Princes who are not immediately subject to them have Eng- 
 lish Agents at their Courts, and English troops in their pay. 
 Since the country of the Mahrattas was conquered by the 
 English, no part of India has asserted its independence of 
 their sway. They have already gained a footing in the 
 Birman Empire, and passed the Burrampooter, which bounds 
 India on the east. 
 
 India Proper is the country which the English divide into 
 two large sections : the Deccan, — the great peninsula which 
 has the Bay of Bengal on the east, and the Indian Sea on the 
 west,— and Hindostan, formed by the valley of the Ganges, 
 and extending in the direction of Persia. To the north-east, 
 Hindostan is bordered by the Himmalaya, which has been 
 ascertained by Europeans to be the highest mountain range 
 in the world, for its summits are about 26,000 feet above the 
 level of the sea. On the other side of the mountains the 
 level again declines ; the dominion of the Chinese extends to 
 that point, and when the English wished to go to Lassa to 
 
150 PART I. THE ORIENTAL WORLD. 
 
 the Dalai-Lama, they were prevented by the Chinese. To- 
 wards the west of India flows the Indus, in which the five 
 rivers are united, which are called the Pentjäb (Punjab), into 
 which Alexander the Great penetrated. The dominion of 
 the EDglish does not extend to the Indus ; the sect of the 
 Sikhs inhabits that district, whose constitution is thoroughly 
 democratic, and who have broken off from the Indian as well 
 as from the Mohammedan religion, and occupy an interme- 
 diate ground, — acknowledging only one Supreme Being. 
 They are a powerful nation, and have reduced to subjection 
 Cabul and Cashmere. Besides these there dwell along the 
 Indus genuine Indian tribes of the Warrior-Caste. Between 
 the Indus and its twin-brother, the Ganges, are great plains. 
 The Ganges, on the other hand, forms large Kingdoms 
 around it, in which the sciences have been so highly deve- 
 loped, that the countries around the Ganges enjoy a still 
 greater reputation than those around the Indus. The 
 Kingdom of Bengal is especially flourishing. The Ner- 
 buddah forms the boundary between the Deccan and Hin- 
 dostan. The peninsula of the Deccan presents a far greater 
 variety than Hindostan, and its rivers possess almost as 
 great a sanctity as the Indus and the Ganges, — which latter 
 has become a general name for all the rivers in India, as the 
 River kut i'ioyj\v. "We call the inhabitants of the great 
 country which we have now to consider Indians, from the 
 river Indus (the English call them Hindoos). They them- 
 selves have never given a name to the whole, for it has never 
 become one Empire, and yet we consider it as such. 
 
 With regard to the political life of the Indians, we must 
 first consider the advance it presents in contrast with China. 
 In China there prevailed an equality among all the indi- 
 viduals composing the empire ; consequently all govern- 
 ment was absorbed in its centre, the Emperor, so that 
 individual members could not attain to independence and 
 subjective freedom. The next degree in advance of this 
 Unity is Difference, maintaining its independence against 
 the all-subduing power of Unity. An organic life requires in 
 the first place One Soul, and in the second place, a diver- 
 gence into differences, which become organic members, and 
 in their several offices develop themselves to a complete sys- 
 tem ; in such a way, however, that their activity reconstitutes 
 
SECT. II. INDIA. 
 
 151 
 
 that one soul. This freedom of separation is wanting in 
 China. The deficiency is that diversities cannot attain to 
 independent existence. In this respect, the essential advance 
 is made in India, viz. : that independent members ramify from 
 the unity of despotic power. Yet the distinctions which 
 these imply are referred to Nature. Instead of stimulating 
 the activity of a soul as their centre of union, and sponta- 
 neously realizing that soul, — as is the case in organic life, — 
 they petrify and become rigid, and by their stereotyped 
 character condemn the Indian people to the most degrading 
 spiritual serfdom. The distinctions in question are the 
 Castes. In every rational State there are distinctions which 
 must manifest themselves. Individuals must arrive at sub- 
 jective freedom, and in doing so, give an objective form to 
 these diversities. But Indian culture has not attained to a 
 recognition of freedom and inward morality ; the distinctions 
 which prevail are only those of occupations, and civil condi- 
 tions. In a free state also, such diversities give rise to par- 
 ticular classes, so combined, however, that their members 
 can maintain their individuality. In India we have only a 
 division in masses, — a division, however, that influences the 
 whole political life and the religious consciousness. The 
 distinctions of class, like that [rigid] Unity in China, remain 
 consequently on the same original grade of substantiality, i.e. 
 they are not the result of the free subjectivity of individuals. 
 Examining the idea of a State and its various functions, we 
 recognize the first essential function as that whose scope is 
 the absolutely Universal ; of which man becomes conscious 
 first in Eeligion, then in Science. God, the Divine [to 
 Qeiov~\ is the absolutely Universal. The highest class there- 
 fore will be the one by which the Divine is presented and 
 brought to bear on the community — the class of Brahmins. 
 The second element or class, will represent subjective power 
 and valour. Such power must assert itself, in order that the 
 whole may stand its ground, and retain its integrity against 
 other such totalities or states. This class is that of the 
 Warriors and Governors — the Csliatriyas ; although Brah- 
 mins often become governors. The third order of occupation 
 recognized is that which is concerned with the specialities of 
 life — the satisfying of its necessities — and comprehends agri- 
 culture, crafts and trade ; the class of the Vaisyas. Lastly, 
 
152 
 
 PART I. THE ORIENTAL WORLD. 
 
 the fourth element is the class of service, the mere instru 
 ment for the comfort of others, "whose business it is to wor] 
 for others for wages affording a scanty subsistence — th( 
 caste of Sudras. This servile class — properly speaking — 
 constitutes no special organic class in the state, because its 
 members only serve individuals : their occupations are there 
 fore dispersed among them and are consequently attached to 
 that of the previously mentioned castes. — Against the exist- 
 ence of "classes" generally, an objection has been brought,— 
 especially in modern times, — drawn from the consideration o 
 the State in its " aspect " of abstract equity. But equality ii 
 civil life is something absolutely impossible ; for individua 
 distinctions of sex and age will always assert themselves 
 and even if an equal share in the government is accorded 
 all citizens, women and children are immediately passed by 
 and remain excluded. The distinction between poverty an(" 
 riches, the influence of skill and talent, can be as little 
 ignored, — utterly refuting those abstract assertions. Bui 
 while this principle leads us to put up with variety of occu- 
 pations, and distinction of the classes to which they are 
 entrusted, we are met here in India by the peculiar circum- 
 stance that the individual belongs to such a class essentially 
 by birth, and is bound to it for life. All the concrete vita 
 lity that makes its appearance sinks back into death. A 
 chain binds down the life that was just upon the point o: 
 breaking forth. The promise of freedom which these dis 
 tinctions hold out is therewith completely nullified. Whal 
 birth has separated mere arbitrary choice has no right to joii 
 together again : therefore, the castes preserving distinctness 
 from their very origin, are presumed not to be mixed 01 
 united by marriage. Yet even Arrian (Ind. 11) reckoned 
 seven castes, and in later times more than thirty have beei 
 made out ; which, notwithstanding all obstacles, have arisen 
 from the union of the various classes. Polygamy necessarilj 
 tends to this. A Brahmin, e.g. is allowed three wives fron 
 the three other castes, provided he has first taken - one from 
 his own. The offspring of such mixtures originally belongee" 
 to no caste, but one of the kings invented a method of clas- 
 sifying these caste-less persons, which involved also the com- 
 mencement of arts and manufactures. The children ir 
 question were assigned to particular employments ; one 
 
SECT. II. INDIA. 
 
 153 
 
 section became weavers, another wrought in iron, and thus 
 different classes arose from these different occupations. The 
 highest of these mixed castes consists of those who are born 
 from the marriage of a Brahmin with a wife of the AVarrior 
 caste ; the lowest is that of the Chanddlas, who have to 
 remove corpses, to execute criminals, and to perform impure 
 offices generally. The members of this caste are excommu- 
 nicated and detested ; and are obliged to live separate and 
 far from association with others. The Chandälas are obliged 
 to move out of the way for their superiors, and a Brahmin 
 may knock down any that neglect to do so. If a Chandäla 
 drinks out of a pond it is defiled, and requires to be conse- 
 crated afresh. 
 
 "We must next consider the relative position of these castes. 
 Their origin is referred to a myth, which tells us that the 
 Brahmin caste proceeded from Brahma's mouth; the Warrior 
 caste from his arms ; the industrial classes from his loins ; the 
 servile caste from his foot. Many historians have set up 
 the hypothesis that the Brahmins originally formed a sepa- 
 rate sacerdotal nation, and this fable is especially counte- 
 nanced by the Brahmins themselves. A people consisting 
 of priests alone is, assuredly, the greatest absurdity, for we 
 know a priori, that a distinction of classes can exist only 
 within a people ; in every nation the various occupations of 
 life must present themselves, for they belong to the objec- 
 tivity of Spirit. One class necessarily supposes another, and 
 the rise of castes generally, is only a result of the united 
 life of a nation. A nation of priests cannot exist without 
 agriculturists and soldiers. Classes cannot be brought toge- 
 ther from without ; they are developed only from within. 
 They come forth from the interior of national life, and not 
 conversely. But that these distinctions are here attributed 
 to Nature, is a necessary result of the Idea which the East 
 embodies. For while the individual ought properly to be 
 empowered to choose his occupation, in the East, on the con- 
 trary, internal subjectivity is not yet recognized as indepen- 
 dent; and if distinctions obtrude themselves, their recognition 
 is accompanied by the belief that the individual does not choose 
 his particular position for himself, but receives it from Nature. 
 In China the people are dependent — without distinction of 
 
l p 4 PART I. THE ORIENTAL WORLD. 
 
 classes — on the laws and raoral decision of the Emperor; 
 consequently on a human will. Plato, in his Republic, assigns 
 the arrangement in different classes with a view to various 
 occupations, to the choice of the governing body. Here, 
 therefore, a moral, a spiritual power is the arbiter. In India, 
 Nature is this governing power. But this natural destiny 
 need not have led to that degree of degradation which we 
 observe here, if the distinctions had been limited to occupa- 
 tion with what is earthly — to forms of objective Spirit. In 
 the feudalism of mediaeval times, individuals were also con- 
 fined to a certain station in life ; but for all there was a 
 Higher Being, superior to the most exalted earthly dignity, 
 and admission to holy orders was open to all. This is the 
 grand distinction, that here Religion holds the same position 
 towards all ; that, although the son of a mechanic becomes 
 a mechanic, the son of a peasant a peasant, and free choice 
 is often limited by many restrictive circumstances, the reli- 
 gious element stands in the same relation to all, and all are 
 invested with an absolute value by religion. In India the 
 direct contrary is the case. Another distinction betw r een the 
 classes of society as they exist in the Christian world and 
 those in Hindostan is the moral dignity which exists among 
 us in every class, constituting that which man must possess 
 in and through himself. In this respect the higher classes 
 are equal to the lower ; and while religion is the higher sphere 
 in which all sun themselves, equality before the law — rights 
 of person and of property — are gained for every class. But 
 by the fact that in India, as already observed, differences 
 extend not only to the objectivity of Spirit, but also to its 
 absolute subjectivity, and thus exhaust all its relations — 
 neither morality, nor justice, nor religiosity is to be found. 
 
 Every caste has its especial duties and rights. Duties 
 and rights, therefore, are not recognized as pertaining to 
 mankind generally, but as those of a particular caste. 
 While we say, " Bravery is a virtue," the Hindoos say, on 
 the contrary, " Bravery is the virtue of the Cshatryas." 
 Humanity generally, human duty and human feeling do 
 not manifest themselves ; we find only duties assigned to 
 the several castes. Everything is petrified into these dis- 
 tinctions, and over this petrifaction a capricious destiny holds 
 
SECT. II. INDIA. 
 
 155 
 
 sway. Morality and human dignity are unknown ; evil 
 passions have their full swing ; the Spirit wanders into the 
 Dream-World, and the highest state is Annihilation. 
 
 To gain a more accurate idea of what the Brahmins are, 
 and in what the Brahminical dignity consists, we must in- 
 vestigate the Hindoo religion and the conceptions it in- 
 volves, to which we shall have to return further on ; for the 
 respective rights of castes have their basis in a religious re- 
 lation. Brahma (neuter) is the Supreme in Religion, but 
 there are besides chief divinities Brahma (masc.) Vishnu or 
 Krishna — incarnate in infinitely diverse forms — and Siva. 
 These form a connected Trinity. Brahma is the highest ; 
 but Vishnu or Krishna, Siva, the Sun moreover, the Air, &c. 
 are also Brahm, i.e. Substantial Unity. To Brahm itself 
 no sacrifices are offered ; it is not honoured ; but prayers are 
 presented to all other idols. Brahm itself is the Substantial 
 Unity of All. The highest religious position of man, there- 
 fore is, being exalted to Brahm. If a Brahmin is asked 
 what Brahm is, he answers ; When I fall back within my- 
 self, and close all external senses, and say dm to myself, that 
 is Brahm. Abstract unity with God is realized in this 
 abstraction from humanity. An abstraction of this kind 
 may in some cases leave everything else unchanged, as does 
 devotional feeling, momentarily excited. But among the 
 Hindoos it holds a negative position towards all that is con- 
 crete ; and the highest state is supposed to be this exaltation, 
 by which the Hindoo raises himself to deity. The Brahmins, 
 in virtue of their birth, are already in possession of the 
 Divine. The distinction of castes involves, therefore, a dis- 
 tinction between present deities and mere limited mortals. 
 The other castes may likewise become partakers in &Regene- 
 ration ; but they must subject themselves to immense 
 self-denial, torture and penance. Contempt of life, and of 
 living humanity, is the chief feature in this ascesis. A large 
 number of the non-Brahminical population strive to attain 
 Regeneration. They are called Yogis. An Englishman who, 
 on a journey to Thibet to visit the Dalai-Lama, met such a 
 Yogi, gives the following account : The Yogi was already on 
 the second grade in his ascent to Brahminical dignity. He 
 had passed the first grade by remaining for twelve years on 
 his legs, without ever sitting or lying down. At first he had 
 
156 
 
 PAßT I. THE ORIENTAL "WOULD. 
 
 bound himself fast to a tree with a rope, until he had accus- 
 tomed himself to sleep standing. The second grade required 
 him to keep his hands clasped together over his head for 
 twelve years in succession. Already his nails had almost 
 grown into his hands. The third grade is not always passed 
 through in the same way ; generally the Yogi has to spend a 
 day between five fires, that is, between four fires occupying the 
 four quarters of heaven, and the Sun. He must then swiug •■ 
 backwards and forwards over the fire, a ceremony occupying 
 three hours and three quarters. Englishmen present at an act 
 of this kind, say that in half an hour the blood streamed forth 
 from every part of the devotee's body ; he was taken down 
 and presently died. If this trial is also surmounted, the 
 aspirant is finally buried alive, that is put into the ground 
 in an upright position and quite covered over with soil ; after 
 three hours and three quarters he is drawn out, and if he 
 lives, he is supposed to have at last attained the spiritual 
 power of a Brahmin. 
 
 Thus only by such negation of his existence does any one I 
 attain Brahminical power. In its highest degree this nega- 
 tion consists in a sort of hazy consciousness of having 
 attained perfect mental immobility — the annihilation of all 
 emotion and all volition ; — a condition which is regarded as 
 the highest amongst the Buddhists also. However pusillan- 
 imous and effeminate the Hindoos may be in other respects, 
 it is evident how little they hesitate to sacrifice themselves 
 to the Highest, — to Annihilation. Another instance of the 
 same is the fact of wives burning themselves after the death I 
 of their husbands. Should a woman contravene this tradi- 
 tional usage, she would be severed from society, and perish 
 in solitude. An Englishman states that he also saw a woman 
 burn herself because she had lost her child. He did all that 
 he could to divert her away from her purpose ; at last 
 he applied to her husband who was standing by, but he 
 shewed himself perfectly indifferent, as lie had more wives at 
 home. Sometimes twenty women are seen throwing them- 
 selves at once into the Ganges, and on the Himmalava 
 range an English traveller found three women seeking the 
 source of the Granges, in order to put an end to their life m 
 this holy river. At a religious festival in the celebrated 
 temple of Juggernaut in Orissa, on the Bay of Bengal, where 
 
SECT. II. INDIA. 
 
 157 
 
 millions of Hindoos assemble, the image of the god Vishnu 
 is drawn in procession on a car : about five hundred men set 
 it in motion, and many fling themselves down before its 
 wheels to be crushed to pieces. The whole sea-shore is al- 
 ready strewed with the bodies of persons who have thus 
 immolated themselves. Infanticide is also very common in 
 India. Mothers throw their children into the Ganges, or let 
 them pine away under the rays of the sun. The morality 
 which is involved in respect for human life, is not found 
 among the Hindoos. There are besides those already men- 
 tioned, infinite modifications of the same principle of conduct, 
 all pointing to annihilation. This, e. g.> is the leading 
 principle of the Gymnosophists, as the Greeks called them. 
 Naked Fakirs wander about without any occupation, like 
 the mendicant friars of the Catholic church ; live on the alms 
 of others, and make it their aim to reach the highest degree 
 of abstraction — the perfect deadening of consciousness ; a 
 point from which the transition to physical death is no great 
 step. 
 
 This elevation which others can only attain by toilsome 
 labour is, as already stated, the birthright of the Brahmins. 
 The Hindoo of another caste, must, therefore, reverence the 
 Brahmin as a divinity ; fall down before him, and say to him : 
 " Thou art God." And this elevation cannot have anything 
 to do with moral conduct, but — inasmuch as all internal mo- 
 rality is absent — is rather dependent on a farrago of obser- 
 vances relating to the merest externalities and trivialities of 
 existence. Human life, it is said, ought to be a perpetual 
 "Worship of God. It is evident how hollow such general 
 aphorisms are, when we consider the concrete forms which 
 they may assume. They require another, a farther qualifica- 
 tion, if they are to have a meaning. The Brahmins are a 
 present deity, but their spirituality has not yet been reflected 
 inwards in contrast with Nature ; and thus that which is 
 purely indifferent is treated as of absolute importance. The 
 employment of the Brahmins consists principally in the 
 reading of the Vedas : they only have a right to read them. 
 Were a Sudra to read the Vedas, or to hear them read, he 
 would be severely punished, and burning oil must be poured 
 into his ears. The external observances binding on the 
 Brahmins are prodigiously numerous, and the Laws of Manu 
 
xtrS PART I. THE ORIENTAL "WORLD. 
 
 treat of them as the most essential part of duty. The 
 Brahmin must rest on one particular foot in rising, then 
 wash in a river ; his hair and nails must be cut in neat 
 curves, his whole body purified, his garments white ; in his 
 hand must be a staff of a specified kind ; in his ears a golden 
 ear-ring. If the Brahmin meets a man of an inferior caste, 
 he must turn back and purify himself. He has also to read 
 in the Vedas, in various ways : each word separately, or 
 doubling them alternately, or backwards. He may not look 
 to the sun when rising or setting, or when overcast by clouds 
 or reflected in the water. He is forbidden to step over a 
 rope to which a calf is fastened, or to go out when it rains. 
 He may not look at his wife when she eats, sneezes, gapes, 
 or is quietly seated. At the midday meal he may only have 
 one garment on, in bathing never be quite naked. How 
 minute these directions are, may be especially judged of from 
 the observances binding on the Brahmins in regard to satis- 
 fying the calls of nature. This is forbidden to them in a 
 great thoroughfare, on ashes, on ploughed land, on a hill, a 
 nest of white ants, on wood destined for fuel, in a ditch, 
 walking or standing, on the bank of a river, &c. At such a 
 time they may not look at the sun, at water or at animals. 
 By day they should keep their face generally directed to the 
 north, but by night to the south ; only in the shade are they 
 allowed to turn to which quarter they like. It is forbidden 
 to every one who desires a long life, to step on potsherds, 
 cotton seeds, ashes, or sheaves of corn, or his urine. In the 
 episode JNala, in the poem of Mahabharata, we have a story 
 of a virgin who in her 21st year, — the age in which the 
 maidens themselves have a right to choose a husband, — 
 makes a selection from among her wooers. There are five of 
 them ; but the maiden remarks that four of them do not 
 stand firmly on their feet, and thence infers correctly that 
 they are Grods. She therefore choses the fifth, who is a verit- 
 able man. But besides the four despised divinities there 
 are two malevolent ones, whom her choice had not favoured, 
 and who on that account wish for revenge. They therefore 
 keep a strict watch on the husband of their beloved in every 
 step and act of life, with the design of inflicting injury upon 
 him if he commits a misdemeanour. The persecuted husband 
 does nothing that can be brought against him, until at last 
 
SECT. II. INDIA. 
 
 he is so incautious as to step on his urine. The Genius has 
 now an advantage over him ; he afflicts him with a passion 
 for gambling, and so plunges him into the abyss. 
 
 "While, on the one hand, the Brahmins are subject to 
 these strict limitations and rules, on the other hand their 
 life is sacred ; it cannot answer for crimes of any kind ; and 
 their property is equally secure from being attacked. The 
 severest penalty which the ruler can inflict upon them 
 amounts to nothing more than banishment. The English 
 wished to introduce trial by jury into India, — the jury to 
 consist half of Europeans, half of Hindoos, — and submitted 
 to the natives, whose wishes on the subject were consulted, 
 the powers with which the panel would be entrusted. The 
 Hindoos were for making a number of exceptions and limi- 
 tations. They said, among other things, that they could not 
 consent that a Brahmin should be condemned to death ; not 
 to mention other objections, e.g. that looking at and examin- 
 ing a corpse was out of the question. Although in the 
 case of a Warrior the rate of interest may be as high as three 
 per cent, in that of a Vaisya four per cent, a Brahmin is 
 never required to pay more than two per cent. The Brahmin 
 possesses such a power, that Heaven's lightning would 
 strike the King who ventured to lay hands on him or his 
 property. For the meanest Brahmin is so far exalted above 
 the King, that he would be polluted by conversing with him, 
 and would be dishonoured by his daughters choosing a prince 
 in marriage. In Manu's Code it is said; " If any one pre- 
 sumes to teach a Brahmin his duty, the King must order 
 that hot oil be poured into the ears and mouth of such an 
 instructor. If one who is only once-born, loads one 
 who is twice-born with reproaches, a red hot iron bar ten 
 inches long shall be thrust into his mouth." On the other 
 hand a Sudra is condemned to have a red hot iron thrust 
 into him from behind if he rest himself in the chair of a 
 Brahmin, and to have his foot or his hand hewed off if he 
 pushes against a Brahmin with hands or feet. It is even 
 permitted to give false testimony, and to lie before a Court of 
 J ustiee, if a Brahmin can be thereby freed from condem- 
 nation. 
 
 As the Brahmins enjoy advantages over the other Castes, 
 the latter in their turn have privileges according to prece- 
 ui nee, over their inferiors. If a Sudra is defiled by contact 
 
160 PAET I. THE ORIENTAL WO ELD. 
 
 with a Pariah, he has the right to knock him down on the 
 spot. Humanity on the part of a higher Caste towards an 
 inferior one is entirely forbidden, and a Brahmin would never 
 think of assisting a member of another Caste, even when in 
 danger. The other Castes deem it a great honour when a 
 Brahmin takes their daughters as his wives, — a thing how- 
 ever, which is permitted him, as already stated, only when 
 he has already taken one from his own Caste. Thence arises 
 the freedom the Brahmins enjoy in getting wives. At the 
 great religious festivals they go among the people and choose 
 those that please them best ; but they also repudiate them 
 at pleasure. 
 
 If a Brahmin or a member of any other Caste transgresses 
 the above cited laws and precepts, he is himself excluded 
 from his caste, and in order to be received back again, he 
 must have a hook bored through the hips, and be swung re- 
 peatedly backwards and forwards in the air. There are also 
 other forms of restoration. A Rajah who thought himself 
 injured by an English Governor, sent two Brahmins to Eng- 
 land to detail his grievances. But the Hindoos are forbidden 
 to cross the sea, and these envoys on their return were 
 declared excommunicated from their caste, and in order to 
 be restored to it, they had to be born again from a golden 
 cow. The imposition was so far lightened, that only those 
 parts of the cow out of which they had to creep were obliged 
 to be golden ; the rest might consist of wood. These va- 
 rious usages and religious observances to which every Caste 
 is subject, have occasioned great perplexity to the English, 
 especially in enlisting soldiers. At first these were taken 
 from the Sudra- Caste, which is not bound to observe so 
 many ceremonies ; but nothing could be done with them, 
 they therefore betook themselves to the Cshatriya class. 
 These however have an immense number of regulations to 
 observe, — they may not eat meat, touch a dead body, drink 
 out of a pool in which cattle or Europeans have drunk, not 
 eat what others have cooked, &c. Each Hindoo assumes one 
 definite occupation, and that only, so that one must have an 
 infinity of servants ; — a Lieutenant has thirty, a Major sixty. 
 Thus every Caste has its own duties ; the lower the Caste, 
 the less it has to observe ; and as each individual has his 
 position assigned by birth, beyond this fixed arrangement 
 everything is governed by caprice and force. In the Code 
 
SECT. II. INDIA. 
 
 1 C 1 
 
 of Manu punishments increase in proportion to the inferior- 
 ity of Castes, and there is a distinction in other respects. 
 If a man of a higher Caste brings an accusation against an 
 inferior without proof, the lormer is not punished ; if the 
 converse occurs, the punishment is very severe. Cases of 
 theft are exceptional ; in this case the higher the Caste the 
 heavier is the penalty. 
 
 In respect to property the Brahmins have a great advan- 
 tage, for they pay no taxes. The prince receives half the 
 income from the lands of others ; the remainder has to 
 suffice for the cost of cultivation and the support of the 
 labourers. It is an extremely important question, whether 
 the cultivated land in India is recognized as belonging to the 
 cultivator, or belongs to a so-called manorial proprietor. 
 The English themselves have had great difficulty in estab- 
 lishing a clear understanding about it. Por when they 
 conquered Bengal, it was of great importance to them, to 
 determine the mode in which taxes were to be raised on 
 property, and they had to ascertain whether these should be 
 imposed on the tenant cultivators or the lord of the soil. 
 They imposed the tribute on the latter ; but the result was 
 that the proprietors acted in the most arbitrary manner : 
 drove away the tenant cultivators, and declaring that such or 
 such an amount of land w T as not under cultivation, gained 
 an abatement of tribute. They then took back the expelled 
 cultivators as day-labourers, at a low rate of wages, and had 
 the land cultivated on their own behalf. The whole income 
 belonging to every village is, as already stated, divided into 
 two parts, of which one belongs to the Raja, the other to 
 the cultivators ; but proportionate shares are also received 
 by the Provost of the place, the Judge, the Water-Surveyor, 
 the Brahmin who superintends religious worship, the Astro- 
 loger (who is also a Brahmin, and announces the days of good 
 and ill omen), the Smith, the Carpenter, the Potter, the 
 "Washerman, the Barber, the Physician, the Dancing Girls, 
 the Musician, the Poet. This arrangement is fixed and im- 
 mutable, and subject to no one's will. All political revolu- 
 tions, therefore, are matters of indifference to the common 
 Hindoo, for his lot is unchanged. 
 
 The view given of the relation of castes leads directly to 
 the subject of Religion. For the claims of caste are, as 
 
 M 
 
1G2 
 
 PAET I. THE ORIENTAL "WORLD. 
 
 already remarked, not merely secular, but essentially reli- 
 gious, and the Brahmins in their exalted dignity are the very 
 gods bodily present. In the laws of Manu it is said : " Let the 
 King, even in extreme necessity, beware of exciting the 
 Brahmins against him ; for they can destroy him with their 
 power, — they who create Tire, Sun, Moon, &c." They are 
 servants neither of God nor of his People, but are God 
 himself to the other Castes, — a position of things which con- 
 stitutes the perverted character of the Hindoo mind. The 
 dreaming Unity of Spirit and nature, which involves a mon- 
 strous bewilderment in regard to all phenomena and relations, 
 we have already recognized as the principle of the Hindoo 
 Spirit. The Hindoo Mythology is therefore only a wild 
 extravagance of Fancy, in which nothing has a settled form ; 
 which takes us abruptly from the Meanest to the Highest, 
 from the most sublime to the most disgusting and trivial. 
 Thus it is also difficult to discover what the Hindoos under- 
 stand by Brahm. We are apt to take our conception of 
 Supreme Divinity, — the One, — the Creator of Heaven and 
 Earth, — and apply them to the Indian Brahm. Brahma is 
 distinct from Brahm — the former constituting one person- 
 ality in contrasted relation to Vishnu and Siva. Many 
 therefore call the Supreme Existence who is over the first 
 mentioned deity, Parabrdhma. The English have taken a 
 good deal of trouble to find out what Brahm properly is. 
 Wilford has asserted that Hindoo conceptions recognize two 
 Heavens : the first, the earthly paradise, the second, Heaven 
 in a spiritual sense. To attain them, two different modes of 
 worship are supposed to be required. The one involves ex- 
 ternal ceremonies, Idol- Worship ; the other requires that 
 the Supreme Being should be honoured in spirit. Sacrifices, 
 purifications, pilgrimages are not needed in the latter. This 
 authority states moreover that there are few Hindoos ready 
 to pursue the second way, because they cannot understand 
 in what the pleasure of the second heaven consists, and that if 
 one asks a Hindoo whether he worships Idols, every one says 
 "Yes ! " but to the question, " Do you worship the Supreme 
 Being ? " every one answers " No." If the further question 
 is put, " What is the meaning of that practice of yours, that 
 silent meditation which some of your learned men speak 
 vi"t " they respond, " When I pray to the honour of one of 
 
SECT. II. INDIA. 
 
 163 
 
 the Gods, I sit down, — the foot of either leg on the thigh of the 
 other, — look towards Heaven, and calmly elevate my thoughts 
 with my hands folded in silence ; then I say, I am «»Brahm 
 the Supreme Being. We are not conscious to ourselves of 
 being Brahm, by reason of Maya (the delusion occasioned by 
 the outward world). It is forbidden to pray to him, and 
 to ofier sacrifices to him in his own nature ; for this would be 
 to adore ourselves. In every case therefore, it is only ema- 
 nations of Brahm that we address." Translating these ideas 
 then into our own process of thought, w-e should call 
 Brahm the pure unity of thought in itself — God in the 
 incomplexity of his existence. No temples are consecrated 
 to him, and he receives no worship. Similarly, in the Catho- 
 lic religion, the churches are not dedicated to God, but 
 to the saints. Other Englishmen, who have devoted them- 
 selves to investigating the conception of Brahm, have 
 thought Brahm to be an unmeaning epithet, applied to all 
 gods: so that Vishnu says, " I am Brahm;" and the Sun, 
 the Air, the Seas are called Brahm. Brahm would on this 
 supposition be substance in its simplicity, which by its very 
 nature expands itself into the limitless variety of phenome- 
 nal diversities. For this abstraction, this pure unity, is that 
 which lies at the foundation of All, —the root of all definite 
 existence. In the intellection of this unity, all objectivity 
 falls away ; for the purely Abstract is intellection itself in its 
 greatest vacuity. To attain this Death of Life during life 
 itself — to constitute this abstraction — requires the disap- 
 pearance of all moral activity and volition, and of all 
 intellection too, as in the Religion of Fo ; and this is the 
 object of the penances already spoken of. 
 
 The complement to the abstraction Brahm must then be 
 looked for in the concrete complex of things ; for the prin- 
 ciple of the Hindoo religion is the Manifestation of Diversity 
 [in "Avatars."] These then, fall outside that abstract Unity 
 of Thought, and as that which deviates from it, constitute 
 the variety found in the world of sense, the variety of intel- 
 lectual conceptions in an unreflected sensuous form. In this 
 way the concrete complex of material things is isolated from 
 Spirit, and, presented in wild distraction, except as re- 
 absorbed in the pure ideality of Brahm. The other deities 
 are therefore things of sense : Mountains, Streams, Beasts, 
 
 m 2 
 
1(34 PAllT I. THE ORIENTAL WORLD. 
 
 the Sun, the Moon, the Granges. The next stage is the con 
 centration of this wild variety into substantial distinctions 
 and the comprehension of them as a series of divine persons 
 Vishnu, Siva, Mahädeva are thus distinguished from Brahma. 
 In the embodiment Vishnu, are presented those incarnations 
 in which God has appeared as man, and which are always 
 historical personages, who effected important changes and 
 new epochs. The power of procreation is likewise a sub- 
 stantial embodiment ; and in the excavations grottos and 
 pagodas of the Hindoos, the Lingam is always found as sym- 
 bolizing the male, and the Lotus the female vis procreandi. 
 
 With this Duality, — abstract unity on the one side and 
 the abstract isolation of the world of sense on the other side, 
 — exactly corresponds the double form of Worship, in the 
 relation of the human subjectivity to G-od. The one side of 
 this duality of worship, consists in the abstraction of pure 
 self-elevation — the abrogation of real self-consciousness ; a 
 negativity which is consequently manifested, on the one 
 hand, in the attainment of torpid unconsciousness — on the 
 other hand in suicide and the extinction of all that is worth 
 calling life, by self-inflicted tortures. The other side of 
 worship consists in a wild tumult of excess ; when all 
 sense of individuality has vanished from consciousness by 
 immersion in the merely natural ; with which individuality 
 thus makes itself identical, — destroying its consciousness 
 of distinction from Nature. In all the pagodas, therefore, 
 prostitutes and dancing girls are kept, whom the Brahmins 
 instruct most carefully in dancing, in beautiful postures and 
 attractive gestures, and who have to comply with the wishes 
 of all comers at a fixed price. Theological doctrine — relation 
 of religion to morality — is here altogether out of the question. 
 On the one hand Love — Heaven — in short everything spiritual 
 — is conceived by the fancy of the Hindoo ; but on the other 
 hand his conceptions have an actual sensuous embodiment, 
 and he immerses himself by a voluptuous intoxication in the 
 merely natural. Objects of religious worship are thus either 
 disgusting forms produced by art, or those presented by 
 Nature. Every bird, every monkey is a present god, an 
 absolutely universal existence. The Hindoo is incapable of 
 holding fast an object in his mind by means of rational 
 predicates assigned to it, for this requires reflection. While 
 
SECT. II. INDIA. 
 
 1G5 
 
 a universal essence is wrongly transmuted into sensuous 
 objectivity, the latter is also driven from its definite charac- 
 ter into universality, — a process whereby it loses its footing 
 and is expanded to indefmiteness. 
 
 If we proceed to ask how far their religion exhibits the 
 Morality of the Hindoos, the answer must be that the former 
 is as distinct from the latter, as Brahm from the concrete 
 existence of which he is the essence. To us, religion is the 
 knowledge of that Being who is emphatically our Being, 
 and therefore the substance of our knowledge and volition ; 
 the proper office of which latter is to be the mirror of this 
 fundamental substance. But that requires this [Highest] 
 Being to be in se a personality, pursuing divine aims, such 
 as can become the purport of human action. Such an idea 
 of a relation of the Being of Grod as constituting the 
 universal basis or substance of human action, — such a mo- 
 rality cannot be found among the Hindoos ; for they have 
 not the Spiritual as the import of their consciousness. On 
 the one hand their virtue consists in the abstraction from 
 all activity — the condition they call "Brahm." On the 
 other hand every action with them is a prescribed external 
 usage ; not free activity, the result of inward personality. 
 Thus the moral condition of the Hindoos, (as already 
 observed) shews itself most abandoned. In this all Eng- 
 lishmen agree. Our judgment of the morality of the 
 Hindoos is apt to be warped by representations of their 
 mildness, tenderness, beautiful and sentimental fancy. But 
 we must reflect that in nations utterly corrupt, there are 
 sides of character which may be called tender and noble. 
 We have Chinese poems in which the tenderest relations of 
 love are depicted ; in which delineations of deep emotion, 
 humility, modesty, propriety are to be found ; and which 
 may be compared with the best that European literature 
 contains. The same characteristics meet us in many Hindoo 
 poems ; but rectitude, morality, freedom of soul, conscious- 
 ness of individual right are quite another thing. The anni- 
 hilating of spiritual and physical existence lias nothing 
 concrete in it ; and absorption in the abstractly Universal 
 has no connection with the real. Deceit and cunning are 
 the fundamental characteristics of the Hindoo. Cheating, 
 stealing, robbing, murdering are with him habitual. Hum- 
 
1C6 PART I. THE ORIENTAL WOELD. 
 
 bly crouching and abject before a victor and lord, he is 
 recklessly barbarous to the vanquished and subject. Cha- 
 racteristic of the Hindoo's humanity is the fact that he kills no 
 brute animal, founds and supports rich hospitals for brutes, 
 especially for old cows and monkeys, — but that through the 
 whole land, no single institution can be found for human 
 beings who are diseased or infirm from age. The Hindoos 
 will not tread upon ants, but they are perfectly indifferent 
 when poor wanderers pine away with hunger. The Brahmins 
 are especially immoral. According to English reports, they 
 do nothing but eat and sleep. In what is not forbidden them 
 by the rules of their order they follow natural impulses 
 entirely. When they take any part in public life they 
 shew themselves avaricious, deceitful, voluptuous. With 
 those whom they have reason to fear, they are humble enough; 
 for which they avenge themselves on their dependents. " I 
 do not know an honest man among them," says an English 
 authority. Children have no respect for their parents : sons 
 maltreat their mothers. 
 
 It would lead us too far to give a detailed notice of Hindoo 
 Art and Science. But we may make the general remark, that a 
 more accurate acquaintance with its real value has not a little 
 diminished the widely bruited fame of Indian Wisdom. Ac- 
 cording to the Hindoo principle of pure self-renouncing 
 Ideality, and that [phenomenal] variety which goes to the op- 
 posite extreme of sensuousness, it is evident that nothing but 
 abstract thought and imagination can be developed. Thus, 
 e.g., their grammar has advanced to a high degree of consis- 
 tent regularity ; but when substantial matter in sciences and 
 works of art is in question, it is useless to look for it here. 
 When the English had become masters of the country, the 
 work of restoring to light the records of Indian culture was 
 commenced, and William Jones first disinterred the poems 
 of the Golden Age. The English exhibited plays at Calcutta : 
 this led to a representation of dramas on the part of the 
 Brahmins, e.g. the Sacontala of Calidasa, &c. In the 
 enthusiasm of discovery the Hindoo culture was very highly 
 rated ; and as, when new beauties are discovered, the old 
 ones are commonly looked down upon with contempt, 
 Hindoo poetry and philosophy were extolled as far superior 
 to the Greek. Eor our purpose the most important docu- 
 
SECT. IT. INDIA. 1G7 
 
 ments are the ancient and canonical books of the Hindoos, 
 especially the Vedas. They comprise many divisions, of 
 which the fourth is of more recent origin. They consist 
 partly of religious prayers, partly of precepts to be observed. 
 Some manuscripts of these Vedas have come to Europe, 
 though in a complete form they are exceedingly rare. The 
 writing is on palm leaves, scratched in with a needle. The 
 Vedas are very difficult to understand, since they date from 
 the most remote antiquity, and the language is a much older 
 Sanscrit. Colebrooke has indeed translated a part, but this 
 itself is perhaps taken from a commentary, of which there 
 are very many.* Two great epic poems, Bamayana and 
 Mahabharata, have also reached Europe. Three quarto 
 volumes of the former have been printed, the second volume 
 is extremely rare.f Besides these works, the Puranas must 
 be particularly noticed. The Puranas contain the history of 
 a god or of a temple. They are entirely fanciful. Another 
 Hindoo classical book is the Code of Manu. This Hindoo 
 lawgiver has been compared with the Cretan Minos, — a name 
 which also occurs among the Egyptians ; and certainly this 
 extensive occurrence of the same name is noteworthy and can- 
 not be ascribed to chance. Manu's code of morals, (pub- 
 lished at Calcutta with an English translation by Sir W. 
 Jones) forms the basis of Hindoo legislation. It begins with 
 a Theogony, which is not only entirely different from the 
 mythological conceptions of other peoples, (as might be ex- 
 pected) but also deviates essentially from the Hindoo tradi- 
 tions themselves. For in these also there are only some lead- 
 ing features that pervade the whole. In other respects 
 everything is abandoned to chance, caprice and fancy ; the re- 
 sult of which is that the most multiform traditions, shapes 
 and names, appear in never ending procession. The time 
 when Manu's code was composed, is also entirely unknown 
 
 * Only recently has Professor Rosen, residing in London, gone tho- 
 roughly into the matter and given a specimen of the text with a transla- 
 tion, " Rig-Veda? Specimen, ed. Fr. Rosen. Lond. 1830." (More 
 recently, since Rosen's death, the whole Rig- Veda, London, 1839, has 
 been published from MSS. left by him.) 
 
 t " A. W. v. Schlegel has published the first and second Volume ; the 
 most important Episodes of the Mahabharata have been introduced to 
 public notice by F. Bopp, and a complete Edition has appeared at Cal- 
 cutta." — Germ. Editor. 
 
168 
 
 PART I. THE ORIENTAL WOJRLD. 
 
 and undetermined. The traditions reach beyond twenty- 
 three centuries before the birth of Christ : a dynasty o 
 the Children of the Sun is mentioned, on which followe 
 one of the Children of the Moon. Thus much, however, ia 
 certain, that the code in question is of high antiquity ; and 
 an acquaintance with it is of the greatest importance to 
 the English, as their knowledge of Hindoo Law is derived 
 from it. 
 
 After pointing out the Hindoo principle in the distinctions 
 of caste, in religion and literature, we must also mention the 
 mode and form of their political existence, — the polity of the 
 Hindoo State. — A State is a realization of Spirit, such that 
 in it the self-conscious being of Spirit — the freedom of the 
 Will — is realized as Law. Such an institution then, necessarily 
 presupposes the consciousness of free will. In the Chinese 
 State the moral will of the Emperor is the law : but so that 
 subjective, inward freedom is thereby repressed, and the Law 
 of Freedom governs individuals only as from without. In 
 India the primary aspect of subjectivity, — viz. that of the ima- 
 gination, — presents a union of the Natural and Spiritual, in 
 which Nature on theone hand, does not present itself asaworld 
 embodying Reason, nor the Spiritual on the other hand, as 
 consciousness in contrast with Nature. Here the antithesis 
 in the [above-stated] principle is wanting. Freedom both as 
 abstract will and as subjective freedom is absent. The pro- 
 per basis of the State, the principle of freedom is altogether 
 absent : there cannot therefore be any State in the true sense 
 of the term. This is the first point to be observed : if China 
 may be regarded as nothing else but a State, Hindoo political 
 existence present us with a people, but no State. Secondly, 
 while we found a moral despotism in China, whatever may 
 be called a relic of political life in India,\% a despotism without a 
 principle, without any rule of morality and religion : for moral- 
 ity and religion (as far as the latter has a reference to human 
 action) have as their indispensable condition and basis the 
 freedom of the Will. In India, therefore, the most arbitrary, 
 wicked, degrading despotism has its full swing. China, Per- 
 sia, Turkey, — in fact Asia generally, is the scene of despotism, 
 and, in a bad sense, of tyranny ; but it is regarded as contrary 
 to the due order of things, and is disapproved by religion and 
 the moral consciousness of individuals. In those countries, 
 
SECT. II. INDIA. 
 
 1G9 
 
 tyranny rouses men to resentment ; they detest it and groan 
 under it as a burden. To them it is an accident and an irre- 
 gularity, not a necessity : it ought not to exist. But in India it 
 is normal : for here there is no sense of personal independence 
 with which a state of despotism could be compared, and 
 which would raise revolt in the soul ; nothing approaching 
 even a resentful protest against it, is left, except the corporeal 
 smart, and the pain of being deprived of absolute necessaries 
 and of pleasure. 
 
 In the case of such a people, therefore, that which we call 
 in its double sense, History, is not to be looked for ; and here 
 the distinction between China and India is most clearly and 
 strongly manifest. The Chinese possess a most minute 
 history of their country, and it has been already remarked, 
 what arrangements are made in China, for having everything 
 accurately noted down in their annals. The contrary is the 
 case in India. Though the recent discoveries of the treasures 
 of Indian Literature, have shewn us what a reputation the 
 Hindoos have acquired in Geometry, Astronomy, and Alge- 
 bra, — that they have made great advances in Philosophy, and 
 that among them, Grammar has been so far cultivated that no 
 language can be regarded as more fully developed than the 
 Sanscrit, — we find the department of History altogether neg- 
 lected, or rather non-existent. For History requires Under- 
 standing — the power of looking at an object in an independent 
 objective light, and comprehending it in its rational connec- 
 tion with other objects. Those peoples therefore are alone 
 capable of History, and of prose generally, who have arrived 
 at that period of development, (and can make that their start- 
 , ing point,) at which individuals comprehend their own exist- 
 \ ence as independent, i.e. possess self-consciousness. 
 
 The Chinese are to be rated at what they have made of them- 
 selves, looking at them in the entirety of their State. While 
 they have thus attained an existence independent of Nature, 
 they can also regard objects as distinct from themselves, — as 
 they are actually presented, — in a definite form and in their 
 real connection. The Hindoos on the contrary are by birth 
 given over to an unyielding destiny, while at the same 
 time their Spirit is exalted to Ideality ; so that their 
 minds exhibit the contradictory processes of a dissolution of 
 fixed rational and definite conceptions in their Ideality, and 
 
170 
 
 PART I. THE OMENTAL WORLD. 
 
 on the other side, a degradation of this ideality to a multi- 
 formity of sensuous objects. This makes them incapable of 
 writing History. All that happens is dissipated in their minds 
 into confused dreams. What we call historical truth and 
 veracity, — intelligent, thoughtful comprehension of events, 
 and fidelity in representing them, — nothing of this sort can be 
 looked for among the Hindoos. We may explain this defi- 
 ciency partly from that excitement and debility of the nerves, 
 which prevents them from retaining an object in their minds, 
 and firmly comprehending it, for in their mode of apprehen- 
 sion, a sensitive and imaginative temperament changes it into 
 a feverish dream ; — partly from the fact, that veracity is the 
 direct contrary to their nature. They even lie knowingly and 
 designedly where misapprehension is out of the question. 
 As the Hindoo Spirit is a state of dreaming and mental tran- 
 siency — a self-oblivious dissolution — objects also dissolve for 
 it into unreal images and indefinitude. This feature is ab- 
 solutely characteristic ; and this alone would furnish us with 
 a clear idea of the Spirit of the Hindoos, from which all that 
 has been said might be deduced. 
 
 But History is always of great importance for a people ; 
 since by means of that it becomes conscious of the path of 
 development taken by its own Spirit, which expresses itself 
 in Laws, Manners, Customs, and Deeds. Laws, compris- 
 ing morals and judicial institutions, are by nature the per- 
 manent element in a people's existence. But History pre- 
 sents a people with their own image in a condition which 
 thereby becomes objective to them. Without History their 
 existence in time is blindly self-involved, — the recurring play 
 of arbitrary volition in manifold forms. History fixes and 
 imparts consistency to this fortuitous current, — gives it the 
 form of Universality, and by so doing posits a directive and 
 restrictive rule for it. It is an essential instrument in deve- 
 loping and determining the Constitution — that is, a rational 
 political condition ; for it is the empirical method of produc- 
 ing the Universal, inasmuch as it sets up a permanent object 
 for the conceptive powers. — It is because the Hindoos 
 have no History in the form of annals, (historia) that they 
 have no History in the form of transactions, (res gestae ;) 
 that is, no growth expanding into a veritable political 
 condition. 
 
SECT. II. INDIA. 
 
 171 
 
 Periods of time are mentioned in the Hindoo Writings, 
 and large numbers which have often an astronomical meaning, 
 but which have still oftener a quite arbitrary origin. Thus 
 it is related of certain Kings that they had reigned 70,000 
 years, or more. Brahma, the first figure in the Cosmogony, 
 and self-produced, is said to have lived 20,000 years, &c. 
 Innumerable names of Kings are cited, -among them the in- 
 carnations of Vishnu. It would be ridiculous to regard 
 passages of this kind as anything historical. In their poems 
 Kings are often talked of : these may have been historical 
 personages, but they completely vanish in fable ; e.g. they 
 -retire from the world, and then appear again, after they have 
 passed ten thousand years in solitude. The numbers in 
 question, therefore, have not the value and rational meaning 
 which we attach to them. 
 
 Consequently the oldest and most reliable sources of Indian 
 History are the notices of Greek Authors, after Alexander 
 the Great had opened the way to India. From them w r e 
 learn that their institutions were the same at that early pe- 
 riod as they are now: Santaracottus (Chandragupta) is 
 marked out as a distinguished ruler in the northern part of 
 India, to which the Bactrian kingdom extended. The Ma- 
 hometan historians supply another source of information ; for 
 the Mahometans began their invasions as early as the 10th 
 century. A Turkish slave was the ancestor of the Ghiznian 
 race. His son Mahmoud made an inroad into Hindostan and 
 conquered almost the whole country. He fixed his royal 
 residence west of Cabul, and at his court lived the poet Eer- 
 dusi. The Ghiznian dynasty was soon entirely exterminated 
 by the sweeping attacks of the Afghans and Moguls. In 
 later times nearly the whole of India has been subjected to 
 the Europeans. What therefore is known of Indian his- 
 tory, has for the most part been communicated through 
 foreign channels : the native literature gives only indistinct 
 data. Europeans assure us of the impossibility of wading 
 through the morasses of Indian statements. More definite 
 information may be obtained from inscriptions and docu- 
 ments, especially from the deeds of gifts of land to pagodas 
 and divinities ; but this kind of evidence supplies names 
 only. Another source of information is the astronomical 
 literature, which is of high antiquity. Colebrooke thoroughly 
 
172 PAKT I. THE ORIENTAL "WORLD. 
 
 studied these writings ; though it is very difficult to procure 
 manuscripts, since the Brahmins keep them very close ; 
 they are moreover disfigured by the grossest interpolations. 
 It is found that the statements with regard to constellations 
 are often contradictory, and that the Brahmins interpolate 
 these ancient works with events belonging to their own time. 
 The Hindoos do indeed possess lists and enumerations of 
 their Kings, but these also are of the most capricious charac- 
 ter ; for we often find twenty Kings more in one list than 
 in another ; and should these lists even be correct, they could 1 
 not constitute a history. The Brahmins have no conscience 
 m respect to truth. Captain Wilford had procured manu- 
 scripts from all quarters with great trouble and expense ; he 
 assembled a considerable number of Brahmins, and commis- 
 sioned them to make extracts from these works, and to in- 
 stitute enquiries respecting certain remarkable events — about 
 Adam and Eve, the Deluge, &c. The Brahmins, to please 
 their employer, produced statements of the kind required ; i 
 but there was nothing of the sort in the manuscripts. Wil- 
 ford wrote many treatises on the subject, till at last he detec- 
 ted the deception, and saw that he had laboured in vain. 
 The Hindoos have, it is true, a fixed Era: they reckon from 
 Vicramdditya, at whose splendid court lived Calidasa, the 
 author of the Sacontala. The most illustrious poets flour- 
 ished about the same time. " There were nine pearls at the 
 court of Vicramäditya," say the Brahmins : but we cannot 
 discover the date of this brilliant epoch. From various 
 statements, the year 1491 b.c. has been contended for ; 
 others adopt the year 50 b.c., and this is the commonly re- 
 ceived opinion. Bentley's researches at length placed Vicra- i 
 mäditya in the twelfth century b.c. But still more recently 
 it has been discovered that there were five, or even eight or i 
 nine kings of that name in India ; so that on this point also 
 we are thrown back into utter uncertainty. 
 
 "When the Europeans became acquainted with India, they 
 found a multitude of petty Kingdoms, at whose head were 
 Mahometan and Indian princes. There was an order of 
 things very nearly approaching feudal organization ; and the 
 Kingdoms in question were divided into districts, having as 
 governors Mahometans, or people of the Warrior Caste of 
 Hindoos. The business of these governors consisted in col- 
 
SECT. II. INDIA. 
 
 173 
 
 leeting taxes and carrying on wars ; and they thus formed a 
 kind of aristocracy, the Prince's Council of State. But only 
 as far as their princes are feared and excite fear, have they 
 any power ; and no obedience is rendered to them but by- 
 force. As long as the prince does not want money, he has 
 troops ; and neighbouring princes, if they are inferior to him 
 in force, are often obliged to pay taxes, but which are yielded 
 only on compulsion. The whole state of things, therefore, is 
 not that of repose, but of continual struggle ; while moreover 
 nothing is developed or furthered. It is the struggle of an 
 energetic will on the part of this or that prince against a 
 feebler one ; the history of reigning dynasties, but not of 
 peoples ; a series of perpetually varying intrigues and revolts 
 — not indeed of subjects against their rulers, but of a prince's 
 son, for instance, against his father ; of brothers, uncles 
 and nephews in contest with each other ; and of functionaries 
 against their master. It might be believed that, though the 
 Europeans found such a state of things, this was the result 
 of the dissolution of earlier superior organizations. It 
 might, for instance, be supposed that the period of the Mogul 
 supremacy was of one of prosperity and splendour, and of a 
 political condition in which India was not distracted religi- 
 ously and politically by foreign conquerors. But the his- 
 torical traces and lineaments that accidentally present 
 themselves in poetical descriptions and legends, bearing 
 upon the period in question, always point to the same divided 
 condition — the result of war and of the instability of politi- 
 cal relations ; while contrary representations may be easily 
 recognized as a dream, a mere fancy. This state of things 
 is the natural result ofthat conception of Hindoo life which 
 has been exhibited, and the conditions which it necessitates. 
 The wars of the sects of the Brahmins and Buddhists, of the 
 devotees of Vishnu and of Siva, also contributed their quota 
 to this confusion. — There is indeed, a common character 
 pervading the whole of India ; but its several states present 
 at the same time the greatest variety ; so that in one Indian 
 State we meet with the greatest effeminacy, — in another, on 
 the contrary, we find prodigious vigour and savage barbarity. 
 
 If then, in conclusion, we once more take a general view 
 of the comparative condition of India and China, we shall 
 see that China was characterized by a thoroughly unimagina- 
 
174 PAET I. THE ORIENTAL WORLD. 
 
 tive Understanding ; a prosaic life amid firm and definite 
 reality : while in the Indian world there is, so to speak, no 
 object that can be regarded as real, and firmly defined, — none 
 that was not at its first apprehension perverted by the imagina- 
 tion to the very opposite of what it presents to an intelligent 
 consciousness. In China it is the Moral which constitutes 
 the substance of the laws, and which is embodied in external 
 strictly determinate relations ; while over all hovers the 
 patriarchal providence of the Emperor, who like a Father, 
 cares impartially for the interest of his subjects. Among 
 the Hindoos, on the contrary — instead of this Unity — Di- 
 versity is the fundamental characteristic. Religion, "War, 
 Handicraft, Trade, yes, even the most trivial occupations are 
 parcelled out with rigid separation, —constituting as they do 
 the import of the one will which they involve, and whose 
 various requirements they exhaust. With this is bound up 
 a monstrous, irrational imagination, which attaches the 
 moral value and character of men to an infinity of outward 
 actions as empty in point of intellect as of feeling ; sets aside 
 all respect for the welfare of man, and even makes a duty 
 of the cruellest and severest contravention of it. Those distinc- 
 tions being rigidly maintained, nothing remains for the one 
 universal will of the State but pure caprice, against whose 
 omnipotence only the fixed caste-distinctions avail for pro- 
 tection. The Chinese in their prosaic rationality, reverence 
 as the Highest, only the abstract supreme lord ; and they 
 exhibit a contemptibly superstitious respect for the fixed 
 aud definite. Among the Hindoos there is no such super- 
 stition so far as it presents an antithesis to Understanding ; 
 rather their whole life and ideas are one unbroken super- 
 stition, because among them all is reverie and consequent 
 enslavement. Annihilation — the abandonment of all reason, 
 morality and subjectivity — can only come to a positive feeling 
 and consciousness of itself, by extravagating in a boundlessly 
 wild imagination ; in which, like a desolate spirit, it finds no 
 rest, no settled composure, though it can content itself in no 
 other way ; as a man who is quite reduced in body and spirit 
 finds Iiis existence altogether stupid and intolerable, and is 
 driven to the creation of a dream-world and a delirious bliss 
 in Opium. 
 
175 
 
 SECTION II. — Continued. 
 INDIA —BUDDHISM.* 
 
 It is time to quit the Dream-State characterizing the Hin- 
 doo Spirit revelling in the most extravagant maze through all 
 natural and spiritual forms ; comprising at the same time the 
 coarsest sensuality and anticipations of the profoundest 
 thought, and on that very account — as far as free and 
 rational reality is concerned — sunk in the most self-aban- 
 doned, helpless slavery ; — a slavery, in which the abstract 
 forms into which concrete human life is divided, have become 
 stereotyped, and human rights and culture have been made 
 absolutely dependent upon these distinctions. In contrast 
 with this inebriate Dream-life, which in the sphere of reality 
 is bound fast in chains, we have the unconstrained Dream- 
 life ; which on the one hand is ruder than the former — as not 
 having advanced so far as to make this distinction of modes 
 of life — but for the same reason, has not sunk into the slavery 
 which this entails. It keeps itself more free, more inde- 
 pendently firm in itself : its world of ideas is consequently 
 compressed into simpler conceptions. 
 
 The Spirit of the Phase just indicated, is involved in the 
 same fundamental principle as that assigned to Hindoo con- 
 ceptions : but it is more concentrated in itself; its religion is 
 simpler, and the accompanying political condition more calm 
 and settled. This phase comprehends peoples and countries 
 of the most varied complexion. We regard it as embracing 
 Ceylon, Farther India with the Birman Empire, Siam, A nam, 
 — north of that Thibet, and further on the Chinese Upland 
 with its various populations of Mongols and Tartars. We shall 
 not examine the special individualities of these peoples, but 
 merely characterize their Religion, which constitutes the most 
 interesting side of their existence. The Religion of these 
 peoples is Buddhism, which is the most widely extended 
 religion on our globe. In China Buddha is reverenced as 
 Foe; in Ceylon as Gautama; in Thibet and among the 
 
 * As in Hegel's original plan and in the first lecture the transition 
 from Indian Brahminism to Buddhism occupies the place assigned it here, 
 and as this position of the chapter on Buddhism agrees better with recent 
 investigations, its detachment from the place which it previous'.} 
 occupied and mention here will appear sufficiently justified. 
 
176 PART I. TILE ORLENTAL "WORLD. 
 
 Mongols this religion has assumed the phase of Lamaism. 
 In China — where the religion of Foe early received a great 
 extension, and introduced a monastic life — it occupies the 
 position of an integrant element of the Chinese principle. As 
 the Substantial form of Spirit which characterizes China, 
 develops itself only to a unity of secular national life, which 
 degrades individuals to a position of constant dependence, 
 religion also remains in a state of dependence. The element 
 of freedom is wanting to it ; for its object is the principle 
 of Nature in general, — Heaven, — Universal Matter. But 
 the [compensating] truth of this alienated form of Spirit 
 [Nature occupying the place of the Absolute Spirit] is ideal 
 Unity ; the elevation above the limitation of Nature and of 
 existence at large ; — the return of consciousness into the 
 soul. This element, which is contained in Buddhism, has 
 made its way in China, to that extent to which the Chinese 
 have become aware of the unspirituality of their condition, 
 and the limitation that hampers their consciousness. — In 
 this religion, — which may be generally described as the reli- 
 gion of self-involvement, [undeveloped Unity]*, — the eleva- 
 tion of that un spiritual condition to subjectivity, takes place 
 in two ways ; one of which is of a negative, the other of an 
 affinnative kind. 
 
 The negative form of this elevation is the concentration of 
 Spirit to the Infinite, and must first present itself under 
 theological conditions. It is contained in the fundamental 
 dogma, that Nothingness is the principle of all things, — that 
 all proceeded from and returns to Nothingness. The various 
 forms found in the World are only modifications of proces- 
 sion [thence]. If an analysis of these various forms were 
 attempted, they would lose their quality ; for in themselves 
 all things are one and the same inseparable essence, and this 
 essence is N othingness. The connection of this with the 
 Metempsychosis can be thus explained : All [that we see] is 
 but a change of Form. The inherent infinity of Spirit — 
 infinite concrete self-dependence — is entirely separate from 
 this Universe of phenomena. Abstract Nothingness is 
 properly that which lies beyond Finite Existence — what 
 
 * Compare Hegel's " Vorlesungen über die Philosophie der Religion," 
 2nd Edition, Pt. I. p. 384. 
 
SECT. II. INDIA. BUDDHISM. 
 
 177 
 
 we may call the Supreme Being. This real principle of 
 the Universe is, it is said, in eternal repose, and in itselt 
 unchangeable. Its essence consists in the absence of activity 
 ' and volition. For Nothingness is abstract Unity with itself. 
 To obtain happiness, therefore, man must seek to assimilate 
 himself to this principle by continual victories over himself; 
 and for the sake of this, do nothing, wish nothing, desire 
 nothing. In this condition of happiness, therefore, Vice or 
 Virtue is out of the question ; for the true blessedness is 
 Union with Nothingness. The more man frees himself from 
 all speciality of existence, the nearer does he approach per- 
 fection ; and in the annihilation of all activity — in pure 
 passivity — he attains complete resemblance to Foe. The 
 abstract Unity in question is not a mere Futurity — a Spiritual 
 sphere existing beyond our own ; it has to do with the pre- 
 sent ; it is truth for man [as he is], and ought to be realized 
 in him. In Ceylon and the Birman Empire,— where this 
 Buddhistic Faith has its roots, — there prevails an idea, that 
 man can attain by meditation, to exemption from sickness, 
 old age and death. 
 
 But while this is the negative form of the elevation of 
 Spirit from immersion in the Objective to a subjective reali- 
 zation of itself, this Religion also advances to the conscious- 
 ness of an affirmative form. Spirit is the Absolute. Yet 
 in comprehending Spirit it is a point of essential importance 
 in what determinate form Spirit is conceived. When we 
 speak of Spirit as universal, we know that for us it exists onlv 
 in an inward conception; but to attain this point of view, — to 
 appreciate Spirit in the pure subjectivity of Thought and con- 
 ception, — is the result of a longer process of culture. At that 
 oint in history at which we have now arrived, the form of 
 pirit is not advanced beyond Immediateness [the idea of it 
 is not yet refined by reflection and abstraction]. God is con- 
 ceived in an immediate, unreflected form ; not in the form of 
 Thought — ob jectively. But this immediate Form is that of hu- 
 manity. The Sun, the Stars do not come up to the idea of Spirit; 
 but Man seems to realize it ; and he, as Buddha, Gautama, Foe 
 — in the form of a departed teacher, and in the living form 
 of the Grand Lama — receives divine worship. The Abstract 
 Understanding generally objects to this idea of a Godman ; 
 alleging as a defect that the form here assigned to Spirit 
 
 N 
 
178 
 
 PA ET I. THE ORIENTAL WOHLD. 
 
 is an immediate, [unreflected, unrefined] one,— that in ft 
 it is none other than Man in the concrete. Here the character 
 of a whole people is bound up with the theological view just 
 indicated. The Mongols — a race extending through the whol 
 of central Asia as far as Siberia, where they are subject to the 
 Russians — worship the Lama; and with this form of worship a 
 simple political condition, a patriarchal life is closely united; for 
 they are properly a Nomad people, and only occasionally are 
 commotions excited among them, when they seem to be beside 
 themselves, and eruptions and inundations of vast hordes are 
 occasioned. Of the Lamas there are three : the best known is 
 the Dalai-Lama, who has his seat at Lassa in the kingdom of 
 Thibet. A second is the Teshoo-Lama, who under the title of 
 Bantshen Hinbotshee resides atTeshoo-Lomboo; thereis also a 
 third in Southern Siberia. The first two Lamas preside over 
 two distinct sects, of which the priests of one wear yellow caps, 
 those of the other, red. The wearers of the yellow caps, — 
 at whose head is the Dalai-Lama, and among whose adherents 
 is the Emperor of China, — have introduced celibacy among 
 the priests, while the red sect allow their marriage. The 
 English have become considerably acquainted with the Teshoo- 
 Lama and have given us descriptions of him. 
 
 The general form which the spirit of the Lamaistic develop- 
 ment of Buddhism assumes, is that of a living human being ; 
 while in the original Buddhism it is a deceased person. The two 
 hold in common the relationship to a man. The idea of a man 
 being worshipped as god, — especially a living man, — has in it 
 something paradoxical and revolting ; but the following con 
 siderations must be examined before we pronounce judgment 
 respecting it. The conception of Spirit involves its being re- 
 garded as inherently, intrinsically, universal. This condition 
 must be particularly observed, and it must be discovered how 
 in the systems adopted by various peoples this universality 
 is kept in view. It is not the individuality of the subject that 
 is revered, but that which is universal in him ; and which among 
 the Thibetians, Hindoos, and Asiatics generally, is regarded as 
 the essence pervading all things. This substantial Unity of 
 Spirit is realized in the Lama, who is nothing but the form 
 in which Spirit manifests itself; and who does not hold this 
 Spiritual Essence as his peculiar property, but is regarded 
 as partaking in it only in order to exhibit it to others, that 
 
SECT. II. INDIA. BUDDHISM. 179 
 
 they may attain a conception of Spirituality and be led to 
 piety and blessedness. The Lama's personality as such — his 
 particular individuality — is therefore subordinate to that sub- 
 stantial essence which it embodies. The second point which 
 constitutes an essential feature in the conception of the Lama 
 is the disconnection from Nature. The Imperial dignity of 
 China involved [as we saw,] a supremacy over the powers of Na- 
 ture ; while here spiritual power is directly separated from the 
 vis Natura. The ideanever crosses the minds of the Lama- wor- 
 shippers to desire of the Lama to shew himself Lord of Nature 
 — to exercise magical and miraculous power ; for from the being 
 they call God, they look only for spiritual activity and the 
 bestowal of spiritual benefits. Buddha has moreover theexpress 
 names " Saviour of Souls," — " Sea of Virtue," — " the Great 
 Teacher." Those who have become acquainted with the 
 Teshoo-Lama depict him as a most excellent person, of the 
 calmest temper and most devoted to meditation. Thus also 
 do the Lama-worshippers regard him. They see in him a man 
 constantly occupied with religion, and who when he directs his 
 attention to what is human, does so only to impart consolation 
 and encouragement by his blessing, and by the exercise of 
 mercy and the bestowal of forgiveness. These Lamas lead a 
 thoroughly isolated life and have a feminine rather than 
 masculine training. Early torn from the arms of his parents 
 the Lama is generally a well-formed and beautiful child. He 
 is brought up amid perfect quiet and solitude, in a kind of 
 prison : he is well catered for, and remains without exercise or 
 childish play, so that it is not surprising that a feminine sus- 
 ceptible tendency prevails in his character. The Grand 
 Lamas have under them inferior Lamas as presidents of the 
 great fraternities. In Thibet every father who has four sons 
 is obliged to dedicate one to a conventual life. The Mongols, 
 who are especially devoted to Lamaism — this modification of 
 Buddhism — have great respect for all that possesses life. They 
 live chiefly on vegetables, and revolt from killing any animal, 
 even a louse. This worship of the Lamas has supplanted Sha- 
 manism, that is, the religion of Sorcery. The Shamans — priests 
 of this religion — intoxicate themselves with strong drinks 
 and dancing, and while in this state perform their incan- 
 tations, fall exhausted on the ground, and utter words which 
 pass for oracular. Since Buddhism and Lamaism have taken 
 
 v 2 
 
180 PART I. THE ORIENTAL WORLD. 
 
 the place of the Shaman Religion, the life of the Mongols 
 has been simple, prescriptive and patriarchal. Where they 
 take any part in History, we lind them occasioning impulses 
 that have only been the groundwork of historical develop- 
 ment. There is therefore little to be said about the political 
 administration of the Lamas. A Vizier has charge of the se- 
 cular dominion and reports everything to the Lama : the 
 government is simple and lenient ; and the veneration which 
 the Mongols pay to the Lama, expresses itself chiefly in their 
 asking counsel of him in political affairs. 
 
 SECTION III. 
 PERSIA. 
 
 Asia separates itself into two parts, — Hither and Farther 
 Asia ; which are essentially different from each other. While 
 the Chinese and Hindoos — the two great nations of Farther 
 Asia, already considered, — belong to the strictly Asiatic, 
 namely the Mongolian Race, and consequently possess a 
 quite peculiar character, discrepant from ours ; the nations of 
 Hither Asia belong to the Caucasian, i.e. the European 
 Stock. They are related to the West, while the Farther- 
 Asiatic peoples are perfectly isolated. The European who 
 goes from Persia to India, observes, therefore, a prodigious 
 contrast. Whereas in the former country he finds himself 
 still somewhat at home,and meets with European dispositions, 
 human virtues and human passions, — as soon as he crosses the 
 Indus (i.e. in the latter region), he encounters the most repel- 
 lent characteristics, pervading every single feature of society. 
 
 With the Persian Empire we first enter on continuous 
 History. The Persians are the first Historical People ; Persia 
 was the first Empire that passed away. While China and 
 India remain stationary, and perpetuate a natural vege- 
 tative existence even to the present time, this land has been 
 subject to those developments and revolutions, which alone 
 manifest a historical condition. The Chinese and the Indian 
 Empire assert a place in the historical series only on their 
 own account and for us ; [not for neighbours and successors.] 
 But here in Persia first arises that light which shines itself, and 
 illuminates what is around ; for Zoroaster's " Light" belongs 
 to the World of Consciousness — to Spirit as a relation to some- 
 
SECT. III. PEESIA. 
 
 181 
 
 thing distinct from itself. "We see in the Persian "World a pure 
 exalted Unity, as the essence which leaves the special exist- 
 ences that inhere in it, free ; — as the Light, which only mani- 
 fests what bodies are in themselves ; — a Unity which governs 
 individuals only to excite them to become powerful for them- 
 selves — to develop and assert their individuality. Light 
 makes no distinctions : the Sun shines on the righteous and 
 the unrighteous, on high and low, and confers on all the 
 same benefit and prosperity. Light is vitalizing only in so 
 far as it is brought to bear on something distinct from itself, 
 operating upon and developing that. It holds a position of 
 antithesis to Darkness, and this antithetical relation opens 
 out to us the principle of activity and life. The principle 
 of development begins with the history of Persia. This 
 therefore constitutes strictly the beginning of World-His- 
 tory; for the grand interest of Spirit in History, is to 
 attain an unlimited immanence of subjectivity, — by an abso- 
 lute antithesis to attain complete harmony.* 
 
 Thus the transition which we have to make, is only in the 
 sphere of the Idea, not in the external historical connection. 
 The principle of this transition is that the Universal Essence, 
 which we recognized in Brahm, now becomes perceptible to 
 consciousness — becomes an object and acquires a positive im- 
 port for man. Brahm is not worshipped by the Hindoos : he 
 is nothing more than a condition of the Individual, a religious 
 feeling, a non-objective existence, — a relation, which for con- 
 crete vitality is that of annihilation. But in becoming objec- 
 tive, this Universal Essence acquires a positive nature : man 
 becomes free, and thus occupies a position face to face as it 
 were with the Highest Being, the latter being made objec- 
 tive for him. This form of Universality we see exhibited in 
 Persia, involving a separation of man from the Universal 
 essence ; while at the same time the individual recognizes 
 himself as identical with, [a partaker in,] that essence. In the 
 Chinese and Indian principle, this distinction was not made. 
 "We found only a unit of the Spiritual and the Natural. But 
 Spirit still involved in Nature has to solve the problem of 
 
 * In earlier stages of progress, the mandates of Spirit (social and 
 political law,) are given as by a power alien to itself — as by some compul- 
 sion of mere Nature. Gradually it sees the untruth of this alien form of 
 validity— recognizes these mandates as its own, and adopts them freely as 
 a law of liberty. It theu stands in clear opposition to its logical contrary 
 —Nature.— Tr. 
 
182 
 
 PART I. THE ORIENTAL WORLD. 
 
 freeing itself from the latter. Eights and Duties in India 
 are intimately connected with special classes, and are there- 
 fore only peculiarities attaching to man by the arrangement 
 of Nature. In China this unity presents itself under the 
 conditions of paternal government. Man is not free there; 
 he possesses no moral element, since he is identical with the 
 external command [obedience is purely natural, as in the 
 filial relation,— not the result of reflection and principle.] In 
 the Persian principle, Unity first elevates itself to the dis- 
 tinction from the merely natural ; we have the negation of 
 that unreflecting relation which allowed no exercise of mind 
 to intervene between the mandate and its adoption by the 
 will. In the Persian principle this unity is manifested as 
 Light, which in this case is not simply light as such, the most 
 universal physical element, but at the same time also spiritual 
 purity — the Good. Speciality — the involvement with limited 
 Nature — is consequently abolished. Light, in a physical 
 and spiritua sense, imports, therefore, elevation — freedom 
 from the merely natural. Man sustains a relation to Light — 
 to the Abstract Good — as to something objective, which is ac- 
 knowledged, reverenced, and evoked to activity by his Will. 
 If we look back once more, — and we cannot do so too fre- 
 quently, — on the phases which we havetraversed in arrivingat 
 this point, we perceive in China the totality of a moral Whole, 
 but excluding subjectivity ; — this totality divided into mem- 
 bers, but without independence in its various portions. We 
 found only an external arrangement of this political Unity. 
 In India, on the contrary, distinctions made themselves pro- 
 minent ; but the principle of separation was unspiritual. 
 We found incipient subjectivity, but hampered with the con- 
 dition, that the separation in question is insurmountable ; 
 and that Spirit remains involved in the limitations of Nature, 
 and is therefore a self-contradiction. Above this purity of 
 Castes is that purity of Light which we observe in Persia ; 
 that Abstract Good, to which all are equally able to approach, 
 and in which all equally may be hallowed. The Unity re- 
 cognized therefore, now first becomes a principle, not an exter- 
 nal bond of soulless order. The fact that every one has a share 
 in that principle, secures to him personal dignity. 
 
 Pirst as to Geographical position, we see China and India, 
 exhibiting as it were the dull half-conscious brooding of 
 
SECT. III. PERSIA — THE ZEND PEOPLE. 1 S3 
 
 Spirit, in fruitful plains, — distinct from which is the lofty gir- 
 dle of mountains with the wandering hordes that occupy 
 them. The inhabitants of the heights, in their conquest, did 
 not change the spirit of the plains, but imbibed it them- 
 selves. But in Persia the two principles — retaining their di- 
 versit — became united, and the mountain peoples with their 
 principle became the predominant element. The two chief 
 divisions which we have to mention are : — the Persian Upland 
 itself, and the Valley-plains, which are reduced under the 
 dominion of the inhabitants of the Uplands. That elevated 
 territory is bounded on the east by the Soliman mountains, 
 which are continued in a northerly direction by the Hindoo 
 Koosh and Belur Tag. The latter separate the anterior re- 
 gion — Bactriana and Sogdiana, occupying the plains of the 
 Oxus — from the Chinese Upland, which extends as far as 
 Cashgar. That plain of the Oxus itself lies to the north of 
 the Persian Upland, which declines on the south towards the 
 Persian Gulf. This is the geographical position of Iran. On 
 its western declivity lies Persia (Farsistan;) higher to the 
 north, Kourdistan, — beyond this Armenia. Thence extend in 
 a south-westerly direction the river districts of the Tigris and 
 the Euphrates. — The elements of the Persian Empire are the 
 Zend race — the old Parsees ; next the Assyrian, Median 
 and Babylonian Empire in the region mentioned ; but the 
 Persian Empire also includes Asia Minor, Egypt, and Syria, 
 with its line of coast ; and thus combines the Upland, the 
 Valley Plains and the Coast region. 
 
 CHAPTEE I. 
 THE ZEND PEOPLE. 
 The Zend People derived their name from the language 
 in which the Zend Boohs are written, i.e. the canonical books 
 on which the religion of the ancient Parsees is founded. Of 
 this religion of the Parsees or Fi re- worshippers, there are 
 still traces extant. There is a colony of them in Bombay ; 
 and on the Caspian Sea there are some scattered families 
 that have retained this form of worship. Their national exist- 
 ence was put an end to by the Mahometans. The great Zer- 
 dusht — called Zoroaster by the Greeks — wrote his religious 
 books in the Zend language. Until nearly the last third of the 
 18th century, this language and all the writings composed 
 
184 PAET I. THE ORIENTAL "WORLD. 
 
 in it, were entirely unknown to Europeans ; when at length 
 the celebrated Frenchman, Anquetil du Perron, disclosed 
 to us these rich treasures. Filled with an enthusiasm for the 
 Oriental World, which his poverty did not allow him to 
 gratify, he enlisted in a French corps that was about to sail 
 for India. He thus reached Bombay, where he met with 
 the Parsees, and entered on the study of their religious 
 ideas. "With indescribable difficulty he succeeded in obtaining 
 their religious books ; making his way into their literature, 
 and thus opening an entirely new and wide field of research, 
 but which, owing to his imperfect acquaintance with the lan- 
 guage, still awaits thorough investigation. 
 
 Where the Zend people, mentioned in the religious books 
 of Zoroaster, lived, is difficult to determine. In Media and 
 Persia the religion of Zoroaster prevailed, and Xenophon re- 
 lates that Cyrus adopted it : but none of these countries was 
 the proper habitat of the Zend people. Zoroaster himself calls 
 it the pure Ariene : we find a similar name in Herodotus, for 
 he says that the Medes were formerly called Arii— a name 
 with which the designation Iran is connected. South of the 
 Oxus runs a mountain chain in the ancient Bactriana — 
 with which the elevated plains commence, that were inhabi- 
 ted by the Medes, the Parthians, and the Hyrcanians. In 
 the district watered by the Oxus at the commencement of 
 its course, Bactra — probably the modern Balk — is said to 
 have been situated ; from which Cabul and Cashmere are 
 distant only about eight days' journey. Here in Bactriana 
 appears to have been the seat of the Zend people. In the 
 time of Cyrus we find the pure and original faith, and the 
 ancient political and social relations such as they are described 
 in the Zend books, no longer perfect. Thus much appears 
 certain, that the Zend language, which is connected with the 
 Sanscrit, was the language of the Persians, Medes, and Bac- 
 trians. The laws and institutions of the people bear an evi- 
 dent stamp of great simplicity. Four classes are mentioned : 
 Priests, Warriors, Agriculturists, and Craftsmen. Trade 
 only is not noticed ; from which it would appear that the peo- 
 ple still remained in an isolated condition. Governors of 
 Districts, Towns, and Roads, are mentioned; so that all points 
 to the social phase of society, — the political not being yet 
 developed ; and nothing indicates a connection with other 
 
SECT. III. PERSIA — TIIE ZEND PEOPLE. 
 
 185 
 
 states. It is essential to note, that we find here no Castes, 
 but only Classes, and that there are no restrictions on mar- 
 riage between these different Classes ; though the Zend 
 writings announce civil laws and penalties, together with 
 religious enactments. 
 
 The chief point — that which especially concerns us here — 
 is the doctrine of Zoroaster. In contrast with the wretched 
 hebetude of Spirit which we find among the Hindoos, a pure 
 ether — an exhalation of Spirit — meets us in the Persian 
 conception. In it, Spirit emerges from that substan- 
 tial Unity of Nature, that substantial destitution of import, 
 in which a separation has not yet taken place, — in which 
 Spirit has not yet an independent existence in contraposition 
 to its object. This people, namely, attained to the conscious- 
 ness, that absolute Truth must have the form of Univer- 
 sality—of Unity. This Universal, Eternal, Infinite Essence 
 is not recognized at first, as conditioned in any way ; it is 
 Unlimited Identity. This is properly (and we nave already 
 frequently repeated it,) also the character of Brahm. But 
 this Universal Being became objective, and their Spirit became 
 the consciousness of this its Essence ; while on the contrary 
 among the Hindoos this objectivity is only the natural one 
 of the Brahmins, and is recognized as pure Universality only 
 in the destruction of consciousness. Among the Persians 
 this negative assertion has become a positive one ; and man 
 has a relation to Universal Being of such a kind that he re- 
 mains positive in sustaining it. This One, Universal Being, is 
 indeed not yet recognized as the free Unity of Thought ; not 
 yet " worshipped in Spirit and in Truth but is still clothed 
 with a form — that of Light. But Light is not a Lama, a 
 Brahmin, a Mountain, a brute, — this or that particular ex- 
 istence, — but sensuous Universality itself ; simple manifesta- 
 tion. The Persian Beligion is therefore no idol-worship ; it 
 does not adore individual natural objects, but the Universal 
 itself. Light admits, moreover, the signification of the Spiri- 
 tual ; it is the form of the Good and True, — the substantiality 
 of knowledge and volition as well as of all natural things. 
 Light puts man in a position to be able to exercise choice ; 
 and he can only choose when he has emerged from that which 
 had absorbed him. But Light directly involves an Opposite, 
 namely, Darkness ; just as Evil is the antithesis of Good. As 
 
186 PAET I. THE OMENTAL WOHLD. 
 
 man could not appreciate Good, if Evil were not ; and as he 
 can be really good only when he has become acquainted with 
 the contrary, so the Light does not exist without Darkness. 
 Among the Persians, Orrnuzd and Ahriman present the an- 
 tithesis in question. Orrnuzd is the Lord of the kingdom of 
 Light — of Good ; Ahriman that of Darkness— of Evil. But 
 there is a still higher being from whom both proceeded — a 
 Universal Being not affected by this antithesis, called Zer- 
 uane-Akerene — the Unlimited All. The All, i.e. is some- 
 thing abstract ; it does not exist for itself, and Orrnuzd and 
 Ahriman have arisen from it. This Dualism is commonly 
 brought as a reproach agaiust Oriental thought ; and, as far 
 as the contradiction is regarded as absolute, that is certainly 
 an irreligious understanding which remains satisfied with it. 
 But the very nature of Spirit demands antithesis ; the princi- 
 ple of Dualism belongs therefore to the idea of Spirit, which, 
 in its concrete form, essentially involves distinction. AmoDg 
 the Persians, Purity and Impurity have both become subjects 
 of consciousness ; and Spirit, in order to comprehend itself, 
 must of necessity place the Special and Negative existence in 
 contrast with the Universal and Positive. Only by overcoming 
 this antithesisis Spirit twice-born — regenerated. Thedeficiency 
 in the Persian principle is only that the Unity of the antithe- 
 sis is not completely recognized ; for in that indefinite con- 
 ception of the Uncreated All, whence Orrnuzd and Ahriman 
 proceeded, the Unity is only the absolutely Primal existence, 
 and does not reduce the contradictory elements to harmony 
 in itself. Orrnuzd creates of his own free will ; but also 
 according to the decree of Zeruane-Akerene ; (the representa- 
 tion wavers ;) and the harmonizing of the contradiction is only 
 to be found in the contest which Orrnuzd carries on with 
 Ahriman, and in which he will at last conquer. Orrnuzd is 
 the Lord of Light, and he creates all that is beautiful and no- 
 ble in the World, which is a Kingdom of the Sun. He is the 
 excellent, the good, the positive in all natural and spiritual 
 existence. Light is the body of Orrnuzd ; thence the worship 
 of Eire, because Orrnuzd is present in all Light ; but he is 
 not the Sun or Moon itself. In these the Persians vene- 
 rate only the Light, which is Orrnuzd. Zoroaster asks Or- 
 rnuzd who he is ? He answers : " My Name is the ground and 
 centre of all existence — Highest Wisdom and Science— Des- 
 
SECT. III. PERSIA — THE ZEND PEOPLE. 
 
 1ST 
 
 ^oyer of the Ills of the World, and maintainer of the Uni- 
 \?rse — Fulness of Blessedness — Pure Will," &c. That 
 which comes from Ormuzd is living, independent, and lasting. 
 Language testifies to his power ; prayers are his productions. 
 Darkness is on the contrary the body of Ahriman ; but a 
 perpetual fire banishes him from the temples. The chief 
 end of every man's existence is to keep himself pure, and 
 to spread this purity around him. The precepts that have this 
 in view are very diffuse ; the moral requirements are how- 
 ever characterized by mildness. It is said : if a man loads 
 you with revilings, and insults, but subsequently humbles him- 
 self, call him your friend. AVe read in the Vendidad, that 
 sacrifices consist chiefly of the flesh of clean animals, flowers 
 and fruits, milk and perfumes. It is said there, " As man 
 was created pure and worthy of Heaven, he becomes pure 
 again through the law of the servants of Ormuzd, which is 
 purity itself ; if he purifies himself by sanctity of thought, 
 word, and deed. What is ' Pure Thought ?' That which 
 ascends to the beginning of things. What is * Pure Word ?' 
 The Word of Ormuzd, (the Word is thus personified and im- 
 ports the living Spirit of the whole revelation of Ormuzd.) 
 What is 1 Pure Deed ?' The humble adoration of the Hea- 
 venly Hosts, created at the beginning of things." It is im- 
 plied in this that man should be virtuous : his own will, his 
 subjective freedom is presupposed. Ormuzd is not limited 
 to particular forms of existence. Sun, Moon, and five other 
 stars, which seem to indicate the planets — those illuminating 
 and illuminated bodies — are the primary symbols of Ormuzd ; 
 the Jmshaspand, his first sons. Among these, Mitra is also 
 named : but we are at a loss to fix upon the star which this 
 name denotes, as we are also in reference to the others. The 
 Mitra is placed in the Zend Books among the other stars ; 
 yet in the penal code moral transgressions are called " Mitra- 
 sins," — e.g. breach of promise, entailing 300 lashes ; to which 
 in the case of theft, 300 years of punishment in Hell are to 
 be added. Mitra appears here as the presiding genius of 
 man's inward higher life. Later on, great importance is as- 
 signed to Mitra as the mediator between Ormuzd and men. 
 Even Herodotus mentions the adoration of Mitra. In Rome, 
 at a later date, it became very prevalent as a secret worship ; 
 and we find traces of it even far into the middle ages. Be- 
 
188 PART I. THE ORIENTAL WORLD. 
 
 sides those noticed there are other protecting genii, which rank 
 under the Amshaspand, their superiors ; and are the govern- 
 ors and preservers of the world. The council of the seven 
 great men whom the Persian Monarch had about him was 
 likewise instituted in imitation of the court of Ormuzd. The 
 Fervers — a kind of Spirit-World — are distinguished from the 
 creatures of the mundane sphere. The Fervers are not Spi- 
 rits according to our idea, for they exist in every natural ob- 
 ject, whether fire, water, or earth. Their existence is coeval 
 with the origin of things ; they are in all places, in highroads, 
 towns, &c, and are prepared to give help to supplicants. 
 Their abode is in Gorodman, the dwelling of the " Blessed," 
 above the solid vault of heaven. As Son of Ormuzd we find 
 the name Dshemshid : apparently the same as he whom the 
 Greeks call Achsemenes, whose descendants are called Pishda- 
 dians — a race to which Cyrus was reported to belong. Even at 
 a later period the Persians seem to have had the designation 
 Achaemenians among the Eomans. (Horace. Odes III. i. 44.) 
 Dshemshid, it is said, pierced the earth with a golden dagger; 
 which means nothing more than that he introduced agriculture. 
 He is said then to have traversed the various countries, origi- 
 nated springs and rivers, and thereby fertilized certain tracts 
 of land, and made the valleys teem with living beings, &c. In 
 the Zendavesta, the name Gustasp is also frequently men- 
 tioned, which many recent investigators have been inclined to 
 connect with Darius Hystaspes ; an idea however that cannot 
 be entertained for a moment, for this Gustasp doubtless be- 
 longs to the ancient Zend Eace — to a period therefore antece- 
 dent to Cyrus. Mention is made in the Zend books of the 
 Turanians also, i.e. the Nomade tribes of the north ; though 
 nothing historical can be thence deduced. 
 
 The ritual observances of the religion of Ormuzd import 
 that men should conduct themselves in harmony with the 
 Kingdom of Light. The great general commandment is 
 therefore, as already said, spiritual and corporeal purity, con- 
 sisting in many prayers to Ormuzd. It was made specially 
 obligatory upon the Persians, to maintain living existences,— 
 to plant trees — to dig wells — to fertilize deserts ; in order 
 that Life, the Positive, the Pure might be furthered, and 
 the dominion of Ormuzd be universally extended. External 
 purity is contravened by touching a dead animal, and there 
 
SECT. III. PERSIA — THE ZEND PEOPLE. 
 
 189 
 
 are many directions for being purified from such pollution. 
 Herodotus relates of Cyrus, that when he went against 
 Babylon, and the river Gyndes engulfed one of the horses of 
 the Chariot of the Sun, he was occupied for a year in punish- 
 ing it, by diverting its stream into small canals, to deprive 
 it of its power. Thus Xerxes, when the sea broke in pieces 
 his bridges, had chains laid upon it as the wicked and 
 pernicious being — Ahriman. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE ASSYRIANS, BABYLONIANS, MEDES AND PERSIANS. 
 
 As the Zend Race was the higher spiritual element of the 
 Persian Empire, so in Assyria and Babylonia we have the 
 element of external wealth, luxury and commerce. Tradi- 
 tions respecting them ascend to the remotest periods of 
 History ; but in themselves they are obscure, and partly 
 contradictory ; and this contradiction is the less easy to be 
 cleared up, as they have no canonical books or indigenous 
 works. The Greek historian Ctesias is said to have had 
 direct access to the archives of the Persian Kings ; yet we 
 have only a few fragments remaining. Herodotus gives us 
 much information ; the accounts in the Bible are also valuable 
 and remarkable in the highest degree, for the Hebrews were 
 immediately connected with the Babylonians. In regard to 
 the Persians, special mention must be made of the Epic, 
 " Shah-nameh," by Ferdousi, — a heroic poem in 60,000 
 strophes, from which Gorres has given a copious extract. 
 Perdousi lived at the beginning of the eleventh century 
 a. d. at the court of Mahmoud the Great, at Ghasna, east 
 of Cabul and Candahar. The celebrated Epic just mentioned 
 has the old heroic traditions of Iran (that is of West Persia 
 proper) for its subject ; but it has not the value of a historical 
 authority, since its contents are poetical and its author a 
 Mahometan. The contest of Iran and Turan is described 
 in this heroic poem. Iran is Persia Proper— the Mountain 
 Land on the south of the Oxus ; Turan denotes the plains of 
 the Oxus and those lying between it and the ancient 
 
190 PART I. THE ORIENTAL WORLD. 
 
 Jaxartes. A hero, Rustan, plays the principal part in the 
 poem ; but its narrations are either altogether fabulous, or 
 quite distorted. Mention is made of Alexander, and he is 
 called Ishkander or Scander of Boum. Eoum means the 
 Turkish Empire (even now one of its provinces is called 
 üouinelia), but it denotes also the Roman ; and in the poem 
 Alexander's Empire has equally the appellation Bourn. 
 Confusions of this kind are quite of a piece with the Mahome- 
 tan views. It is related in the poem, that the King of Iran 
 made war on Philip, and that this latter was beaten. The 
 King then demanded Philip's daughter as a wife ; but after 
 he had lived a long time with her, he sent her away be- 
 cause her breath was disagreeable. On returning to her 
 father, she gave birth to a son — Skander, who hastened to 
 Iran to take possession of the throne after the death of his 
 father. Add to the above that in the whole of the poem no 
 personage or narrative occurs that can be connected with 
 Cyrus, and we have sufficient data for estimating its histori- 
 cal value. It has a value for us, however, so far as Ferdousi 
 therein exhibits the spirit of his time, and the character and 
 interest of Modern Persian views. 
 
 As regards Assyria, we must observe, that it is a rather 
 indeterminate designation. Assyria Proper is a part of 
 Mesopotamia, to the north of Babylon. As chief towns of 
 this Empire are mentioned, Atur or Assur on the Tigris, and 
 of later origin Nineveh, said to have been founded and built 
 by Ninus, the Pounder of the Assyrian Empire. In those 
 times one City constituted the whole Empire, — Nineveh for 
 example : so also Ecbatana in Media, which is said to have 
 had seven walls, between whose enclosures agriculture was 
 carried on ; and within whose innermost wall was the palace 
 of the ruler. Thus too, Nineveh, according to Diodorus, 
 was 480 Stadia (about 12 German miles — [55 English]) 
 in circumference. On the walls, which were 100 feet high, 
 were fifteen hundred towers, within which a vast mass of 
 people resided. Babylon included an equally immense popu- 
 lation. These cities arose in consequence of a twofold 
 necessity, — on the one hand that of giving up the nomade 
 life and pursuing agriculture, handicrafts and trade in a 
 fixed abode ; and on the other hand of gaining protection 
 against the roving mountain peoples, and the predatory 
 
SECT. III. PERSIA. — THE ASSYRIANS, BABYLONIANS, &C. 191 
 
 Arabs. Older traditions indicate that this entire valley dis- 
 trict was traversed by Nomades, and that this mode of life 
 gave way before that of the cities. Thus Abraham wan- 
 dered forth with his family from Mesopotamia westwards, 
 into mountainous Palestine. Even at this day the country 
 round Bagdad is thus infested by roving Nomades. Nineveh 
 is said to have been built 2050 years b. c.; consequently 
 the founding of the Assyrian Kingdom is of no later date. 
 Ninus reduced under his sway also Babylonia, Media 
 and Bactriana ; the conquest of which latter country is 
 particularly extolled as having displayed the greatest 
 energy ; for Ctesias reckons the number of troops that ac- 
 companied Ninus, at 1,700,000 infantry and a proportionate 
 number of cavalry. Bactra was besieged for a very consider- 
 able time, and its conquest is ascribed to Semiramis ; who 
 with a valiant host is said to have ascended the steep acclivity 
 of a mountain. The personality of Semiramis wavers be- 
 tween mythological and historical representations. To her 
 is ascribed the building of the Tower of Babel, respecting 
 which we have in the Bible one of the oldest of traditions. — 
 Babylon lay to the south, on the Euphrates, in a plain of 
 great fertility and well adapted for agriculture. On the 
 Euphrates and the Tigris there was considerable navigation. 
 Vessels came partly from Armenia, partly from the South, to 
 Babylon, and conveyed thither an immense amount of mate- 
 rial wealth. The land round Babylon was intersected by innu- 
 merable canals ; more for purposes of agriculture — to irri- 
 gate the soil and to obviate inundations — than for navigation. 
 The magnificent buildings of Semiramis in Babylon itself 
 are celebrated ; though how much of the city is to be 
 ascribed to the more ancient period, is undetermined and 
 uncertain. It is said that Babylon formed a square, bisected 
 by the Euphrates. On one side of the stream was the tem- 
 ple of Bel, on the other the great palaces of the monarchs. 
 The city is reputed to have had a hundred brazen (i.e. copper) 
 gates, its walls being 100 feet high, and thick in proportion, 
 defended by two hundred and fifty towers. The thorough- 
 fares in the city which led towards the river were closed 
 every night by brazen doors. Ker Porter, an Englishman, 
 about twelve years ago (his whole tour occupied from 1817 
 to 1820) traversed the countries where ancient Babylon lay : 
 
192 
 
 PART I. THE ORIENTAL WORLD. 
 
 on an elevation he thought he could discover remains still 
 existing of the old tower of Babel ; and supposed that he had 
 found traces of the numerous roads that wound around the 
 tower, and in whose loftiest story the image of Bel was set 
 up. There are besides many hills with remains of ancient 
 structures. The bricks correspond with the description 
 in the Biblical record of the building of the tower. A 
 vast plain is covered by an innumerable multitude of such 
 bricks, although for many thousand years the practice of 
 removing them has been continued ; and the entire town of 
 Hila, which lies in the vicinity of the ancient Babylon, has 
 been built with them. Herodotus relates some remarkable 
 facts in the customs of the Babylonians, which appear to 
 shew that they were people living peaceably and neighbourly 
 with each other. When any one in Babylon fell ill, he was 
 brought to some open place, that every passer by might have 
 the opportunity of giving him his advice. Marriageable 
 daughters were disposed of by auction, and the high price 
 offered for a belle was allotted as a dowry for her plainer 
 neighbour. Such an arrangement was not deemed inconsist- 
 ent with the obligation under which every woman lay of 
 prostituting herself once in her life in the temple of Mylitta. 
 It is difficult to discover what connection this had with their 
 religious ideas. This excepted, according to Herodotus's ac- 
 count, immorality invaded Babylon only at a later period, when 
 the people became poorer. The fact that the fairer portion of 
 the sex furnished dowries for their less attractive sisters, 
 seems to confirm his testimony so far as it shews a provident 
 care for all ; while that bringing of the sick into the public 
 places indicates a certain neighbourly feeling. 
 
 We must here mention the Medes also. They were, like 
 the Persians, a mountain-people, whose habitations were 
 south and south-west of the Caspian Sea and stretched as 
 far as Armenia. Among these Medes the Magi are also 
 noticed as one of the six tribes that formed the Median 
 people, whose chief characteristics were fierceness, barbar- 
 ism, and warlike courage. The capital Ecbatana was built 
 by Dejoces, not earlier. He is said to have united under his 
 kingly rule the tribes of the Medes, after they had made 
 themselves free a second time from Assyrian supremacy, 
 and to have induced them to build and to fortify for him a 
 
SECT. III. PERSIA — THE ASSYRIANS, BABYLONIANS, &C. 193 
 
 palace befitting his dignity. As to the religion of the Medes, 
 the Greeks call all the oriental Priests, Magi, which is there- 
 fore a perfectly indefinite name. But all the data point to 
 the fact that among the Magi we may look for a compara- 
 tively close connection with the Zend religion ; but that, 
 although the Magi preserved and extended it, it experienced 
 great modifications in transmission to the various peoples who 
 adopted it. Xenophon says, that Cyrus was the first that 
 sacrificed to God according to the fashion of the Magi. 
 The Medes therefore acted as a medium for propagating the 
 Zend Religion. 
 
 The Assyrian-Babylonian Empire, which held so many 
 peoples in subjection, is said to have existed for one thou- 
 sand or fifteen hundred years. The last ruler was Sardana- 
 palus, — a great voluptuary, according to the descriptions we 
 have of him. Arbaces, the Satrap of Media, excited the 
 other satraps against him ; and in combination with them, 
 led the troops which assembled every year at Nineveh to pay 
 the tribute, against Sardanapalus. The latter, although he 
 had gained many victories, was at last compelled to yield 
 before overwhelming force, and to shut himself up in Nineveh ; 
 and, when he could not longer offer resistance, to burn him- 
 self there with all his treasure. According to some chrono- 
 logists, this took place 888 years b. c. ; according to others, 
 at the end of the seventh century. After this catastrophe the 
 empire was entirely broken up : it was divided into an Assy- 
 rian, a Median, and a Babylonian Empire, to which also 
 belonged the Chaldeans, — a mountain people from the north 
 which had united with the Babylonians. These several 
 Empires had in their turn various fortunes ; though here we 
 meet with a confusion in the accounts which has never 
 been cleared up. Within this period of their existence 
 begins their connection with the Jews and Egyptians. The 
 Jewish people succumbed to superior force ; the Jews were 
 carried captive to Babylon, and from them we have accurate 
 information respecting the condition of this Empire. Ac- 
 cording to Daniel's statements there existed in Babylon a 
 carefully appointed organization for government business. 
 He speaks of Magians, — from whom the expounders of sacred 
 writings, the soothsayers, astrologers, Wise Men and 
 Chaldeans who interpreted dreams, are distinguished. The 
 
 o 
 
194 
 
 PART I. THE ORIENTAL "WORLD. 
 
 Prophets generally say much of the great commerce of 
 Babylon ; but they also draw a terrible picture of the prevail- 
 ing depravity of manners. 
 
 The real culmination of the Persian Empire is to be 
 looked for in connection with the Persian people properly 
 *o called, which, embracing in its rule all Anterior Asia, 
 came into contact with the Greeks. The Persians are 
 found in extremely close and early connection with the 
 Medes; and the transmission of the sovereignty to the Per- 
 sians makes no essential difference ; for Cyrus was himself a 
 relation of the Median King, and the names of Persia and 
 Media melt into one. At the head of the Persians and 
 Medes, Cyrus made war upon Lydia and its king Croesus. 
 Herodotus relates that there had been wars before that time 
 between Lydia and Media, but which had been settled by 
 the intervention of the King of Babylon. We recognize here 
 a system of States, consisting of Lydia, Media, and Babylon. 
 The latter had become predominant and had extended its 
 dominion to the Mediterranean Sea. Lydia stretched east- 
 ward as far as the Halys ; and the border of the western 
 coast of Asia Minor, the fair Greek colonies, were subject 
 to it ; a high degree of culture was thus already present 
 in the Lydian Empire. Art and poetry were bloommg there 
 as cultivated by the Greeks. These colonies also were sub- 
 jected to Persia. Wise men, such as Bias, and still earlier, 
 Thales, advised them to unite themselves in a firm league, 
 or to quit their cities and possessions, and to seek out for 
 themselves other habitations ; (Bias meant Sardinia.) But 
 such a union could not be realized among cities which were 
 animated by the bitterest jealousy of each other, and who 
 lived in continual quarrel : while in the intoxication of afflu- 
 ence they were not capable of forming the heroic resolve to 
 leave their homes for the sake of freedom. Only when they 
 w r ere on the very point of being subjugated by the Persians, 
 did some cities give up certain for prospective possessions, 
 in their aspiration after the highest good — Liberty. Herodo- 
 tus says of the war against the Lydians, that it made the 
 Persians who were previously poor and barbarous, acquainted 
 for the first time with the luxuries of life and civilization. 
 After the Lydian conquest Cyrus subjugated Babylon. 
 With it he came into possession of Syria and Palestine ; 
 
SECT. III. PERSIA — THE EMPIRE AND ITS PKGVIXCES. 105 
 
 freed the Jews from captivity, and allowed them to rebuild 
 their temple. Lastly, he led an expedition against the 
 MassagetaB ; engaged with them in the steppes between the 
 Oxus and the Jaxartes; but sustained a defeat, and died 
 the death of a warrior and conqueror. The death of heroes 
 who have formed an epoch in the History of the "World, is 
 stamped with the character of their mission. Cyrus thus 
 died in his mission, which 'was the union of Anterior Asia 
 into one sovereignty without an ulterior object. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 THE PERSIAN EMPIRE AND ITS CONSTITUENT PARTS. 
 
 The Persian Empire is an Empire in the modern sense, — 
 like that which existed in Germany, and the great imperial 
 realm under the sway of Napoleon ; for we find it consisting 
 of a number of states, which are indeed dependeut, but 
 which have retained their own individuality, their manners, 
 and laws. The general enactments, binding upon all, did 
 not infringe upon their political and social idiosyncrasies, 
 but even protected and maintained them ; so that each of 
 the nations that constitute the whole, had its own form of 
 Constitution. As Light illuminates everything — imparting 
 to each object a peculiar vitality — so the Persian Empire 
 extends over a multitude of nations, and leaves to each one its 
 particular character. Some have even kings of their own ; 
 each one its distinct language, arms, way of life, and customs. 
 All this diversity coexists harmoniously under the impartial 
 dominion of Light. The Persian Empire comprehends all the 
 three geographical elements, which we classified as distinct. 
 First, the Uplands of Persia and Media ; next, the Valley - 
 plains of the Euphrates and Tigris, whose inhabitants are 
 found united in a developed form of civilization, with Egypt — 
 the Valley-plain of the Nile — where agriculture, industrial 
 arts and sciences flourished ; and lastly a third element, viz. 
 the nations who encounter the perils of the sea, — the Syrians, 
 
 o2 
 
196 PAET I. THE OEIENTAL WOBLD. 
 
 the Phoenicians, the inhabitants of the Greek colonies and 
 Greek Maritime States in Asia Minor. Persia thus united 
 in itself the three natural principles, while China and India 
 remained foreign to the sea. We find here neither that con- 
 solidated totality which China presents, nor that Hindoo life, 
 in which an anarchy of caprice is prevalent everywhere. In 
 Persia, the government, though joining all in a central unity, 
 is but a combination of peoples — leaving each of them free. 
 Thereby a stop is put to that barbarism and ferocity with 
 which the nations had been wont to carry on their destructive 
 feuds, and which the Book of Kings and the Book of Samuel 
 sufficiently attest. The lamentations of the Prophets and 
 their imprecations upon the state of things before the con- 
 quest, shew r the misery, wickedness and disorder that prevailed 
 among them, and the happiness which Cyrus diffused over 
 the region of Anterior Asia. It was not given to the Asiatics 
 to unite self-dependence, freedom and substantial vigour of 
 mind, with culture, i.e. an interest for diverse pursuits and an 
 acquaintance with the conveniences of life. Military valour 
 among them is consistent only with barbarity of manners. It 
 is not the calm courage of order ; and when their mind opens 
 to a sympathy with various interests, it immediately passes 
 into effeminacy ; allows its energies to sink, and makes men 
 the slaves of an enerv ated sensuality. 
 
 PEESIA. 
 
 The Persians, — a free mountain and nomade people — 
 though ruling over richer, more civilized and fertile lands, — 
 retained on the whole the fundamental characteristics of their 
 ancient mode of life. They stood with one foot on their 
 ancestral territory, with the other on their foreign conquests. 
 In his ancestral land the King was a friend among friends, and 
 as if surrounded by equals. Outside of it, he was the lord to 
 whom all were subject, and bound to acknowledge their depen- 
 dence by the payment of tribute. Faithful to the Zend religion, 
 the Persians give themselves to the pursuit of piety and the 
 pure worship of Ormuzd. The tombs of the Kings were in 
 
SECT. III. PERSIA — THE EMPIRE AND ITS PROVINCES. 197 
 
 Persia Proper ; and there the King sometimes visited his 
 countrymen, with whom he lived in relations of the greatest 
 simplicity. He brought with him presents for them, while 
 all other nations were obliged to make presents to him. 
 At the court of the monarch there was a division of Persian 
 cavalry which constituted the elite of the whole army, ate 
 at a common table, and were subject to a most perfect disci- 
 pline in every respect. They made themselves illustrious by 
 their bravery, and even the Greeks awarded a tribute of 
 respect to their valour in the Median wars. When the en- 
 tire Persian host, to which this division belonged, was to 
 engage in an expedition, a summons was first issued to all 
 the Asiatic populations. When the warriors were assem- 
 bled, the expedition was undertaken with that character of 
 restlessness, that nomadic disposition which formed the idio- 
 syncrasy of the Persians. Thus they invaded Egypt, Scythia, 
 Thrace, and at last Greece ; where their vast power was des- 
 tined to be shattered. A march of this kind looked almost 
 like an emigration : their families accompanied them. Each 
 people exhibited its national features and warlike accoutre- 
 ments, and poured forth en masse. Each had its own order 
 of march and mode of warfare. Herodotus sketches for us 
 a brilliant picture of this variety of aspect as it presented 
 itself in the vast march of nations under Xerxes (two millions 
 of human beings are said to have accompanied him.) Yet, as 
 these peoples were so unequally disciplined — so diverse in 
 strength and bravery — it is easy to understand how the 
 small but well-trained armies of the Greeks, animated by the 
 same spirit, and under matchless leadership, could withstand 
 those innumerable but disorderly hosts of the Persians. 
 The provinces had to provide for the support of the Persian 
 cavalry, which were quartered in the centre of the kingdom. 
 Babylon had to contribute the third part of the supplies in 
 question, and consequently appears to have been by far the 
 richest district. As regards other branches of revenue, each 
 people was obliged to supply the choicest of the peculiar 
 produce which the district afforded. Thus Arabia gave frank- 
 incense, Syria purple, &c. 
 
 The education of the princes — but especially that of the 
 heir to the throne — was conducted with extreme care. Till 
 their seventh year the sons of the King remained among 
 
193 
 
 PAßT I. THE OTtlENTAL WOELD. 
 
 the women, and did not come into the royal presence. 
 From their seventh year forward they were instructed in 
 hunting, riding, shooting with the bow, and also in speaking 
 the truth. There is one statement to the effect that the 
 prince received instruction in the Magian lore of Zoroaster. 
 Four of the noblest Persians conducted the prince's educa- 
 tion. The magnates of the land, at large, constituted a kind 
 of Diet. Among them Magi were also found. They are 
 depicted as free men, animated by a noble fidelity and pa- 
 triotism. Of such character seem the seven nobles — the 
 counterpart of the Amshaspand who stand around Ormuzd — 
 when after the unmasking of the false Smerdis, who on the 
 death of King Cambyses gave himself out as his brother, 
 they assembled to deliberate on the most desirable form of 
 government. Quite free from passion, and without exhibit- 
 ing any ambition, they agree that monarchy is the only form 
 of government adapted to the Persian Empire. The Sun, 
 and the horse which first salutes them with a neigh, decide 
 the succession in favour of Darius. The magnitude of the 
 Persian dominion occasioned the government of the provinces 
 by viceroys — Satraps ; and these often acted very arbitrarily 
 to the provinces subjected to their rule, and displayed hatred 
 and envy towards each other ; a source of much evil. These 
 satraps were only superior presidents of the provinces, and 
 generally left the subject kings of the countries in possession 
 of regal privileges. All the land and all the water belonged 
 to the Great King of the Persians. "Land and Water" 
 were the demands of Darius Hystaspes and Xerxes from the 
 Greeks. But the King was only the abstract sovereign : 
 the enjoyment of the country remained to the nations them- 
 selves ; whose obligations were comprised in the maintenance 
 of the court and the satraps, and the contribution of the 
 choicest part of their property. Uniform taxes first make 
 their appearance under the government of Darius Hystaspes. 
 On the occasion of a royal progress the districts of the em- 
 pire visited had to give presents to the King ; and from the 
 amount of these gifts we may infer the wealth of the unex- 
 hausted provinces. Thus the dominion of the Persians 
 was by no means oppressive, either in secular or religious 
 respects. The Persians, according to Herodotus, had no 
 idols — in fact ridiculed anthropomorphic representations of 
 
SECT. III. PERSIA — SYRIA, PIKETHCIA, ETC. 100 
 
 the gods ; but they tolerated every religion, although there 
 may be found expressions of wrath against idolatry. Greek 
 temples were destroyed, and the images of the gods broken 
 in pieces. 
 
 SYRIA AND THE SEMITIC WESTERN ASIA. 
 
 One element — the coast territory — which also belonged 
 to the Persian Empire, is especially represented by Syria. 
 It was peculiarly important to the Persian Empire ; for 
 when Continental Persia set out on one of its great expe- 
 ditions, it was accompanied by Phoenician as well as by 
 Greek navies. The Phoenician coast is but a very narrow 
 border, — often only two leagues broad, — which has the high 
 mountains of Lebanon on the East. On the sea-coast lay a 
 series of nobie and rich cities, as Tyre, Sidon, Byblus, 
 Berytus, carrying on great trade and commerce ; which last, 
 however, was too isolated and confined to that particular 
 country, to allow it to affect the whole Persian state. Their 
 commerce lay chiefly in the direction of the Mediterranean 
 sea, and it reached thence far into the West. Through 
 its intercourse with so many nations, Syria soon attained a 
 high degree of culture. There the most beautiful fabrications 
 in metals and precious stones were prepared, and there the 
 most important discoveries, e.g. of Glass and of Purple, were 
 made. Written language there received its first development, 
 for in their intercourse with various nations, the need of it 
 was soon felt. (So, to quote another example, Lord Macart- 
 ney observes that in Canton itself, the Chinese had felt and 
 expressed the need of a more pliable written language.) The 
 Phoenicians discovered and first navigated the Atlantic- 
 Ocean. They had settlements in Cyprus and Crete. In the 
 remote island of Thasos, they worked gold mines. In the 
 south and south-west of Spain they opened silver mines. In 
 Africa they founded the colonies of Utica and Carthage. 
 Prom Gades they sailed far down the African coast, and ac- 
 cording to some, even circumnavigated Africa. Prom Britain 
 they brought tin, and from the Baltic, Prussian amber. 
 
200 
 
 PART I. THE ORIENTAL WORLD. 
 
 This opens to us an entirely new principle. Inactivity- 
 ceases, as also mere rude valour ; in their place appears the 
 activity of Industry, and that considerate courage which, 
 while it dares the perils of the deep, rationally bethinks 
 itself of the means of safety. Here everything depends on 
 Man's activity, his courage, his intelligence ; while the 
 objects aimed at are also pursued in the interest of Man. 
 Human will and activity here occupy the foreground, not 
 Nature and its bounty. Babylonia had its determinate 
 share of territory, and human subsistence was there depen- 
 dent on the course of the sun and the process of Nature 
 generally. But the sailor relies upon himself amid the fluc- 
 tuations of the waves, and eye and heart must be always 
 open. In like manner the principle of Industry involves the 
 very opposite of what is received from Nature ; for natural 
 objects are worked up for use and ornament. In Industry 
 Man is an object to himself, and treats Nature as something 
 subject to him, on which he impresses the seal of his activity. 
 Intelligence is the valour needed here, and ingenuity is 
 better than mere natural courage. At this point we see 
 the nations freed from the fear of Nature and its slavish 
 bondage. 
 
 If we compare their religious ideas with the above, we 
 shall see in Babylon, in the Syrian tribes, and in Phrygia, 
 first a rude, vulgar, sensual idolatry, — a description of which 
 in its principal features is given in the Prophets. Nothing 
 indeed more specific than idolatry is mentioned; and this is 
 an indefinite term. The Chinese, the Hindoos, the Greeks, 
 practise idolatry ; the Catholics, too, adore the images of 
 saints ; but in the sphere of thought with w r hich we are at 
 present occupied, it is the powders of Nature and of pro- 
 duction generally that constitute the object of veneration ; 
 and the worship is luxury and pleasure. The Prophets give 
 the most terrible pictures of this, — though their repulsive 
 character must be partly laid to the account of the hatred 
 of Jews against neighbouring peoples. Such representations 
 are particularly ample in the Book of Wisdom. Not only 
 was there a worship of natural objects, but also of the 
 Universal Power of Nature — Astarte, Cybele, Diana of 
 Ephesus. The worship paid was a sensuous intoxication, 
 excess, and revelry: sensuality and cruelty are its two 
 
SECT. III. PERSIA — STRIA, PHOENICIA, ETC. 201 
 
 characteristic traits. ft When they keep their holy days they 
 act as if mad," ["they are mad when they be merry," — 
 English Version] says the Book of Wisdom (xiv. 28). With 
 a merely sensuous life — this being a form of consciousness 
 which does not attain to general conceptions — cruelty is 
 connected; because Nature itself is the Highest, so that Man 
 has no value, or only the most trifling. Moreover, the genius 
 of such a polytheism involves the destruction of its conscious- 
 ness on the part of Spirit in striving to identify itself with 
 Nature, and the annihilation of the Spiritual generally. 
 Thus we see children sacrificed — priests of Cybele subject- 
 ing themselves to mutilation — men making themselves eu- 
 nuchs — women prostituting themselves in the temple. As 
 a feature of the court of Babylon it deserves to be remarked, 
 that when Daniel was brought up thefe, it was not required 
 of him to take part in the religious observances ; and more- 
 over that food ceremonially pure was allowed him ; that he 
 was in requisition especially for interpreting the dreams of 
 the King, because he had "the spirit of the holy gods." 
 The King proposes to elevate himself above sensuous life by 
 dreams, as indications from a superior power. It is thus 
 generally evident, that the bond of religion was lax, and 
 that here no unity is to be found. For we observe also 
 adorations offered to images of kings ; the power of Nature 
 and the King as a spiritual Power, are the Highest ; so that 
 in this form of idolatry there is manifested a perfect contrast 
 to the Persian purity. 
 
 We find on the other hand something quite different 
 among the Phoenicians, that bold seafaring people. Hero- 
 dotus tells us, that at Tyre Hercules was worshipped. If 
 the divinity in question is not absolutely identical with the 
 Greek demigod, there must be understood by that name one 
 whose attributes nearly agree with his. This worship is 
 particularly indicative of the character of the people ; for it 
 is Hercules of whom the Greeks say, that he raised himself 
 to Olympus by dint of human courage and daring. The 
 idea of the Sun perhaps originated that of Hercules as en- 
 gaged in his twelve labours ; but this basis does not give us 
 the chief feature of the myth, which is, that Hercules is that 
 scion of the gods who, by his virtue and exertion, made him- 
 self a god by human spirit and valour ; and who, instead of 
 
202 
 
 PAET I. THE OEIENTAL WOULD. 
 
 passing his life in idleness, spends it in hardship and toil. 
 A second religious element is the worship of Adonis, which 
 takes place in the towns of the coast, (it was celebrated in 
 Egypt also by the Ptolemies) ; and respecting which we find 
 a notable passage in the Book of "Wisdom (xiv. 13, &c), 
 where it is said : " The idols were not from the beginning, — 
 but were invented through the vain ambition of men, be- 
 cause the latter are short-lived. For a father afflicted with 
 untimely mourning, when he had made an image of his 
 child (Adonis) early taken away, honoured him as a god, 
 who was a dead man, and delivered to those that were under 
 him ceremonies and sacrifices " (E. V. nearly.) The feast of 
 Adonis was very similar to the worship of Osiris — the com- 
 memoration of his death ; — a funeral festival, at which the 
 women broke out into the most extravagant lamentations 
 over the departed god. In India lamentation is suppressed 
 in the heroism of insensibility ; uncomplaining, the women 
 there plunge into the river, and the men, ingenious in in- 
 venting penances, impose upon themselves the direst tortures; 
 for they give themselves up to the loss of vitality, in order 
 to destroy consciousness in empty abstract contemplation. 
 Here, on the contrary, human pain becomes an element of 
 worship; in pain man realizes his subjectivity: it is ex- 
 pected of him, — he may here indulge self-consciousness and 
 the feeling of actual existence. Life here regains its value. 
 A universality of pain is established : for death becomes 
 immanent in the Divine, and the deity dies. Among the 
 Persians we saw Light and Darkness struggling with each 
 other, but here both principles are united in one— the Abso- 
 lute. The Negative is here, too, the merely Natural ; but 
 as the death of a god, it is not a limitation attaching to an 
 individual object, but is pure Negativity itself. And this 
 point is important, because the generic conception that has 
 to be formed of Deity is Spirit ; which involves its being 
 concrete, and having in it the element of negativity. The 
 qualities of wisdom and power are also concrete qualities, 
 but only as predicates ; so that God remains abstract sub- 
 stantial unity, in which differences themselves vanish, and 
 do not become organic elements (Momente) of this unity. 
 But here the Negative itself is a phase of Deity, — the 
 Natural — Death; — the worship appropriate to which is 
 
SECT. III. PERSIA — JUDJEA. 
 
 203 
 
 -^rief. It is in the celebration of the death of Adonis, and 
 <f his resurrection, that the concrete is made conscious. 
 Adonis is a youth, who is torn from his parents by a too early 
 death. In China, in the worship of ancestors, these latter 
 enjoy divine honour. But parents in their decease only pay 
 the debt of Nature. When a youth is snatched away by 
 death, the occurrence is regarded as contrary to the proper 
 order of things ; and while affliction at the death of parents 
 is no just affliction, in the case of youth death is a paradox. 
 And this is the deeper element in the conception, — that in 
 the Divinity, Negativity —Antithesis — is manifested; and 
 that the worship rendered to him involves both elements — 
 the pain felt for the divinity snatched away, and the joy 
 occasioned by his being found again. 
 
 JUDMA. 
 
 The next people belonging to the Persian empire, in that 
 wide circle of nationalities which it comprises, is the Jewish. 
 "We find here, too, a canonical book — the Old Testament ; in 
 which the views of this people —whose principle is the exact 
 opposite of the one just described — are exhibited. While 
 among the Phoenician people the Spiritual was still limited 
 by Nature, in the case of the Jews we find it entirely puri- 
 fied ; — the pure product of Thought. Self-conception appears 
 in the field of consciousness, and the Spiritual develops 
 itself in sharp contrast to Nature and to union with it. It 
 is true that we observed at an earlier stage the pure concep- 
 tion " Brahm ;" but only as the universal being of Nature ; 
 and with this limitation, that Brahm is not himself an object 
 of consciousness. Among the Persians we saw this abstract 
 being become an object for consciousness, but it was 
 that of sensuous intuition, — as Light. But the idea of Light 
 has at this stage advanced to that of " Jehovah " — the purely 
 One. This forms the point of separation between the East 
 and the West ; Spirit descends into the depths of its own 
 being, and recognizes the abstract fundamental principle as 
 the Spiritual. Nature, — which in the East is the primary and 
 fundamental existence,— is now depressed to the condition of 
 
204 
 
 PART I. THE ORIENTAL WORLD. 
 
 a mere creature ; and Spirit now occupies the first place. 
 God is known as the creator of all men, as he is of all 
 nature, and as absolute causality generally. But this great 
 principle, as further conditioned, is exclusive Unity. This 
 religion must necessarily possess the element of exclusive- 
 ness, which consists essentially in this, — that only the One 
 People which adopts it, recognizes the One God, and is ac- 
 knowledged by him. The God of the Jewish People is the 
 God only of Abraham and of his seed: National indi- 
 viduality and a special local worship are involved in such a 
 conception of deity. Before him all other gods are false : 
 moreover the distinction between "true" and "false" is 
 quite abstract ; for as regards the false gods, not a ray of 
 the Divine is supposed to shine into them. But every form 
 of spiritual force, and a fortiori every religion is of such a 
 nature, that whatever be its peculiar character, an affirma- 
 tive element is necessarily contained in it. However 
 erroneous a religion may be, it possesses truth, although in 
 a mutilated phase. In every religion there is a divine pre- 
 sence, a divine relation ; and a philosophy of History has to 
 seek out the spiritual element even in the most imperfect 
 forms. But it does not follow that because it is a religion, 
 it is therefore good. We must not fall into the lax con- 
 ception, that the content is of no importance, but only the 
 form. This latitudinarian tolerance the Jewish religion 
 does not admit, being absolutely exclusive. 
 
 The Spiritual speaks itself here absolutely free of the Sen- 
 suous, and Nature is reduced to something merely external 
 and undivine. This is the true and proper estimate of 
 Nature at this stage ; for only at a more advanced phase 
 can the Idea attain a reconciliation [recognize itself] in this 
 its alien form. Its first utterances will be in opposition to 
 Nature; for Spirit, which had been hitherto dishonoured, 
 now first attains its due dignity, while Nature resumes its 
 proper position. Nature is conceived as having the ground 
 of its existence in another, — as something posited, created ; 
 and this idea, that God is the lord and creator of Nature, 
 leads men to regard God as the Exalted One, while the 
 whole of Nature is only his robe of glory, and is expended 
 in his service. In contrast with this kind of exaltation, that 
 which the Hindoo religion presents is only that of indefini- 
 
SECT. HI. PERSIA — JTTDiEA. 205 
 
 tude. In virtue of the prevailing spirituality the Sensuous 
 and Immoral are no longer privileged, but disparaged as un- 
 godliness. Only the One — Spirit- — the Non-sensuous is the 
 Truth ; Thought exists free for itself, and true morality and 
 righteousness can now make their appearance ; for God is 
 honoured by righteousness, and right-doing is " walking in 
 the way of the Lord." With this is conjoined happiness, 
 life and temporal prosperity as its reward ; for it is said : 
 " that thou mavest live long in the land." — Here too also we 
 have the possibility of a historical view ; for the understanding 
 has become prosaic ; putting the limited and circumscribed 
 in its proper place, and comprehending it as the form proper 
 to finite existence : Men are regarded as individuals, not as 
 incarnations of God ; Sun as Sun, Mountains as Moun- 
 tains, — not as possessing Spirit and Will. 
 
 We observe among this people a severe religious ceremo- 
 nial, expressing a relation to pure Thought. The individual 
 as concrete does not become free, because the Absolute itself 
 is not comprehended as concrete Spirit ; since Spirit still 
 appears posited as non-spiritual — destitute of its proper 
 characteristics. It is true that subjective feeling is manifest, 
 — the pure heart, repentance, devotion ; but the particular 
 concrete individuality has not become objective to itself in 
 the Absolute. It therefore remains closely bound to the 
 observance of ceremonies and of the Law, the basis of which 
 latter is pure freedom in its abstract form. The Jews 
 possess that which makes them what they are, through the 
 One : consequently the individual has no freedom for itself. 
 Spinoza regards the code of Moses as having been given by 
 God to the Jews for a punishment — a rod of correction. 
 The individual never comes to the consciousness of inde- 
 pendence ; on that account we do not find among the Jews 
 any belief in the immortality of the soul ; for individuality 
 does not exist in and for itself. But though in Judaism the 
 Individual is not respected, the Family has inherent value ; 
 for the worship of Jehovah is attached to the Family, and 
 it is consequently viewed as a substantial existence. But 
 the State is an institution not consonant with the Judaistic 
 principle, and it is alien to the legislation of Moses. In the 
 idea of the Jews, Jehovah is the God of Abraham, of Isaac, 
 and Jacob ; who commanded them to depart out of Egypt, 
 
206 
 
 PART I. THE ORIENTAL WORLD. 
 
 and gave them the land of Canaan. The accounts of the 
 Patriarchs attract our interest. We see in this history the 
 transition from the patriarchal nomade condition to agri- 
 culture. On the whole the Jewish history exhibits grand 
 features of character ; but it is disfigured by an exclusive 
 bearing (sanctionedinits religion,) towardsthe genius of other 
 nations, (the destruction of the inhabitants of Canaan being 
 even commanded), — by want of culture generally, and by the 
 superstition arising from the idea of the high value of their 
 peculiar nationality. Miracles, too, form a disturbing feature 
 in this history — as Mstory ; for as far as concrete conscious- 
 ness is not free, concrete perception is also not free ; Nature 
 is undeified, but not yet understood. 
 
 The Family became a great nation ; through the conquest 
 of Canaan, it took a whole country into possession ; and 
 erected a Temple for the entire people, in Jerusalem. But 
 properly speaking no political union existed. In case of 
 national danger heroes arose, who placed themselves at the 
 head of the armies ; though the nation during this period was 
 for the most part in subjection. Later on, kings were chosen, 
 and it was they who first rendered the Jews independent. 
 David even made conquests. Originally the legislation is 
 adapted to a family only ; yet in the books of Moses the wish 
 for a king is anticipated. The priests are to choose him : he 
 is not to be a foreigner, — not to have horsemen in large 
 numbers, — and he is to have few wives. After a short period 
 of glory the kingdom suffered internal disruption and was 
 divided. As there was only one tribe of Levites and one 
 Temple, — i.e. in Jerusalem,— idolatry was immediately intro- 
 duced. The One God could not be honoured in different 
 Temples, and there could not be two kingdoms attached to 
 one religion. However spiritual may be the conception of 
 G-od as objective, the subjective side — the honour rendered to 
 him— is still very limited and unspiritual in character. The 
 two kingdoms, equally infelicitous in foreign and domestic 
 warfare, were at last subjected to the Assyrians and Babylo- 
 nians ; through Cyrus the Israelites obtained permission 
 to return home and live according to their own laws. 
 
SECT. III. PERSIA — EGYPT. 
 
 207 
 
 EGYPT. 
 
 The Persian Empire is one that lias passed away, and we 
 have nothing but melancholy relics of its glory. Its fairest 
 and richest towns — such as Babylon, Susa, Persepolis — are 
 razed to the ground ; and only a few ruins mark their ancient 
 site. Even in the more modern great cities of Persia, — 
 Ispahan and Shiraz, — half of them has become a ruin; and 
 they have not — as is the case with ancient Borne — developed 
 a new life, but have lost their place almost entirely in the 
 remembrance of the surrounding nations. Besides the other 
 lands already enumerated as belonging to the Persian Em- 
 pire, Egypt claims notice,— characteristically the Land of 
 Kuins ; a land which from hoar antiquity has been regarded 
 with wonder, and which in recent times also has attracted 
 the greatest interest. Its ruins, the final result of immense 
 labour, surpass in the gigantic and monstrous, all that anti- 
 quity has left us. 
 
 In Egypt we see united the elements which in the Persian 
 monarchy appeared singly. "We found among the Persians 
 the adoration of Light — regarded as the Essence of universal 
 Nature. This principle then develops itself in phases which 
 hold a position of indifference towards each other. The one 
 is the immersion in the sensuous, — among the Babylonians 
 and Syrians ; the other is the Spiritual phase, which is two- 
 fold: first as the incipient consciousness of the concrete Spirit 
 in the worship of Adonis, and then as pure and abstract 
 thought among the Jews. In the former the concrete is de- 
 ficient in unity; in the latter the concrete is altogether want- 
 ing. The next problem is then, to harmonize these contra- 
 dictory elements ; and this problem presents itself in Egypt. 
 Of the representations which Egyptian Antiquity presents 
 us with, one figure must be especially noticed, viz. the Sphinx 
 — in itself a riddle — an ambiguous form, half brute, half 
 human. The Sphinx may be regarded as a symbol of the 
 Egyptian Spirit. The human head looking out from the brute 
 body, exhibits Spirit as it begins to emerge from the merely 
 Natural — to tear itself loose therefrom and already to look 
 more freely around it ; without, however, entirely freeing it- 
 self from the fetters Nature had imposed. The innumerable 
 
208 
 
 TART I. THE ORIENTAL WORLD. 
 
 edifices of the Egyptians are half below the ground, and half 
 rise above it into the air. The whole land is divided into a 
 kingdom of life and a kingdom of death. The colossal statue 
 of Memnon resounds at the first glance of the young morning 
 Sun ; though it is not yet the free light of Spirit with which 
 it vibrates. "Written language is still a hieroglyphic ; and 
 its basis is only the sensuous image, not the letter itself. 
 
 Thus the memorials of Egypt themselves give us a multi- 
 tude of forms and images that express its character ; we 
 recognize a Spirit in them which feels itself compressed; 
 which utters itself, but only in a sensuous mode. 
 
 Egypt was always the Land of Marvels, and has remained 
 so to the present day. It is from the Greeks especially 
 that we get information respecting it, and chiefly from 
 Herodotus. This intelligent historiographer himself visited 
 the country of which he wished to give an account, and at its 
 chief towns made acquaintance with the Egyptian priests. 
 Of all that he saw and heard, he gives an accurate record ; but 
 the deeper symbolism of the Egyptian mythology he has re- 
 frained from unfolding. This he regards as something 
 sacred, and respecting which he cannot so freely speak as of 
 merely external objects. Besides him Diodorus Siculus is 
 an authority of great importance; and among the Jewish 
 historians, Josephus. 
 
 In their architecture and hieroglyphics, the thoughts and 
 conceptions of the Egyptians are expressed. A national 
 work in the department of language is wanting : and that 
 not only to us, but to the Egyptians themselves ; they could 
 not have any, because they had not advanced to an under- 
 standing of themselves. Nor was there any Egyptian his- 
 tory, until at last Ptolemy Philadelphus, — he who had the 
 sacred books of the Jews translated into Greek,— prompted 
 the High-Priest Manetho to write an Egyptian history. Of 
 this we have only extracts, — list of Kings ; which however 
 have occasioned the greatest perplexities and contradictory 
 views. To become acquainted with Egypt, we must for the 
 most part have recourse to the notices of the ancients, and 
 the immense monuments that are left us. We find a number 
 of granite walls on which hieroglyphics are graved, and the 
 ancients have given us explanations of some of them, but 
 which are quite insufficient. In recent times attention has es- 
 
SECT. III. PERSIA — EGYPT. 
 
 209 
 
 pecially been recalled to them, and after many efforts some- 
 thing at least of the hieroglyphic writing has been deci- 
 phered. The celebrated Englishman, Thomas Young, first 
 suggested a method of discovery, and called attention to the 
 fact, that there are small surfaces separated from the other 
 hieroglyphics, and in which a Greek translation is percepti- 
 ble. By comparison Young made out three names — Berenice, 
 Cleopatra, and Ptolemy, — and this was the first step in deci- 
 phering them. It was found at a later date, that a great part 
 of the hieroglyphics are phonetic, that is, express sounds. 
 Thus the figure of an eye denotes first the eye itself, but 
 secondly the first letter of the Egyptian word that means 
 "eye" (as in Hebrew the figure of a house, 3, denotes the 
 letter b, with which the word House, begins.) The 
 
 celebrated Champollion (the younger), first called attention 
 to the fact that the phonetic hieroglyphs are intermingled 
 with those which mark conceptions ; and thus classified the 
 hieroglyphs and established settled principles for deciphering 
 them. 
 
 The History of Egypt, as we have it, is full of the greatest 
 contradictions. The Mythical is blended with the Historical, 
 and the statements are as diverse as can be imagined. 
 European literati have eagerly investigated the lists given 
 byManetho and have relied upon them, and several names of 
 kings have been confirmed by the recent discoveries. 
 Herodotus says, that according to the statements of the 
 priests, gods had formerly reigned over Egypt, and that 
 from the first human king down to the King Setho 341 genera- 
 tions, or 11,340 years, had passed away ; but that the first 
 human rider was Menes (the resemblance of the name to 
 the Greek Minos and the Hindoo Manu is striking). With 
 the exception of the Thebaid— its most southern part— Egypt 
 was said by them to have formed a lake ; the Delta presents 
 reliable evidence of having been produced by the silt of the 
 Nile. As the Dutch have gained their territory from the 
 sea, and have found means to sustain themselves upon it ; 
 so the Egyptians first acquired their country, and main- 
 tained its fertility by canals and lakes. An important 
 feature in the history of Egypt is its descent from Upper to 
 Lower Egypt — from the South to the North. With this is 
 connected the consideration that Egypt probably received its 
 
2,0 
 
 PAKT I. THE ORIENTAL "WOHLD. 
 
 culture from Ethiopia ; principally from the island Meroe, 
 which, according to recent hypotheses, was occupied by a 
 sacerdotal people. Thebes in Upper Egypt was the most 
 ancient residence of the Egyptian kings. Even in Herodo- 
 tus' s time it was in a state of dilapidation. The ruins of 
 this city present the most enormous specimens of Egyptian 
 architecture that we are acquainted with. Considering 
 their antiquity they are remarkably well preserved : which 
 is partly owing to the perpetually cloudless sky. The centre 
 of the kingdom was then transferred to Memphis, not far 
 from the modern Cairo : and lastly to Sais, in the Delta 
 itself. The structures that occur in the locality of this city- 
 are of very late date and imperfectly preserved. Herodotus 
 tells us that Memphis was referred to so remote a founder 
 as Menes. Among the later kings must be especially 
 noticed Sesostris, who, according to Champollion, is 
 Rhamses the Great. To him in particular are referred a 
 number of monuments and pictures in which are depicted 
 his triumphal processions, and the captives taken in battle. 
 Herodotus speaks of his conquests in Syria, extending even 
 to Colchis ; and illustrates his statement by the great simi- 
 larity between the manners of the Colchians and those of 
 the Egyptians : these two nations and the Ethiopians were 
 the only ones that had always practised circumcision. He- 
 rodotus says, moreover, that Sesostris had vast canals dug 
 through the whole of Egypt, which served to convey the 
 water of the 2\ile to every part. It may be generally re- 
 marked that the more provident the government in Egypt 
 was. so much the more regard did it pay to the maintenance 
 of the canals, while under negligent governments the desert 
 got the upper hand ; for Egypt was engaged in a constant 
 struggle with the fierceness of the heat and with the water 
 of the Nile. It appears from Herodotus, that the country 
 had become impassable for cavalry in consequence of the 
 canals ; while, on the contrary, we see from the books of 
 Moses, how celebrated Egypt once was in this respect. 
 Moses says that if the Jews desired a king, he must not 
 marrv too manv wives, nor send tor horses from Egypt. 
 
 Next to Sesostris the Kings Cheops and Chephren deserve 
 special mention. They are said to have built enormous 
 pyramids and closed the temples of the priests. A son of 
 
SECT. III. PERSIA — EGYPT. 
 
 211 
 
 Cheops— Mycerinus — is said to have reopened them ; after 
 him the Ethiopians invaded the country, and their king, 
 Sabaco, made himself sovereign of Egypt. But Anysis, the 
 successor of Mycerinus, fled into the marshes — to the mouth 
 of the Nile ; only after the departure of the Ethiopians did 
 he make his appearance again. He was succeeded by Setho, 
 who had been a priest of Phtha (supposed to be the same as 
 Hephaestus) : under his government, Sennacherib, King of 
 the Assyrians, invaded the country. Setho had always 
 treated the warrior-caste with great disrespect, and even 
 robbed them of their lands ; and when he invoked their 
 assistance, they refused it. He was obliged therefore to 
 issue a general summons to the Egyptians, and assembled a 
 host composed of hucksters, artisans, and market people. 
 In the Bible we are told that the enemies fled, and that it 
 was the angels who routed them ; but Herodotus relates 
 that field-mice came in the night and gnawed the quivers 
 and bows of the enemy, so that the latter, deprived of their 
 weapons, were compelled to flee. After the death of Setho, 
 the Egyptians (Herodotus tells us) regarded themselves as 
 free, and chose themselves twelve kings, who formed a 
 federal union,— as a symbol of which they built the Laby- 
 rinth, consisting of an immense number of rooms and halls, 
 above and below ground. In the year 650 b.c. one of these 
 kings, Psammitichus, with the help of the Ionians and 
 Carians (to whom he promised land in Lower Egypt,) ex- 
 pelled the eleven other kings. Till that time Egypt had re- 
 mained secluded from the rest of the world ; and at sea it 
 had established no connection with other nations. Psammi- 
 tichus commenced such a connection, and thereby led the way 
 to the ruin of Egypt. From this point the history becomes 
 clearer, because it is based on Greek accounts. Psammi- 
 tichus was followed by Necho, who began to dig a canal, 
 which was to unite the Nile with the Ked Sea, but which 
 was not completed until the reign of Darius Nothus. The 
 plan of uniting the Mediterranean Sea with the Arabian 
 Gulf, and the wide ocean, is not so advantageous as might 
 be supposed ; since in the Ked Sea — which on other accounts 
 is very diflicult to navigate — there prevails for about nine 
 months in the year a constant north wind, so that it is only 
 during three months that the passage from south to north is 
 
 p 2 
 
212 
 
 PART I. THE ORIENTAL WORLD. 
 
 feasible. Necho was followed by Psammis, and the latter 
 by Apries, who led an army against Sidon, and engaged with 
 the Tyrians by sea : against Cyrene also he sent an army, 
 which was almost annihilated by the Cyrenians. The 
 Egyptians rebelled against him, accusing him of wishing to 
 lead them to destruction; but this revolt was probably 
 caused by the favour shewn by him to the Carians and 
 Ionians. Amasis placed himself at the head of the rebels, 
 conquered the king, and possessed himself of the throne. 
 By Herocotus he is depicted as a humorous monarch, who, 
 however, did not always maintain the dignity of the throne. 
 Erom a very humble station he had raised himself to royalty 
 by ability, astuteness, and intelligence, and he exhibited in 
 all other relations the same keen understanding. In the 
 morning he held his court of judicature, and listened to the 
 complaints of the people ; but in the afternoon, feasted and 
 surrendered himself to pleasure. To his friends, who blamed 
 him on this account, and told him that he ought to give the 
 whole day to business, he made answer: " If the bow is con- 
 stantly on the stretch, it becomes useless or breaks." As 
 the Egyptians thought less of him on account of his mean 
 descent, he had a golden basin — used for washing the feet — 
 made into the image of a god in high honour among the 
 Egyptians ; this he meant as a symbol of his own eleva- 
 tion. Herodotus relates, moreover, that he indulged in 
 excesses as a private man, dissipated the whole of his pro- 
 perty, and then betook himself to stealing. This contrast 
 of a vulgar soul and a keen intellect is characteristic in an 
 Egyptian king. 
 
 Amasis drew down upon him the ill-will of King Cambyses. 
 Cyrus desired an oculist from the Egyptians ; for at that 
 time the Egyptian oculists were very famous, their skill 
 having been called out by the numerous eye-diseases preva- 
 lent in Egypt. This oculist, to revenge himself for having 
 been sent out of the country, advised Cambyses to ask for 
 the daughter of Amasis in marriage ; knowing well that 
 Amasis would either be rendered unhappy by giving her 
 to him, or on the other hand, incur the wrath of Cam- 
 byses by refusing. Amasis would not give his daughter to 
 Cambyses, because the latter desired her as an inferior wife 
 (for his lawful spouse must be a Persian) ; but sent him, 
 under the name of his own daughter, that of Apries, who 
 
SECT. III. PERSIA — EGYPT. 
 
 213 
 
 afterwards discovered her real name to Cambyses. The 
 latter was so incensed at the deception, that he led an expe- 
 dition against Egypt, conquered that country, and united it 
 with the Persian Empire. 
 
 As to the Egyptian Spirit, it deserves mention here, that 
 the Elians in Herodotus's narrative call the Egyptians the 
 wisest of mankind. It also surprises us to find among them, 
 in the vicinity of African stupidity, reflective intelligence, 
 a thoroughly rational organization characterizing all institu- 
 tions, and most astonishing works of art. The Egyptians 
 were, like the Hindoos, divided into castes, and the children 
 always continued the trade and business of their parents. 
 On this account, also, the Mechanical and Technical in the 
 arts was so much developed here ; while the hereditary trans- 
 mission of occupations did not produce the same disadvan- 
 tageous results in the character of the Egyptians as in India. 
 Herodotus mentions the seven following castes : the priests, 
 the warriors, the neatherds, the swineherds, the merchants (or 
 trading population generally) the interpreters — who seem 
 only at a later date to have constituted a separate class — and, 
 lastly, the sea-faring class. Agriculturists are not named here, 
 probably because agriculture was the occupation of several 
 castes, as, e.g., the warriors, to whom a portion of the land 
 was given. Diodorus and Strabo give a different account of 
 these caste-divisions. Only priests, warriors, herdsmen, agri- 
 culturists, and artificers are mentioned, to which latter, perhaps, 
 tradesmen also belong. Herodotus says of the priests, that 
 they in particular received arable land, and had it cultivated 
 for rent ; for the land generally was in the possession of the 
 priests, warriors, and kings. Joseph was a minister of the 
 king, according to Holy Scripture, and contrived to make 
 him master of all landed property. But the several 
 occupations did not remain so stereotyped as among the 
 Hindoos ; for we find the Israelites, who were originally 
 herdsmen, employed also as manual labourers : and there was 
 a king — as stated above — who formed an army of manual 
 labourers alone. The castes are not rigidly fixed, but 
 struggle with and come into contact with one another : we 
 often find cases of their being broken up and in a state of 
 rebellion. The warrior-caste, at one time discontented on 
 account of their not being released from their abodes in the 
 direction of Nubia, and desperate at not being able to make 
 
214 
 
 PART I. THE ORIENTAL WORLD. 
 
 use of their lands, betakes itself to Meroe, and foreign mer- 
 cenaries are introduced into the country. 
 
 Of the mode of life among the Egyptians, Herodotus 
 supplies a very detailed account, giving prominence to 
 everything which appears to him to deviate from Greek 
 manners. Thus the Egyptians had physicians specially de- 
 voted to particular diseases ; the women were engaged in 
 out-door occupations, while the men remained at home to 
 weave. In one part of Egypt polygamy prevailed ; in 
 another, monogamy ; the women had but one garment, the 
 men two ; they wash and bathe much, and undergo purifica- 
 tion every month. All this points to a condition of settled 
 peace. As to arrangements of police, the law required that 
 every Egyptian should present himself, at a time appointed, 
 before the superintendent under whom he lived, and state 
 from what resources he obtained his livelihood. If he 
 could not refer to any, he was punished with death. This 
 law, however, w T as of no earlier date than Amasis. The 
 greatest care, moreover, was observed in the division of the 
 arable land, as also in planning canals and dikes ; under 
 Sabaco, the Ethiopian king, says Herodotus, many cities 
 were elevated by dikes. 
 
 The business of courts of justice was administered with 
 *ry great care. They consisted of thirty judges nominated 
 Dy the district, and who chose their own president. Pleadings 
 were conducted in writing, and proceeded as far as the 
 " rejoinder." Diodorus thinks this plan very effectual, in 
 obviating the perverting influence of forensic oratory, and of 
 the sympathy of the judges. The latter pronounced sentence 
 silently, and in a bieroglyphical manner. Herodotus says, 
 that they had a symbol of truth on their breasts, and turned 
 it towards that side in whose favour the cause was decided, 
 or adorned the victorious party with it. The king himself 
 had to take part in judicial business every day. Theft, we 
 are told, was forbidden ; but the law commanded that thieves 
 should inform against themselves. If they did so, they were 
 not punished, but, on the contrary, were allowed to keep a 
 fourth part of what they had stolen. This perhaps was 
 designed to excite and keep in exercise that cunning for 
 which the Egyptians were so celebrated. 
 
 The intelligence displayed in their legislative economy, ap- 
 pears characteristic of the Egyptians. This intelligence, which 
 
SECT. III. PERSIA — EGYPT. 
 
 215 
 
 manifests itself in the practical, we also recognize in the 
 productions of art and science. The Egyptians are reported 
 to have divided the year into twelve months, and each month 
 into thirty days. At the end of the year they intercalated 
 five additional days, and Herodotus says that their arrange- 
 ment was better than that of the Greeks. The intelligence 
 of the Egyptians especially strikes us in the department of 
 mechanics. Their vast edifices — such as no other nation 
 has to exhibit, and which excel all others in solidity and size 
 — sufficiently prove their artistic skill ; to whose cultivation 
 they could largely devote themselves, because the inferior 
 castes did not trouble themselves with political matters. 
 Diodorus Siculus says, that Egypt was the only country in 
 which the citizens did not trouble themselves about the 
 state, but gave their whole attention to their private business. 
 Greeks and Romans must have been especially astonished at 
 such a state of things. 
 
 On account of its judicious economy, Egypt was regarded 
 by the ancients as the pattern of a morally regulated con- 
 dition of things — as an ideal such as Pythagoras realized in 
 a limited select society, and Plato sketched on a larger scale. 
 But in such ideals no account is taken of passion. A plan 
 of society that is to be adopted and acted upon, as an 
 absolutely complete one, — in which everything has been con- 
 sidered, and especially the education and habituation to it, 
 necessary to its becoming a second nature, — is altogether 
 opposed to the nature of Spirit, which makes contemporary 
 life the object on which it acts; itself being the infinite impulse 
 of activity to alter its forms. This impulse also expressed itself 
 in Egypt in a peculiar way. It would appear at first as if a 
 condition of things so regular, so determinate in every par- 
 ticular, contained nothing that had a peculiarity entirely its 
 own. The introduction of a religious element would seem 
 to be an affair of no critical moment, provided the higher 
 necessities of men were satisfied ; we should in fact rather 
 expect that it would be introduced in a peaceful way and in 
 accordance with the moral arrangement of things already 
 mentioned. But in contemplating the Religion of the Egyp- 
 tians, we are surprised by the strangest and most wonderful 
 phenomena, and perceive that this calm order of things, 
 bound fast by legislative enactment, is not like that of the 
 Chinese, but that we have here to do with a Spirit entirely 
 
216 
 
 PAßT I. THE ORIENTAL WO ELD. 
 
 different— one full of stirring and urgent impulses. "We 
 have here the African element, in combination with Oriental 
 massiveness, transplanted to the Mediterranean Sea, that 
 <jrand locale of the display of nationalities ; but in such a 
 manner, that here there is no connection with foreign nations, 
 — this mode of stimulating intellect appearing superfluous ; 
 for we have here a prodigious urgent striving within the 
 nationality itself, and which within its own circle shoots out 
 into an objective realization of itself in the most monstroufl 
 productions. It is that African imprisonment of ideas 
 combined with the infinite impulse of the spirit to realize 
 itself objectively, which we find here. But Spirit has still, 
 as it were, an iron band around its forehead ; so that it 
 cannot attain to the free consciousness of its existence, but 
 produces this only as the problem, the enigma of its being. 
 
 The fundamental conception of that which the Egyptians 
 regard as the essence of being, rests on the determinate 
 character of the natural world, in which they live ; and more 
 particularly on the determinate physical circle which the 
 Nile and the Sun mark out. These two are strictly con- 
 nected, — the position of the Sun and that of the Nile ; and 
 to the Egyptian this is all in all. The Nile is that which 
 essentially determines the boundaries of the country ; be- 
 yond the Nile-valley begins the desert ; on the north, Egypt 
 is shut in by the sea, and on the south by torrid heat. The 
 first Arab leader that conquered Egypt, writes to the 
 Caliph Omar: "Egypt is first a vast sea of dust; then a 
 sea of fresh water ; lastly, it is a great sea of flowers. 
 It never rains there; towards the end of July dew falls, 
 and then the Nile begins to overflow its banks, and Egypt 
 resembles a sea of islands." (Herodotus compares Egypt, 
 during this period, with the islands in the iEgean.) The 
 Nile leaves behind it prodigious multitudes of living 
 creatures: then appear moving and creeping things innu- 
 merable ; soon after, man begins to sow the ground, and 
 the harvest is very abundant. Thus the existence of the 
 Egyptian does not depend on the brightness of the sun, or the 
 quantity of rain. Eor him, on the contrary, there exist only 
 those perfectly simple conditions, which form the basis of 
 his mode of life and its occupations. There is a definite 
 physical cycle, which the Nile pursues, and which is con- 
 
SECT. III. PERSIA — EGYPT. 
 
 217 
 
 nected with the course of the Sun ; the latter advances, 
 reaches its culmination, and then retrogrades. So also 
 does the Nile. 
 
 This basis of the life of the Egyptians determines more- 
 over the particular tenor of their religious views. A con- 
 troversy has long been waged respecting the sense and 
 meaning of the Egyptian religion. As early as the reign of 
 Tiberius, the Stoic -Chaeremon, who had been in Egypt, 
 explains it in a purely materialistic sense. The New Pla- 
 tonists take a directly opposite view, regarding all as symbols 
 of a spiritual meaning, and thus making this religion a pure 
 Idealism. Each of these representations is one-sided. Natural 
 and spiritual powers are regarded as most intimately united, 
 — (the free spiritual import, however, has not been developed 
 at this stage of thought), — but in such a way, that the ex- 
 tremes of the antithesis were united in the harshest contrast. 
 "We have spoken of the Nile, of the Sun, and of the vegeta- 
 tion depending upon them. This limited view of Nature 
 gives the principle of the religion, and its subject-matter is 
 primarily a history. The Nile and the Sun constitute the 
 divinities, conceived under human forms ; and the course of 
 nature and the mythological history is the same. In the 
 winter solstice the power of the sun has reached its mini- 
 mum, and must be born anew. Thus also Osiris appears as 
 born ; but he is killed by Typhon, — his brother and enemy, — 
 the burning wind of the desert. Isis, the Earth, — from whom 
 the aid of the Sun and of the Nile has been withdrawn, — ■ 
 yearns after him : she gathers the scattered bones of Osiris, 
 and raises her lamentation for him, and all Egypt bewails with 
 her the death of Osiris, in a song which Herodotus calls 
 Maneros. Maneros he reports to have been the only son 
 of the first king of the Egyptians, and to have died prema- 
 turely ; this song being also the Linus-Song of the Greeks, 
 and the only song which the Egyptians have. Here again 
 pain is regarded as something divine, and the same honour 
 is assigned to it here as among the Phoenicians. Hermes 
 then embalms Osiris ; and his grave is shewn in various 
 places. Osiris is now judge of the dead, and lord of the 
 kingdom of the Shades. These are the leading ideas. Osiris, 
 the Sun, the Nile ; this triplicity of being is united in one 
 knot. The Sun is the symbol, in which Osiris and the his- 
 
218 
 
 PAET I. THE ORIENTAL WORLD. 
 
 toiy of that god are recognized, and the Nile is likewise such 
 a symbol. The concrete Egyptian imagination also ascribes 
 to Osiris and Isis the introduction of agriculture, the inven- 
 tion of the plough, the hoe, &c. ; for Osiris gives not only 
 the useful itself— the fertility of the earth — but, moreover, 
 the means of making use of it. He also gives men laws, a 
 civil order and a religious ritual ; he thus places in men's 
 hands the means of labour, and secures its result, Osiris is 
 also the symbol of the seed which is placed in the earth, and 
 then springs up, — as also of the course of life. Thus we 
 find this heterogeneous duality — the phenomena of Nature 
 and the Spiritual — woven together into one knot. 
 
 The parallelism of the course of human life with the Nile, 
 the Sun and Osiris, is not to be regarded as a mere allegory, — 
 as if the principle of birth, of increase in strength, of the cul- 
 mination of vigour and fertility, of decline and weakness, ex- 
 hibited itself in these different phenomena, in an equal or 
 similar way ; but in this variety imagination conceived only 
 one subject, one vitality. This unity is, however, quite ab- 
 stract : the heterogeneous element shews itself therein as 
 pressing and urging, and in a confusion which sharply con- 
 trasts with Greek perspicuity. Osiris represents the Nile 
 and the Sun : Sun and Nile are, on the other hand, symbols 
 of human life — each one is signification and symbol at the 
 same time ; the symbol is changed into signification, and 
 this latter becomes symbol of that symbol, which itself then 
 becomes signification. None of these phases of existence is 
 a Type without being at the name time a Signification ; each 
 is both ; the one is explained by the other. Thus there 
 arises one pregnant conception, composed of many concep- 
 tions, in which each fundamental nodus retains its indi- 
 viduality, so that they are not resolved into a general 
 idea. The general idea — the thought itself, which forms 
 the bond of analogy — does not present itself to the con- 
 sciousness purely and freely as such, but remains concealed 
 as an internal connection. We have a consolidated indi- 
 viduality, combining various phenomenal aspects ; and which 
 on the one hand is fanciful, on account of the combination 
 of apparently disparate material, but on the other hand 
 internally and essentially connected, because these various 
 appearances are a particular prosaic matter of fact. 
 
SECT. m. PEltSIA — EGYPT. 219 
 
 Besides this fundamental conception, we observe several 
 special divinities, of whom Herodotus reckons three classes. 
 Of the first he mentions eight gods ; of the second twelve ; 
 of the third an indefinite number, who occupy the position 
 towards the unity of Osiris of specific manifestations. In 
 the first class, Eire and its use appears as Phtha, also as 
 Knef, who is besides represented as the Good Genius ; but 
 the Nile itself is held, to be that Genius, and thus abstrac- 
 tions are changed into concrete conceptions. Ammon is 
 regarded as a great divinity, with whom is associated the 
 determination of the equinox : it is he, moreover, who gives 
 oracles. But Osiris is similarly represented as the founder 
 of oracular manifestations. So the Procreative Power, 
 banished by Osiris, is represented as a particular divinity. 
 But Osiris is himself this Procreative Power. Isis is the 
 Earth, the Moon, the receptive fertility of Nature. As an 
 important element in the conception Osiris, Anubis (Thoth), 
 — the Egyptian Hermes— must be specially noticed. In 
 human activity and invention, and in the economy of legisla- 
 tion, the Spiritual, as such, is embodied ; and becomes in this 
 form — which is itself determinate and limited — an object of 
 consciousness. Here we have the Spiritual, not as one 
 infinite, independent sovereignty over nature, but as a par- 
 ticular existence, side by side with the powers of Nature — 
 characterized also by intrinsic particularity. And thus the 
 Egyptians had also specific divinities, conceived as spiritual 
 activities and forces ; but partly intrinsically limited, — 
 partly [so, as] contemplated under natural symbols. 
 
 The Egyptian Hermes is celebrated as exhibiting the 
 spiritual side of their theism. According to Jamblichus, the 
 Egyptian priests immemorially prefixed to all their inven- 
 tions the name Hermes : Eratosthenes, therefore, called his 
 book, which treated of the entire science of Egypt — 
 " Hermes." Anubis is called the friend and companion of 
 Osiris. To him is ascribed the invention of writing, and of 
 science generally — of grammar, astronomy, mensuration, 
 music, and medicine. It was he who first divided the day into 
 twelve hours : he was moreover the first lawgiver, the first in- 
 structor in religious observances and objects, and in gymnastics 
 and orchestics ; and it was he who discovered the olive. But, 
 notwithstanding all these spiritual attributes, this divinity 
 
220 
 
 PART Ii THE ORIENTAL WORLD. 
 
 is something quite other than the God of Thought. Only 
 particular human arts and inventions are associated with 
 him. Not only so ; but he entirely falls back into involve- 
 ment in existence, and is degraded under physical symbols. 
 He is represented with a dog's head, as an imbruted god : 
 and besides this mask, a particular natural object is bound 
 up with the conception of this divinity ; for he is at the 
 same time Sirius, the Dog-Star. He is thus as limited in 
 respect of what he embodies, as sensuous in the positive 
 existence ascribed to him. It may be incidentally remarked, 
 that as Ideas and Nature are not distinguished from each 
 other, in the same way the arts and appliances of human 
 life are not developed and arranged so as to form a rational 
 circle of aims and means. Thus medicine, — deliberation re- 
 specting corporeal disease — as also the whole range of 
 deliberation and resolve with regard to undertakings in life, 
 — was subjected to the most multifarious superstition in the 
 way of reliance on oracles and magic arts. Astronomy was 
 also essentially Astrology, and Medicine an affair of magic, 
 but more particularly of Astrology. All astrological and 
 sympathetic superstition may be traced to Egypt. 
 
 Egyptian Worship is chiefly Zoolatry. "We have observed 
 the union here presented between the Spiritual and the 
 Natural: the more advanced and elevated side of this con- 
 ception is the fact that the Egyptians, while they observed the 
 Spiritual as manifested in the Nile, the Sun, and the sowing 
 of seed, took the same view of the life of animals. To us 
 Zoolatry is repulsive. We may reconcile ourselves to the 
 adoration of the material heaven, but the worship of brutes 
 iß alien to us ; for the abstract natural element seems to us 
 more generic, and therefore more worthy of veneration. 
 Yet it is certain that the nations who worshipped the Sun 
 and the Stars by no means occupy a higher grade than those 
 who adore brutes, but contrariwise ; for in the brute world 
 the Egyptians contemplate a hidden and incomprehensible 
 principle. We also, when we contemplate the life and 
 actions of brutes, are astonished at their instinct, — the adap- 
 tation of their movements to the object intended, — their 
 restlessness, excitability, and liveliness ; for they are exceed- 
 ingly quick and discerning in pursuing the ends of their 
 existence, while they are at the same time silent and shut 
 
SECT. III. PERSIA — EGYPT. 
 
 221 
 
 up within themselves. We cannot make out what it is that 
 " possesses " these creatures, and cannot rely on them. A 
 black tom-cat, with its glowing eyes and its now gliding, 
 now quick and darting movement, has been deemed the 
 presence of a malignant being — a mysterious reserved 
 spectre : the dog, the canary-bird, on the contrary, appear 
 friendly and sympathizing. The lower animals are the truly 
 Incomprehensible. A man cannot by imagination or concep- 
 tion enter into the nature of a dog, whatever resemblance he 
 himself might have to it ; it remains something altogether 
 alien to him. It is in two departments that the so-called 
 Incomprehensible meets us — in living Nature and in Spirit. 
 But in very deed it is only in Nature that we have to en- 
 counter the Incomprehensible ; for the being manifest to 
 itself is the essence, [supplies the very definition of J Spirit : 
 Spirit understands and comprehends Spirit. The obtuse 
 self-consciousness of the Egyptians, therefore, to which the 
 thought of human freedom is not yet revealed, worships the 
 soul as still shut up within and dulled by the physical or- 
 ganization, and sympathizes with brute life. We find a 
 veneration of mere vitality among other nations also: some- 
 times expressly, as among the Hindoos and all the Mon- 
 golians ; sometimes in mere traces, as among the Jews- 
 " Thou shalt not eat the blood of animals, for in it is the life 
 of the animal." The Greeks and Eomans also regarded 
 birds as specially intelligent, believing that what in the 
 human spirit was not revealed — the Incomprehensible and 
 Higher — was to be found in them. But among the Egyptians 
 this worship of beasts was carried to excess under the forms 
 of a most stupid and non-human superstition. The worship 
 of brutes was among them a matter of particular and de • 
 tailed arrangement : each district had a brute deity of its own 
 —a cat, an ibis, a crocodile, &c. Great establishments were 
 provided for them ; beautiful mates were assigned them ; and, 
 like human beings, they were embalmed after death. The bulls 
 were buried, but with their horns protruding above their 
 graves ; the bulls embodying Apis had splendid monuments, 
 and some of the pyramids must be looked upon as such. In 
 one of those that have been opened, there was found in the 
 most central apartment a beautiful alabaster coffin ; and on 
 I closer examination it was found that the bones enclosed were 
 those of the ox. This reverence for brutes was often carried 
 
222 
 
 PART I. THE ORIENTAL WOELD. 
 
 to the most absurd excess of severity. If a man killed one 
 designedly, he was punished with death ; but even the unde- 
 signed killing of some animals might entail death. It is 
 related, that once when a Roman in Alexandria killed a cat, 
 an insurrection ensued, in which the Egyptians murdered 
 the aggressor. They would let human beings perish by 
 famine, rather than allow the sacred animals to be killed, or 
 the provision made for them trenched upon. Still more 
 than mere vitality, the universal vis vitce of productive nature 
 was venerated in a Phallus-worship ; which the Greeks also 
 adopted into the rites paid by them to Dionysus. With 
 this worship the greatest excesses were connected. 
 
 The brute form is, on the other hand, turned into a 
 symbol : it is also partly degraded to a mere hieroglyphical 
 sign. I refer here to the innumerable figures on the Egyp- 
 tian monuments, of sparrow-hawks or falcons, dung-beetles, 
 scarabsei, &c. It is not known what ideas such figure 
 symbolized, and we can scarcely think that a satisfactor 
 view of this very obscure subject is attainable. The dung 
 beetle is said to be the symbol of generation, — of the sun an 
 its course ; the Ibis, that of the Nile's overflowing; birds o 
 the hawk tribe, of prophecy — of the year — of pity. Th 
 strangeness of these combinations results from the circum 
 stance that we have not, as in our idea of poetical invention 
 a general conception embodied in an image ; but, conversely 
 we begin with a concept in the sphere of sense, and imagina 
 tion conducts us into the same sphere again. But we observ 
 the conception liberating itself from the direct animal form, 
 and the continued contemplation of it ; and that which wa_ 
 only surmised and aimed at in that form, advancing to com 
 prehensibility and conceivableness. The hidden meaning 
 the Spiritual — emerges as a human face from the brute 
 The multiform sphinxes, with lions' bodies and virgins 
 heads, — or as male sphinxes (avopoa^iyyeq) with beards, — ar 
 evidence supporting the view, that the meaning of theSpiritu 
 is the problem which the Egyptians proposed to themselves 
 as the enigma generally is not the utterance of somethin 
 unknown, but is the challenge to discover it, — implying a wis 
 to be revealed. But conversely, the human form is also dis 
 figured by a brute face, with the view of giving it a specifi 
 and definite expression. The refined art of Greece is able 
 
SECT. III. PERSIA — EGYPT. 
 
 223 
 
 to attain a specific expression through the spiritual character 
 given to an image in the form of beauty, and does not need 
 to deform the human face in order to be understood. The 
 Egyptians appended an explanation to the human forms, 
 even of the gods, by means of heads and masks of brutes ; 
 Anubis e.g. has a dog's head, Isis, a lion's head with bull's 
 horns, &c. The priests, also, in performing their functions, 
 are masked as falcons, jackals, bulls, &c. ; in the same way 
 the surgeon, who has taken out the bowels of the dead (re- 
 presented as fleeing, for he has laid sacrilegious hands on an 
 object once hallowed by life) ; so also the embalmers and 
 the scribes. The sparrow-hawk, with a human head and 
 outspread wings, denotes the soul flying through material 
 space, in order to animate a new body. The Egyptian 
 imagination also created new forms — combinations of differ- 
 ent animals : serpents with bulls' and rams' heads, bodies of 
 lions with rams' heads, &c. 
 
 "We thus see Egypt intellectually confined by a narrow, 
 involved, close view of Nature, but breaking through this ; 
 impelling it to self-contradiction, and proposing to itself the 
 problem which that contradiction implies. The [Egyptian] 
 principle does not remain satisfied with its primary condi- 
 tions, but points to that other meaning and spirit which lies 
 concealed beneath the surface. 
 
 In the view just given, we saw the Egyptian Spirit work- 
 ing itself free from natural forms. This urging, powerful 
 Spirit, however, was not able to rest in the subjective con- 
 ception of that view of things which we have now been con- 
 sidering, but was impelled to present it to external conscious- 
 ness and outward vision by means of Art. — For the religion 
 of the Eternal One — the Formless, — Art is not only unsatis- 
 fying, but — since its object essentially and exclusively occupies 
 the thought — something sinful. But Spirit, occupied with 
 the contemplation of particular natural forms, — being at 
 the same time a striving and plastic Spirit, — changes the 
 direct, natural view, e.g., of the Nile, the Sun, &c, to 
 images, in which Spirit has a share. It is, as we have seen, 
 symbolizing Spirit ; and as such, it endeavours to master 
 these symbolizations, and to present them clearly before the 
 mind. The more enigmatical and obscure it is to itself, so 
 much the more does it feel the impulse to labour to deliver 
 
224 
 
 PART I. THE ORIENTAL WORLD. 
 
 itself from its imprisonment, and to gain a clear objective 
 view of itself. 
 
 It is the distinguishing feature of the Egyptian Spirit, 
 that it stands before us as this mighty task-master. It is 
 not splendour, amusement, pleasure, or the like that it 
 seeks. The force which urges it is the impulse of self-com- 
 prehension ; and it has no other material or ground to work 
 on, in order to teach itself what it is — to realize itself for 
 itself — than this working out its thoughts in stone ; and 
 what it engraves on the stone are its enigmas, — these hiero- 
 glyphs. They are of two kinds — hieroglyphs proper, designed 
 rather to express language, and having reference to subjec- 
 tive conception ; and a class of hieroglyphs of a different kind, 
 viz. those enormous masses of architecture and sculpture, with 
 which Egypt is covered. While among other nations history 
 consists of a series of events, — as, e.g., that of the Romans, 
 who century after century, lived only with a view to conquest, 
 and accomplished the subjugation of the world, — the Egyp- 
 tians raised an empire equally mighty — of achievements 
 in works of art, whose ruins prove their indestructibility, 
 and which are greater and more worthy of astonishment 
 than all other works of ancient or modern time. 
 
 Of these works I will mention no others than those 
 devoted to the dead, and which especially attract our atten- 
 tion. These are, the enormous excavations in the hills along 
 the Nile at Thebe3, whose passages and chambers are entirely 
 filled with mummies, — subterranean abodes as large as the 
 largest mining works of our time : next, the great field of 
 the dead in the plain of Sais, with its walls and vaults : 
 thirdly, those Wonders of the World, the Pyramids, whose 
 destination, though stated long ago by Herodotus and 
 Diodorus, has been only recently expressly confirmed, — to 
 the effect, viz., that these prodigious crystals, with their 
 geometrical regularity, contain dead bodies : and lastly, that 
 most astonishing work, the Tombs of the Kings, of which one 
 has been opened by Belzoni in modern times. 
 
 It is of essential moment to observe, what importance 
 this realm of the dead had for the Egyptian : we may thence 
 gather what idea he had of man. For in the Dead, man con- 
 ceives of man as stripped of all adventitious wrappages — as 
 reduced to his essential nature. But that wmich a people 
 
SECT. III. PERSIA — EGYPT. 
 
 225 
 
 regards as man in his essential characteristics, that it is 
 itself — such is its character. 
 
 In the first place, we must here cite the remarkable fact 
 which Herodotus tells us, viz., that the Egyptians were the 
 first to express the thought that the soul of man is immortal. 
 But this proposition that the soul is immortal, is intended 
 to mean that it is something other than Nature — that Spirit 
 is inherently independent. The ne plus ultra of blessedness 
 among the Hindoos, was the passing over into abstract 
 unity, — into Nothingness. On the other hand, subjectivity, 
 when free, is inherently infinite : the Kingdom of free 
 Spirit is therefore the Kingdom of the Invisible, — such a3 
 Hades was conceived by the Greeks. This presents itself to 
 men first as the empire of death,— to the Egyptians as the 
 Realm of the Dead. 
 
 The idea that Spirit is immortal, involves this, — that 
 the human individual inherently possesses infinite value. 
 The merely Natural appears limited, — absolutely dependent 
 upon something other than itself, — and has its existence in 
 that other ; but Immortality involves the inherent infinitude 
 of Spirit. This idea is first found among the Egyptians. 
 But it must be added, that the soul was known to the 
 Egyptians previously only as an atom — that is, as something 
 concrete and particular. Eor with that view is immediately 
 connected the notion of Metempsychosis — the idea that the 
 soul of man may also become the tenant of the body of a 
 brute. Aristotle too speaks of this idea, and despatches it 
 in few words. Every subject, he says, has its particular 
 organs, for its peculiar mode of action : so the smith, the 
 carpenter, each for his own craft. In like manner the 
 human soul has its peculiar organs, and the body of a brute 
 cannot be its domicile. Pythagoras adopted the doctrine of 
 Metempsychosis ; but it could not find much support among 
 the Greeks, who held rather to the concrete. The Hindoos 
 have also an indistinct conception of this doctrine, inasmuch 
 as with them the final attainment is absorption in the uni- 
 versal Substance. But with the Egyptians the Soul, — the 
 Spirit, — is, at any rate, an affirmative being, although only 
 abstractedly affirmative. The period occupied by the soul's 
 migrations was fixed at three thousand years ; they affirmed, 
 however, that a soul whioh had r<HP9'ned fii*#hftfj fcn O^t-i.. 
 
226 
 
 PART I. THE ORIENTAL WORLD. 
 
 was not subject to such a degradation, — for such they 
 deem it. 
 
 It is well known that the Egyptians embalmed their dead ; 
 and thus imparted such a degree of permanence, that they 
 have been preserved even to the present day, and may con- 
 tinue as they are, for many centuries to come. This indeed 
 seems inconsistent with their idea of immortality ; for if the 
 soul has an independent existence, the permanence of the 
 body seems a matter of indifference. But on the other hand 
 it may be said, that if the soul is recognized as a permanent 
 existence, honour should be shewn to the body, as its former 
 abode. The Parsees lay the bodies of the dead in exposed 
 places to be devoured by birds ; but among them the soul is 
 regarded as passing forth into universal existence. "Where 
 the soul is supposed to enjoy continued existence, the body 
 must also be considered to have some kind of connection 
 with this continuance. Among us, indeed, the doctrine of 
 the Immortality of the Soul assumes the higher form : Spirit 
 is in and for itself eternal ; its destiny is eternal blessedness. 
 — The Egyptians made their dead into mummies ; and did 
 not occupy themselves further with them ; no honour was 
 paid them beyond this. Herodotus relates of the Egyptiaus, 
 that when any person died, the women went about loudly 
 lamenting ; but the idea of Immortality is not regarded in 
 the light of a consolation, as among us. 
 
 Erom what was said above, respecting the works for the 
 Dead, it is evident that the Egyptians, and especially their 
 kings, made it the business of their life to build their 
 sepulchre, and to give their bodies a permanent abode. It 
 is remarkable that what had been needed for the business of 
 life, was buried with the dead. Thus the craftsman had his 
 tools : designs on the coffin shew the occupation to which 
 the deceased had devoted himself ; so that we are able to 
 become acquainted with him in all the minutiae of his con- 
 dition and employment. Many mummies have been found 
 with a roll of papyrus under their arm, and this was formerly 
 regarded as a remarkable treasure. But these rolls contain 
 only various representations of the pursuits of life, — together 
 with writings in the Demotic character. They have been 
 deciphered, and the discovery has been made, that they are 
 all deeds of purchase, relating to pieces of ground and the 
 
SECT. III. PERSIA — EGYPT. 
 
 227 
 
 like ; in which everything is most minutely recorded — even 
 the duties that had to be paid to the royal chancery on the 
 occasion. What, therefore, a person bought during his life, is 
 made to accompany him— in the shape of a legal document- 
 in death. In this monumental way we are made acquainted 
 with the private life of the Egyptians, as with that of the 
 Romans through the ruins of Pompeii and Herculaneum. 
 
 After the death of an Egyptian, judgment was passed upon 
 him. — One of the principal representations on the sarco- 
 phagi is this judicial process in the realm of the dead. 
 Osiris— with Isis behind him — appears, holding a balance, 
 while before him stands the soul of the deceased. But 
 judgment was passed on the dead by the living themselves ; 
 and that not merely in the case of private persons, but even 
 of kings. The tomb of a certain king has been discovered 
 — very large, and elaborate in its architecture — in whose 
 hieroglyphs the name of the principal person is obliterated, 
 while in the bas-reliefs and pictorial designs the chief figure is 
 erased. This has been explained to import that the honour 
 of being thus immortalized, was refused this king by the 
 sentence of the Court of the Dead. 
 
 If Death thus haunted the minds of the Egyptians during 
 life, it might be supposed that their disposition was melan- 
 choly. But the thought of death by no means occasioned 
 depression. At banquets they had representations of the 
 dead, (as Herodotus relates,) with the admonition : " Eat and 
 drink, — such a one wilt thou become, when thou art dead." 
 Death was thus to them rather a call to enjoy Life. Osiris 
 himself dies, and goes down into the realm of death, accord- 
 ing to the above-mentioned Egyptian myth. In many 
 places in Egypt, the sacred grave of Osiris was exhibited. 
 But he was also represented as president of the Kingdom of 
 the Invisible Sphere, and as judge of the dead in it ; later 
 on, Serapis exercised this function in his place. Of Anubis- 
 Hermes the myth says, that he embalmed the body of Osiris : 
 this Anubis sustained also the office of leader of the souls 
 of the dead ; and in the pictorial representations he stands, 
 with a writing tablet in his hand, by the side of Osiris. The 
 reception of the dead into the Kingdom of Osiris had also a 
 profounder import, viz., that the individual was united with 
 Osiris. On the lids of the sarcophagi, therefore, the defunct 
 
 Q 2 
 
228 
 
 PART I. THE ORIENTAL "WORLD. 
 
 is represented as having himself become Osiris ; and in deci- 
 phering the hieroglyphs, the idea has been suggested that 
 the kings are called gods. The human and the divine are 
 thus exhibited as united. 
 
 If, in conclusion, we combine what has been said here of 
 the peculiarities of the Egyptian Spirit in all its aspects, its 
 pervading principle is found to be, that the two elements of 
 reality — Spirit sunk in Nature, and the impulse to liberate it 
 — are here held together inharmoniously as contending ele- 
 ments. We behold the antithesis of Nature and Spirit, — 
 not the primary Immediate Unity [as in the less advanced 
 nations], nor the Concrete Unity, where Nature is posited 
 only as a basis for the manifestation of Spirit [as in the 
 more advanced] ; in contrast with the first and second of 
 these Unities, the Egyptian Unity — combining contra- 
 dictory elements — occupies a middle place. The two sides 
 of this unity are held in abstract independence of each 
 other, and their veritable union presented only as a pro- 
 blem. We have, therefore, on the one side, prodigious con- 
 fusion and limitation to the particular ; barbarous sensuality 
 with African hardness, Zoolatry, and sensual enjoyment. 
 It is stated that, in a public market-place, sodomy was 
 committed by a woman with a goat. Juvenal relates, that 
 human flesh was eaten and human blood drunk out of 
 revenge. The other side is the struggle of Spirit for libera- 
 tion, — fancy displayed in the forms created by art, together 
 with the abstract understanding shewn in the mechanical 
 labours connected with their production. The same intelli- 
 gence — the power of altering the form of individual existences, 
 and that steadfast thoughtfulness which can rise above mere 
 phenomena — shews itself in their police and the mechanism 
 of the State, in agricultural economy, &c. ; and the contrast 
 to this is the severity with which their customs bind them, 
 and the superstition to which humanity among them is 
 inexorably subject. With a clear understanding of the 
 present, is connected the highest degree of impulsiveness, 
 daring and turbulence. These features are combined in the 
 stories which Herodotus relates to us of the Egyptians. 
 They much resemble the tales of the Thousand and One 
 Nights ; and although these have Bagdad as the locality of 
 their narration, their origin is no more limited to this luxu- 
 rious court, than to the Arabian people, but must be partly 
 
SECT. III. TRANSITION TO THE GREEK WORLD. 229 
 
 traced to Egypt, — as Von Hammer also thinks. The Arabian 
 world is quite other than the fanciful and enchanted region 
 there described ; it has much more simple passions and 
 interests. Love, Martial Daring, the Horse, the Sword, are 
 the darling subjects of the poetry peculiar to the Arabians. 
 
 TRANSITION TO THE GREEK WORLD. 
 
 The Egyptian Spirit has shewn itself to us as in all 
 respects shut up within the limits of particular conceptions, 
 and, as it were, imbruted in them ; but likewise stirring 
 itself within these limits, — passing restlessly from one par- 
 ticular form into another. This Spirit never rises to the 
 Universal and Higher, for it seems to be blind to that ; nor 
 does it ever withdraw into itself: yet it symbolizes freely 
 and boldly with particular existence, and has already mas- 
 tered it. All that is now required is to posit that particular 
 existence— which contains the germ of ideality— as ideal, 
 and to comprehend Universality itself, which is already poten- 
 tially liberated from the particulars involving it. * It is the 
 free, joyful Spirit of Greece that accomplishes this, and 
 makes this its starting-point. An Egyptian priest is re- 
 ported to have said, that the Greeks remain eternally children. 
 We may say, on the contrary, that the Egyptians are vigor- 
 ous boys, eager for self-comprehension, who require nothing 
 but clear understanding of themselves in an ideal form, in 
 order to become Young Men. In the Oriental Spirit there 
 remains as a basis the massive substantiality of Spirit im- 
 mersed in Nature. To the Egyptian Spirit it has become 
 impossible — though it is still involved in infinite embarrass- 
 ment — to remain contented with that. The rugged African 
 nature disintegrated that primitive Unity, and lighted upon 
 the problem whose solution is Free Spirit. 
 
 That the Spirit of the Egyptians presented itself to their 
 consciousness in the form of a problem, is evident from the 
 celebrated inscription in the sanctuary of the Goddess Neith 
 
 * Abstractions were to take the plnce of analogies. The power to con- 
 nect particular conceptions as analogical, does but just fall short of the 
 ability to comprehend the general idea which links them. — Tb. 
 
230 
 
 PART II. THE ORIENTAL WOHLD. 
 
 at Sais : " I am that lohich is, that which was, and that wMch 
 will be : no one has lifted my veil." This inscription indi- 
 cates the principle of the Egyptian Spirit ; though the opinion 
 has often been entertained, that its purport applies to all 
 times. Proclus supplies the addition : " The fruit which 1 
 have produced is Helios." That which is clear to itself is, 
 therefore, the result of, and the solution of, the problem in 
 question. This lucidity is Spirit — the Son of Neith the con- 
 cealed night-loving divinity. In the Egyptian Neith, Truth 
 is still a problem. The Greek Apollo is its solution ; his 
 utterance is : " Man, know thyself." In this dictum is not 
 intended a self-recognition that regards the specialities of 
 one's own weaknesses and defects : it is not the individual that 
 is admonished to become acquainted with his idiosyncrasy, 
 but humanity in general is summoned to self-knowledge. 
 This mandate was given for the Greeks, and in the Greek 
 Spirit humanity exhibits itself in its clear and developed 
 condition. "Wonderfully, then, must the Greek legend sur- 
 prise us, which relates, that the Sphinx — the great Egyptian 
 symbol — appeared in Thebes, uttering the words : " What is 
 that which in the morning goes on four legs, at mid-day on 
 two, and in the evening on three?" (Edipus, giving the 
 solution, Man, precipitated the Sphinx from the rock. The 
 solution and liberation of that Oriental Spirit, which in 
 Egypt had advanced so far as to propose the problem, is 
 certainly this : that the Inner Being [the Essence] of Nature 
 is Thought, which has its existence only in the human con- 
 sciousness. But that time-honoured antique solution given by 
 CtMipus — who thus shews himself possessed of knowledge— is 
 connected with a dire ignorance of the character of his own 
 actions. The rise of spiritual illumination in the old royal 
 house is disparaged by connection with abominations, the re- 
 sult of ignorance ; and that primeval royalty must — in order 
 to attain true knowledge and moral clearness — first be 
 brought into shapely form, and be harmonized with the 
 Spirit of the Beautiful, by civil laws and political freedom. 
 
 The inward or ideal transition, from Egypt to Greece is 
 as just exhibited. But Egypt became a province of the 
 great Persian kingdom, and the historical transition takes 
 place when the Persian world comes in contact with the 
 Greek. Here, for the first time, an historical transition 
 
SECT. III. TRANSITION TO THE GREEK WOULD. 231 
 
 meets us, viz. in the fall of an empire. China and India, 
 as already mentioned, have remained,— Persia has not. The 
 transition to Greece is, indeed, internal ; but here it shews 
 itself also externally, as a transmission of sovereignty — an 
 occurrence which from this time forward is ever and anon 
 repeated. For the Greeks surrender the sceptre of dominion 
 and of civilization to the Romans, and the Romans are 
 subdued by the Germans. If we examine this fact of tran- 
 sition more closely, the question suggests itself— for ex- 
 ample, in this first case of the kind, viz. Persia — why it sank, 
 while China and India remain. In the first place we must here 
 banish from our minds the prejudice in favour of duration, 
 as if it had any advantage as compared with transience : the 
 imperishable mountains are not superior to the quickly dis- 
 mantled rose exhaling its life in fragrance. In Persia begins 
 the principle of Free Spirit as contrasted with imprison- 
 ment in Nature ; mere natural existence, therefore, loses 
 its bloom, and fades away. The principle of separation from 
 Nature is found in the Persian Empire, which, therefore, 
 occupies a higher grade than those worlds immersed in the 
 Natural. The necessity of advance has been thereby pro- 
 claimed. Spirit has disclosed its existence, and must com- 
 plete its development. It is only when dead that the 
 Chinese is held in reverence. The Hindoo kills himself — 
 becomes absorbed in Brahm— undergoes a living death in 
 the condition of perfect unconsciousness, — or is a present 
 god in virtue of his birth. Here we have no change ; no 
 advance is admissible, for progress is only possible through 
 the recognition of the independence of Spirit. With the 
 " Light " of the Persians begins a spiritual view of things, and 
 here Spirit bids adieu to Nature. It is here, then, that we 
 first find (as occasion called us to notice above,) that the 
 objective world remains free, — that the nations are not en- 
 slaved, but are left in possession of their wealth, their 
 political constitution, and their religion. And, indeed, this 
 is the side on which Persia itself shews weakness as com- 
 pared with Greece. For we see that the Persians could 
 erect no empire possessing complete organization ; that they 
 Could not * inform* the conquered lands with their prin- 
 ciple, and were unable to make them into a harmonious 
 "Whole, but were obliged to be content with an aggregate of 
 
232 
 
 PART II. THE GREEK WORLD. 
 
 the most diverse individualities. Among these nations the 
 Persians secured no inward recognition of the legitimacy 
 of their rule ; they could not establish their legal principles 
 or enactments, and in organizing their dominion, they 
 only considered themselves, not the whole extent of their 
 empire. Thus, as Persia did not constitute, politically, one 
 Spirit, it appeared weak in contrast with Greece. It was 
 not the effeminacy of the Persians (although, perhaps, 
 Babylon infused an enervating element) that ruined them, 
 but the unwieldy, unorganized character of their host, as 
 matched against Greek organization ; i.e., the superior prin- 
 ciple overcame the inferior. The abstract principle of the 
 Persians displayed its defectiveness as an unorganized, in- 
 compacted union of disparate contradictories ; in which the 
 Persian doctrine of Light stood side by side with Syrian 
 voluptuousness and luxury, with the activity and courage of 
 the sea-braving Phoenicians, the abstraction of pure Thought 
 in the Jewish Keligion, and the mental unrest of Egypt ;— an 
 aggregate of elements, which awaited their idealization, and 
 could receive it only mß*ee Individuality. The Greeks must 
 be looked upon as the people in whom these elements inter- 
 penetrated each other : Spirit became introspective, tri- 
 umphed over particularity, and thereby emancipated itself. 
 
 PAET II. 
 
 THE GREEK WORLD. 
 
 Among the Greeks we feel ourselves immediately at 
 home, for we are in the region of Spirit ; and though the 
 origin of the nation, as also its philological peculiarities, 
 may be traced farther— even to India — the proper Emergence, 
 the true Palingenesis of Spirit must be looked for in Greece 
 first. At an earlier stage I compared the Greek world with 
 the period of adolescence ; not, indeed, in that sense, that 
 youth bears w r ithin it a serious, anticipative destiny, and 
 consequently by the very conditions of its culture urges 
 towards an ulterior aim, — presenting thus an inherently in- 
 complete and immature form, and being then most defective 
 
PART II. THE GREEK WORLD. 
 
 233 
 
 when it would deem itself perfect, — but in that sense, that 
 youth does not yet present the activity of work, — does not 
 yet exert itself for a definite intelligent aim, — but rather 
 exhibits a concrete freshness of the soul s life. It appears 
 in the sensuous, actual world, as Incarnate Spirit and 
 Spiritualized Sense, - in a Unity which owed its origin to 
 Spirit. Greece presents to us the cheerful aspect of youth- 
 ful freshness, of Spiritual vitality. It is here first that 
 advancing Spirit makes itself the content of its volition and 
 its knowledge ; but in such a way that State, Family, Law, 
 Religion, are at the same time objects aimed at by indi- 
 viduality, w T hile the latter is individuality only in virtue of 
 those aims. The [full-grown] man, on the other hand, devotes 
 his life to labour for an objective aim ; which he pursues 
 consistently, even at the cost of his individuality. 
 
 The highest form that floated before Greek imagination 
 was Achilles, the Son of the Poet, the Homeric Youth of 
 the Trojan War. Homer is the element in which the Greek 
 world lives, as man does in the air. The Greek life is a truly 
 youthful achievement. Achilles, the ideal youth of poetry \ 
 commenced it : Alexander the Great, the ideal youth of 
 reality, concluded it. Both appear in contest with Asia. 
 Achilles, as the principal figure in the national expedition 
 of the Greeks against Troy, does not stand at its head, but 
 is subject to the Chief of Chiefs ; he cannot be made the 
 leader without becoming a fantastic untenable conception. 
 On the contrary, the second youth, Alexander — the freest 
 and finest individuality that the real world has ever pro- 
 duced — advances to the head of this youthful life that has 
 now perfected itself, and accomplishes the revenge against 
 Asia. 
 
 We have, then, to distinguish three periods in Greek 
 history : the first, that of the growth of real Individuality ; 
 the second, that of its independence and prosperity in ex- 
 ternal conquest (through contact with the previous World- 
 historical people) ; and the third, the period of its decline and 
 fall, in its encounter with the succeeding organ of World- 
 History. The period from its origin to its internal complete- 
 ness, (that which enables a people to make head against its 
 predecessor) includes its primary culture. If the nation has a 
 basis — such as the Greek world has in the Oriental — a foreign 
 
234 
 
 PART II. THE GREEK WORLD. 
 
 culture enters as an element into its primary condition, and 
 it has a double culture, one original, the other of foreign 
 suggestion. The uniting of these two elements constitutes 
 its training ; and the first period ends with the combination 
 of its forces to produce its real and proper vigour, which 
 then turns against the very element that had been its 
 basis. The second period is that of victory and prosperity. 
 But while the nation directs its energies outwards, it be- 
 comes unfaithful to its principles at home, and internal 
 dissension follows upon the ceasing of the external excite- 
 ment. In Art and Science, too, this shews itself in the 
 separation of the Ideal from the Seal. Here is the point ot 
 decline. The third period is that of ruin, through contact 
 with the nation that embodies a higher Spirit. The same 
 process, it may be stated once for all, will meet us in the 
 life of every world-historical people. 
 
 SECTION I. 
 
 THE ELEMENTS OF THE GREEK SPIRIT. 
 
 Greece is [that form of] the Substantial [i.e. of Moral and 
 Intellectual Principle,'] which is at the same time individual. 
 The Universal [the Abstract], as such, is overcome ;* the 
 submersion in Nature no longer exists, and consentaneously 
 the unwieldy character of geographical relations has also 
 vanished. The country now under consideration is a sec- 
 tion of territory spreading itself in various forms through 
 the sea, — a multitude of islands, and a continent which 
 itself exhibits insular features. The Peloponnesus is con- 
 nected with the continent only by a narrow isthmus : the 
 whole of Greece is indented by bays in numberless shapes. 
 The partition into small divisions of territory is the universal 
 characteristic, while at the same time, the relationship and 
 connection between them is facilitated by the sea. We find 
 here mountains, plains, valleys, and streams of limited ex- 
 tent : no great river, no absolute Valley-Plain presents it- 
 
 * That is, blind obedience to moral requirements, — to principle ab- 
 stracted from personal conviction or inclination, as among the Chinese. — 
 Te. 
 
SECT. I. THE ELEMENTS OF THE GEEEK SPIEIT. 235 
 
 elf ; but the ground is diversified by mountains and rivers 
 in such a way as to allow no prominence to a single massive 
 feature. We see no such display of physical grandeur as is 
 exhibited in the East, — no stream such as the Ganges, the 
 Indus, &c, on whose plains a race delivered over to mono- 
 tony is stimulated to no change, because its horizon always 
 exhibits one unvarying form. On the contrary, that divided 
 and multiform character everywhere prevails which perfectly 
 corresponds with the varied life of Greek races and the 
 versatility of the Greek Spirit. 
 
 This is the elementary character of the Spirit of the 
 Greeks, implying the origination of their culture from inde- 
 pendent individualities ; — a condition in which individuals 
 take their own ground, and are not, from the very be- 
 ginning, patriarchally united by a bond of Nature, but 
 realize a union through some other medium, — through Law 
 and Custom having the sanction of Spirit. For beyond all 
 other nations that of Greece attained its form by growth. 
 At the origin of their national unity, separation as a generic 
 feature — inherent distinctness of character — is the chief point 
 that has to be considered. The first phase in the subjuga- 
 tion of this, constitutes the primary period of Greek culture ; 
 and only through such distinctness of character, and such a 
 subjugation of it, was the beautiful free Greek Spirit pro- 
 duced. Of this principle we must have a clear conception. 
 It is a superficial and absurd idea that such a beautiful and 
 truly free life can be produced by a process so incomplex as 
 the development of a race keeping within the limits of 
 blood-relationship and friendship. Even the plant, which 
 supplies the nearest analogy to such a calm, homogeneous 
 unfolding, lives and grows only by means of the antithetic 
 activities of light, air, and water. The only real antithesis 
 that Spirit can have, is itself spiritual : viz., its inherent 
 heterogeneity, through which alone it acquires the power of 
 realizing itself as Spirit. The history of Greece exhibits at 
 its commencement this interchange and mixture of partly 
 homesprung, partly quite foreign stocks ; and it was Attica 
 itself— whose people was destined to attain the acme of 
 Hellenic bloom — that was the asylum of the most various 
 stocks and families. Every world-historical people, except 
 the Asiatic kingdoms, — which stand detached from the grand 
 
236 PAET II. THE GREEK WOHLD. 
 
 historical catena,— has been formed in this way. Thus the 
 Greeks, like the Romans, developed themselves from a 
 colluvies — a conflux of the most various nations. Of the 
 multitude of tribes which we meet in Greece, we cannot say 
 which was the original Greek people, and which immigrated 
 from foreign lands and distant parts of the globe ; for the 
 period of which we speak belongs entirely to the unhis- 
 toricai and obscure. The Pelasgi were at that time a prin- 
 cipal race in Greece. The most various attempts have been 
 made by the learned to harmonize the confused and con- 
 tradictory account which we have respecting them, — a hazy 
 and obscure period being a special object and stimulus to 
 erudition. Remarkable as the earliest centres of incipient 
 culture are Thrace, the native land of Orpheus, — and Thes- 
 saly ; countries which at a later date retreated more or less 
 into the background. From Phthiotis, the country of 
 Achilles, proceeds the common name Hellenes, — a name 
 which, as Thucydides remarks, presents itself as little in 
 Homer in this comprehensive sense, as the term Barbarians, 
 from whom the Greeks were not yet clearly distinguished. 
 It must be left to special history to trace the several tribes, 
 and their transformations. In general we may assume, that 
 the tribes and individuals were prone to leave their country 
 when too great a population occupied it, and that conse- 
 quently these tribes were in a migratory condition, and 
 practised mutual depredation. " Even now," says the dis- 
 cerning Thucydides, " the Ozolian Locrians, the iEtolians, 
 and Acarnanians retain their ancient mode of life ; the custom 
 of carrying weapons, too, has maintained itself among them 
 as a relic of their ancient predatory habits." Respecting 
 the Athenians, he says, that they were the first who laid aside 
 arms in time of peace. In such a state of things agriculture 
 was not pursued ; the inhabitants had not only to defend 
 themselves against freebooters, but also to contend with 
 wild beasts (even in Herodotus's time many lions infested 
 the banks of the Nestus and Achelous) ; at a later time 
 tame cattle became especially an object of plunder, and even 
 after agriculture had become more general, men were still 
 entrapped and sold for slaves. In depicting this original 
 condition of Greece, Thucydides goes still further into de- 
 tail. 
 
8ECT. I. THE ELEMENTS OF THE GREEK SPIEIT. 237 
 
 Greece, then, was in this state of turbulence, insecurity, 
 and rapine, and its tribes were continually migrating. 
 
 The other element in which the national life of the 
 Hellenes was versed, was the Sea. The physique of their 
 country led them to this amphibious existence, and allowed 
 them to skim freely over the waves, as they spread them- 
 selves freely over the land, — not roving about like the 
 nomad populations, nor torpidly vegetating like those of the 
 river districts. Piracy, not trade, was the chief object of 
 maritime occupations ; and, as we gather from Homer, it 
 was not yet reckoned discreditable. The suppression of 
 piracy is ascribed to Minos, and Crete is renowned as the 
 land where security was first enjoyed ; for there the state of 
 things which we meet with again in Sparta was early 
 realized, viz., the establishment in power of one party, and 
 the subjugation of the other, which was compelled to obey 
 and work for the former. 
 
 We have just spoken of heterogeneity as an element of 
 the Greek Spirit, and it is well known that the rudiments 
 of Greek civilization are connected with the advent of 
 foreigners. This origin of their moral life the Greeks have 
 preserved, with grateful recollection, in a form of recogni- 
 tion which we may call mythological. In their mythology 
 we have a definite record of the introduction of agriculture 
 by Triptolemus, who was instructed by Ceres, and of the insti- 
 tution of marriage, &c. Prometheus, w T hose origin is referred 
 to the distant Caucasus, is celebrated as having first taught 
 men the production and the use of fire. The introduction 
 of iron was likewise of great importance to the Greeks ; and 
 while Homer speaks only of bronze, JEschylus calls iron 
 " Scythian." The introduction of the olive, of the art of 
 spinning and weaving, and the creation of the horse by Posei- 
 don, belong to the same category. 
 
 More historical than these rudiments of culture is the 
 alleged arrival of foreigners ; tradition tells us how the 
 various states were founded by such foreigners. Thus, 
 Athens owes its origin to Cecrops, an Egyptian, whose his- 
 tory, however, is involved in obscurity. The race of Deu- 
 calion, the son of Prometheus, is brought into connection 
 with the various Greek tribes. Pelops of Phrygia, the 
 son of Tantalus, is also mentioned ; next, Danaus, from 
 
238 PART II. THE GREEK WORLD. 
 
 Egypt : from him descend Acrisius, Danae, and Perseus. 
 Pelops is said to have brought great wealth with him to the 
 Peloponnesus, and to have acquired great respect and power 
 there. Danaus settled in Argos. Especially important is 
 the arrival of Cadmus, of Phoenician origin, with whom 
 phonetic writing is said to have been introduced into Greece; 
 Herodotus refers it to Phoenicia, and ancient inscriptions 
 then extant are cited to support the assertion. Cadmus, 
 according to the legend, founded Thebes. 
 
 "We thus observe a colonization by civilized peoples, who 
 were in advance of the Greeks in point of culture : though 
 we cannot compare this colonization with that of the English 
 in North America, for the latter have not been blended with 
 the aborigines, but have dispossessed them ; whereas in the 
 case of the settlers in Greece the adventitious and autoch- 
 thonic elements were mixed together. The date assigned 
 to the arrival of these colonists is very remote — the 14th and 
 15th century b.c. Cadmus is said to have founded Thebes 
 about 1490 b.c. — a date with which the Exodus of Moses 
 from Egypt (1500 b.c.) nearly coincides. Amphictyon is 
 also mentioned among the Founders of Greek institutions ; 
 he is said to have established at Thermopylae a union be- 
 tween many small tribes of Hellas proper and Thessaly,— a 
 combination with which the great Amphictyonic league is 
 said to have originated. 
 
 These foreigners, then, are reputed to have established 
 fixed centres in Greece by the erection of fortresses and the 
 founding of royal houses. In Argolis, the walls of which 
 the ancient fortresses consisted, were called Cyclopian ; some 
 of them have been discovered even in recent times, since, on 
 account of their solidity, they are indestructible. 
 
 These walls consist partly of irregular blocks, whose in- 
 terstices are filled up with small stones, — partly of masses of 
 stones carefully fitted into each other. Such walls are those 
 of Tiryns and 'Mycenae. Even now the gate with the lions, 
 at Mycenae, can be recognized by the description of Pau- 
 sanias. It is stated of Proetus, who ruled in Argos, that he 
 brought with him from Lycia the Cyclopes who built these 
 walls. It is, however, supposed that they were erected by 
 the ancient Pelasgi. To the fortresses protected by such 
 walls the princes of the heroic times generally attached their 
 
SECT. I. THE ELEMENTS OF THE GEEEK SPIRIT. 239 
 
 dwellings. Especially remarkable are the Treasure-houses 
 built by them, such as the Treasure-house of Minyas at 
 Orchomenus, and that of Atreus at Mycenae. These fortresses, 
 then, were the nuclei of small states ; they gave a greater 
 security to agriculture ; they protected commercial inter- 
 course against robbery. They were, however, as Thucydides 
 informs us, not placed in the immediate vicinity of the sea, 
 on account of piracy ; maritime towns being of later date. 
 Thus with those royal abodes originated the firm establish- 
 ment of society. The relation of princes to subjects, and to 
 each other, we learn best from Homer. It did not depend 
 on a state of things established by law, but on superiority 
 in riches, possessions, martial accoutrements, personal bra- 
 very, preeminence in insight and wisdom, and lastly, on 
 descent and ancestry ; for the princes, as heroes, were re- 
 garded as of a higher race. Their subjects obeyed them, not 
 as distinguished from them by conditions of Caste, nor as in 
 a state of serfdom, nor in the patriarchal relation — according 
 to which the chief is only the head of the tribe or family to 
 which all belong — nor yet as the result of the express neces- 
 sity for a constitutional government ; but only from the 
 need, universally felt, of being held together, and of obeying 
 a ruler accustomed to command — without envy and ill-will 
 towards him. The Prince has just so much personal authority 
 as he possesses the ability to acquire and to assert ; but as 
 this superiority is only the individually heroic, resting on 
 personal merit, it does not continue long. Thus in Homer 
 we see the suitors of Penelope taking possession of the 
 property of the absent Ulysses, without showing the slightest 
 respect to his son. Achilles, in his inquiries about his father, 
 when Ulysses descends to Hades, indicates the supposition 
 that, as he is old, he will be no longer honoured. Manners 
 are still very simple : princes prepare their own repasts ; and 
 Ulysses labours at the construction of his own house. In 
 Homer's Iliad we find a King of Kings, a generalissimo in the 
 great national undertaking, — but the other magnates environ 
 him as a freely deliberating council : the prince is honoured, 
 but he is obliged to arrange everything to the satisfaction of 
 the others ; he indulges in violent conduct towards Achilles, 
 but, in revenge, the latter withdraws from the struggle. 
 Equally lax is the relation of the several chiefs to the people at 
 
240 
 
 PART II. THE GREEK WORLD. 
 
 large, among whom there are always individuals who claim 
 attention and respect. The various peoples do not fight as 
 mercenaries of the prince in his battles, nor as a stupid serf- 
 like herd driven to the contest, nor yet in their own interest; 
 but as the companions of their honoured chieftain,— as wit- 
 nesses of his exploits, and his defenders in peril. A perfect 
 resemblance to these relations is also presented in the Greek 
 Pantheon. Zeus is the Father of the Gods, but each one of 
 them has his own will ; Zeus respects them, and they him : 
 he may sometimes scold and threaten them, and they then 
 allow his will to prevail, or retreat grumbling ; but they do 
 not permit matters to come to an extremity, and Zeus 
 so arranges matters on the whole — by making this concession 
 to one, that to another — as to produce satisfaction. In 
 the terrestrial, as well as in the Olympian world, there is, 
 therefore, only a lax bond of unity maintained ; royalty has 
 not yet become monarchy, for it is only in a more extensive 
 society that the need of the latter is felt. 
 
 "While this state of things prevailed, and social relations 
 were such as have been described, that striking and great 
 event took place — the union of the whole of Greece in a 
 national undertaking, viz., the Trojan War; with which 
 began that more extensive connection with Asia which had 
 very important results for the Greeks. (The expedition of 
 Jason to Colchis — also mentioned by the poets — and which 
 bears an earlier date, was, as compared with the war of Troy, 
 a very limited and isolated undertaking.) The occasion of 
 that united expedition is said to have been the violation of 
 the laws of hospitality by the son of an Asiatic prince, in 
 carrying off the wife of his host. Agamemnon assembles 
 the princes of Greece through the power and influence which 
 he possesses. Thucydides ascribes his authority to his here- 
 ditary sovereignty, combined with naval power (Horn. II. ii. 
 108), in which he was far superior to the rest. It appears, 
 however, that the combination was effected without external 
 compulsion, and that the whole armament was convened 
 simply on the strength of individual consent. The Hellenes 
 were then brought to act unitedly, to an extent of which 
 there is no subsequent example. The result of their exer- 
 tions was the conquest and destruction of Troy, though they 
 had no design of making it a permanent poesesr'nn. No 
 
SECT. I. TIIE ELEMENTS OF THE GREEK SPIRIT. 241 
 
 external result, therefore, in the way of settlement ensued, 
 any more than an enduring political union, as the effect of 
 the uniting of the nation in the accomplishment of this sin- 
 gle achievement. But the poet supplied an imperishable 
 portraiture of their youth and of their national spirit, to 
 the imagination of the Greek people ; and the picture of this 
 beautiful human heroism hovered as a 'directing ideal before 
 their whole development and culture. So likewise, in the 
 Middle Ages, we see the whole of Christendom united to at- 
 tain one object — the conquest of the Holy Sepulchre ; but, 
 in spite of all the victories achieved, with just as little per- 
 manent result. The Crusades are the Trojan War of newly 
 awakened Christendom, waged against the simple, homo- 
 geneous clearness of Mahometanism. 
 
 The royal houses perished, partly as the consequence of 
 particular atrocities, partly through gradual extinction. 
 There was no strictly moral bond connecting them with the 
 tribes which they governed. The same relative position is 
 occupied by the people and the royal houses in the Greek 
 Tragedy also. The people is the Chorus, — passive, deedless : 
 the heroes perform the deeds, and incur the consequent res- 
 ponsibility. There is nothing in common between them ; 
 the people have no directing power, but only appeal to the 
 gods. Such heroic personalities as those of the princes in 
 question, are so remarkably suited for subjects of dramatic 
 art on this very account — that they form their resolutions 
 independently and individually, and are not guided by uni- 
 versal laws binding on every citizen ; their conduct and 
 their ruin is individual. The people appears separated from 
 the royal houses, and these are regarded as an alien 
 body — a higher race, fighting out the battles and under- 
 going the penalties of their fate, for themselves alone. 
 Eoyalty having performed that which, it had to perform, 
 thereby rendered itself superfluous. The several dynasties 
 are the agents of their own destruction, or perish not as the 
 result of animosity, or of struggles on the side of the people : 
 rather the families of the sovereigns are left in calm enjoy- 
 ment of their power — a proof that the democratic govern- 
 ment which followed is not regarded as something absolutely 
 diverse. How sharply do the annals of other times contrast 
 with this ! 
 
2-12 PA ET II. THE GREEK "WOHLD. 
 
 This fall of the royal houses occurs after the Trojan war 
 and many changes now present themselves. The Pelopon 
 nesus was conquered by the Heraclidae, who introduced 
 calmer state of things, which was not again interrupted b 
 the incessant migrations of races. The history now becomes 
 more obscure ; and though the several occurrences of the 
 Trojan war are very circumstantially described to us, we are 
 uncertain respecting the important transactions of the time 
 immediately following, for a space of many centuries. No 
 united undertaking distinguishes them, unless we regard as 
 such that of which Thucy aides speaks, viz., the war between 
 the Chalcidians and Eretrians in Euboea, in which many 
 nations took part. The towns vegetate in isolation, or at 
 most distinguish themselves by war with their neighbours. 
 Yet, they enjoy prosperity in this isolated condition, by 
 means of trade ; a kind of progress to which their being 
 rent by many party-struggles offers no opposition. In the 
 same way, we observe in the Middle Ages the towns of 
 Italy— which, both internally and externally, were engaged 
 in continual struggle — attaining so high a degree of pros- 
 perity. The flourishing state of the Greek towns at that 
 time is proved, according to Thucydides, also by the colonies 
 sent out in every direction. Thus, Athens colonized Ionia 
 and several islands ; and colonies from thePeloponnesussettled 
 in Italy and Sicily. Colonies, on the other hand, became 
 relatively mother states ; e.g. Miletus, which founded many 
 cities on the Propontis and the Black Sea. This sending out 
 of colonies — especially during the period between the Tro- 
 jan war and Cyrus — presents us with a remarkable pheno- 
 menon. It can be thus explained. In the several towns 
 the people had the governmental power in their hands, since 
 they gave the final decision in political affairs. In conse- 
 quence of the long repose enjoyed by them, the population 
 and the development of the community advanced rapidly ; 
 and the immediate result was the amassing of great riches, 
 contemporaneously with which fact great want and poverty 
 make their appearance. Industry, in our sense, did not 
 exist ; and the lands were soon occupied. Nevertheless 
 a part of the poorer classes would not submit to the degra- 
 dations of poverty, for every one felt himself a free citizen. 
 The onlv expedient, therefore, that remained, was coloniza- 
 
SECT. T. THE ELEMENTS OF THE GREEK SPIRIT. 243 
 
 lion. In another country, those who suffered distress in 
 their own, might seek a free soil, and gain. a living as free 
 citizens by its cultivation. Colonization thus became a 
 means of maintaining some degree of equality among the 
 citizens ; but this means is only a palliative, and the origi- 
 nal inequality, founded on the difference of property, imme- 
 diately reappears. The old passions were rekindled with 
 fresh violence, and riches were soon made use of for se- 
 curing power : thus " Tyrants " gained ascendancy in the 
 cities of Greece. Thucydides says, " When Greece increased 
 in riches, Tyrants arose in the cities, and the Greeks devoted 
 themselves more zealously to the sea." At the time of 
 Cvrus, the History of Greece acquires its peculiar interest ; 
 we see the various states now displaying their particular 
 character. This is the date, too, of the formation of the dis- 
 tinct Greek Spirit. Religion and political institutions are 
 developed with it, and it is these important phases of na- 
 tional life which must now occupy our attention. 
 
 In tracing up the rudiments of Greek culture, we first 
 recal attention to the fact, that the physical condition of 
 the country does not exhibit such a characteristic unity, 
 such a uniform mass, as to exercise a powerful influence 
 over the inhabitants. On the contrary, it is diversified, and 
 produces no decided impression. Nor have we here the un- 
 wieldy unity of a family or national combination ; but, in the 
 presence of scenery and displays of elemental power broken 
 up into fragmentary forms, men's attention is more largely 
 directed to themselves, and to the extension of their irama- 
 ; ture capabilities. Thus we see the Greeks — divided and 
 : separated from each other — thrown back upon their inner 
 spirit and personal energy, yet at the same time most 
 variously excited and cautiously circumspect. We behold 
 them quite undetermined and irresolute in the presence 
 of Nature, dependent on its contingencies, and listening 
 anxiously to each signal from the external world ; but, on 
 the other hand, intelligently taking cognizance of and 
 ; appropriating that outward existence, and shewing bold- 
 ness and independent vigour in contending with it. These 
 are the simple elements of their culture and religion. In 
 tracing up their mythological conceptions, we find natural 
 objects forming the basis — not en masse, however ; only in 
 
 R 2 
 
244 
 
 PART II. THE GREEK WORLD. 
 
 dissevered forms. The Diana of Ephesus (that is, .Nature ;»s 
 the universal Mother), the Cybele and Astarte of Syria, — such 
 comprehensive conceptions remained Asiatic, and were not 
 transmitted to Greece. For the Greeks only watch the 
 objects of Nature, and form surmises respecting them ; in- 
 quiring, in the depth of their souls, for the hidden meaning. 
 According to Aristotle's dictum, that Philosophy proceeds 
 from Wonder, the Greek view of Nature also proceeds from 
 wonder of this kind. Not that in their experience, Spirit meets 
 something extraordinary, which it compares with the common 
 order of things ; for the intelligent view of a regular course of 
 Nature, and the reference of phenomena to that standard, do 
 not yet present themselves ; but the Greek Spirit was excited 
 to wonder at the Natural in Nature. It does not maintain 
 the position of stupid indifference to it as something exist- 
 ing, and there an end of it ; but regards it as something in 
 the first instance foreign, in which, however, it has a presen- 
 timent of confidence, and the belief that it bears something 
 within it which is friendly to the human Spirit, and to which 
 it may be permitted to sustain a positive relation. This 
 Wonder, and this Presentiment, are here the fundamental 
 categories ; though the Hellenes did not content themselves 
 with these moods of feelings, but projected the hidden mean- 
 ing, which was the subject of the surmise, into a distinct con- 
 ception as an object of consciousness. The Natural holds 
 its place in their minds only after undergoing some trans- 
 formation by Spirit — not immediately. Man regards Nature 
 only as an excitement to his faculties, and only the Spiri- 
 tual which he has evolved from it can have any influence 
 over him. Nor is this commencement of the Spiritual ap- 
 prehension of Nature to be regarded as an explanation 
 suggested by us ; it meets us in a multitude of conceptions 
 formed by the Greeks themselves. The position of curious 
 surmise, of attentive eagerness to catch the meaning of 
 Nature, is indicated to us in the comprehensive idea of Pan. 
 To the Greeks Pan did not represent the objective "Whole, 
 but that indefinite neutral ground which involves the ele- 
 ment of the subjective ; he embodies that thrill which per- 
 vades us in the silence of the forests ; he was, therefore, 
 especially worshipped in sylvan Arcadia : (a " panic terror " 
 is the common expression for a groundless fright). Pan, 
 
SECT. I. THE ELEMENTS OF THE GREEK SPIRIT. 245 
 
 this thrill-exciting being, is also represented as playing on 
 the flute ; we have not the bare internal presentiment, for 
 Pan makes himself audible on the seven-reeded pipe. In 
 what has been stated we have, on the one hand, the Indefinite, 
 which, however, holds communication with man ; on the other 
 hand the fact, that such communication is only a subjective 
 imagining — an explanation furnished by the percipient him- 
 self. On the same principle the Greeks listened to the mur- 
 muring of the fountains, and asked what might be thereby 
 signified ; but the signification which they were led to attach 
 to it was not the objective meaning of the fountain, but the 
 subjective — that of the subject itself, which further exalts 
 the Naiad to a Muse. The Naiads, or Fountains, are the 
 external, objective origin of the Muses. Yet the immortal 
 songs of the Muses are not that which is heard in the mur- 
 muring of the fountains ; they are the productions of the 
 thoughtfully listening Spirit — creative while observant. The 
 interpretation and explanation of Nature and its trans- 
 formations — the indication of their sense and import — is the 
 act of the subjective Spirit ; and to this the Greeks at- 
 tached the name /jtavreta. The general idea which this em- 
 bodies, is the form in which man realizes his relationship to 
 Nature. Mam/a has reference both to the matter of the 
 exposition and to the expounder who divines the weighty- 
 import in question. Plato speaks of it in reference to dreams, 
 and to that delirium into which men fall during sickness ; an 
 interpreter, pavng, is wanted to explain these dreams and 
 this delirium. That Nature answered the questions which 
 the Greek put to her, is in this converse sense true, that he 
 obtained an answer to the questions of Nature from his own 
 Spirit. The insight of the Seer becomes thereby purely 
 poetical ; Spirit supplies the signification which the natural 
 image expresses. Everywhere the Greeks desired a clear pre- 
 sentation and interpretation of the Natural. Homer tells us, 
 in the last book of the Odyssey, that while the Greeks were 
 overwhelmed with sorrow for Achilles, a violent agitation 
 came over the sea : the Greeks were on the point of dispersing 
 in terror, when the experienced Nestor arose and interpreted 
 the phenomenon to them. Thetis, he said, was coming, with 
 her nymphs, to lament for the death of her son. When a 
 pestilence broke out in the camp of the Greeks, the Priest 
 
216 
 
 PAET II. THE GEEEK WOELD. 
 
 Calchas explained that Apollo was incensed at their not 
 having restored the daughter of his priest Chryses when a 
 ransom had been offered. The Oracle was originally inter- 
 preted exactly in this way. The oldest Oracle was at Do- 
 dona (in the district of the modern Janina). Herodotus 
 says that the first priestesses of the temple there, were from 
 Egypt ; yet this temple is stated to be an ancient Greek 
 one. The rustling of the leaves of the sacred oaks was the 
 form of prognostication there. Bowls of metal were also 
 suspended in the grove. But the sounds of the bowls 
 dashing against each other were quite indefinite, and had no 
 objective sense ; the sense —the signification — was imparted 
 to the sounds only by the human beings who heard them. 
 Thus also the Delphic priestesses, in a senseless, distracted 
 state— in the intoxication of enthusiasm (/lavia) — uttered 
 unintelligible sounds ; and it was the /j.ävrig who gave to these 
 utterances a definite meaning. In the cave of Trophonius 
 the noise of subterranean waters was heard, and appa- 
 ritions were seen : but these indefinite phenomena acquired 
 a meaning only through the interpreting, comprehending 
 Spirit. It must also be observed, that these excitements of 
 Spirit are in the first instance external, natural impulses. 
 Succeeding them are internal changes taking place in the 
 human being himself — such as dreams, or the delirium of the 
 Delphic priestess — which require to be made intelligible by 
 the jxavriQ. At the commencement of the Iliad, Achilles 
 is excited against Agamemnon, and is on the point of draw- 
 ing his sword; but on a sudden he checks the movement of 
 his arm, and recollects himself in his wrath, reflecting on his 
 relation to Agamemnon. The Poet explains this by saying 
 that it was Pallas- Athene (Wisdom or Consideration) that 
 restrained him. "When Ulysses among the Phseacians, has 
 thrown his discus farther than the rest, and one of the 
 Phaeacians shews a friendly disposition towards him, the 
 Poet recognises in him Pallas- Athene. Such an explanation 
 denotes the perception of the inner meaning, the sense, the 
 underlying truth ; and the poets were in this way the 
 teachers of the Greeks — especially Homer. Mamia in 
 fact is Poesy — not a capricious indulgence of fancy, but an 
 imagination which introduces the Spiritual into the Natural, 
 — in short a richly intelligent perception. The Greek Spirit, 
 
SECT. I. THE ELEMENTS OF THE GREEK SPIRIT. 247 
 
 ou the whole, therefore, is free from superstition, since it 
 changes the sensuous into the sensible — the Intellectual — so 
 that [oracular] decisions are derived from Spirit ; although 
 superstition comes in again from another quarter, as will be 
 observed when impulsions from another source than the 
 Spiritual, are allowed to tell upon opinion and action. 
 
 But the stimuli that operated on the Spirit of the Greeks 
 are not to be limited to these objective and subjective ex- 
 citements. The traditional element derived from foreign 
 countries, the culture, the divinities and ritual observances 
 transmitted to them ab extra must also be included. It 
 has been long a much vexed question whether the arts and 
 the religion of the Greeks were developed independently 
 or through foreign suggestion. Under the conduct of a 
 one-sided understanding the controversy is interminable ; 
 for it is no less a fact of history that the Greeks derived 
 conceptions from India, Syria, and Egypt, than that the Greek 
 conceptions are peculiar to themselves, and those others 
 alien. Herodotus (II. 53) asserts, with equal decision, that 
 "Homer and Hesiod invented a Theogony for the Greeks, 
 and assigned to the gods their appropriate epithets " (a most 
 weighty sentence, which has been the subject of deep inves- 
 tigation, especially by Creuzer), — and, in another place, 
 that Greece took the names of its divinities from Egypt, and 
 that the Greeks made inquiry at Dodona, whether they 
 ought to adopt these names or not. This appears self-con- 
 tradictory : it is, however, quite consistent ; for the fact is 
 that the Greeks evolved the Spiritual from the materials 
 which they had received. The Natural, as explained by 
 man, — i. e. its internal essential element — is, as a universal 
 principle, the beginning of the Divine. Just as in Art the 
 Greeks may have acquired a mastery of technical matters 
 from others — from the Egyptians especially — so in their 
 religion the commencement might have been from without ; 
 but by their independent spirit they transformed the one 
 as well as the other. 
 
 Traces of such foreign rudiments may be generally dis- 
 covered (Creuzer, in his " Symbolik," dwells especially on 
 this point). The amours of Zeus appear indeed as some- 
 thing isolated, extraneous, adventitious, but it may be shewn 
 that foreign theogonic representations form their basis. 
 
248 
 
 PART II. THE GREEK WOELD. 
 
 Hercules is, among the Hellenes, that Spiritual Humanity 
 which by native energy attains Olympus through the twelve 
 far-famed labours : but the foreign idea that lies at the 
 basis is the Sun, completing its revolution through the 
 tw.?lve signs of the Zodiac. The Mysteries were only such 
 ancient rudiments, and certainly contained no greater wis- 
 dom than already existed in the consciousness of the Greeks. 
 All Athenians were initiated in the mysteries — Socrates ex- 
 cepted, who refused initiation, because he knew well that 
 science and art are not the product of mysteries, and that 
 AVisdom never lies among arcana. True science has its 
 place much rather in the open field of consciousness. 
 
 In summing up the constituents of the Greek Spirit, we 
 find its fundamental characteristic to be, that the freedom of 
 Spirit is conditioned by and has an essential relation to some 
 stimulus supplied by Nature. Greek freedom of thought is 
 excited by an alien existence ; but it is free because it trans- 
 forms and virtually reproduces the stimulus by its own opera- 
 tion. This phase of Spirit is the medium between the loss 
 of individuality on the part of man (such as we observe in 
 the Asiatic principle, in which the Spiritual and Divine 
 exists only under a Natural form), and Infinite Subjectivity 
 as pure certainty of itself — the position that the Ego is the 
 ground of all that can lay claim to substantial existence. The 
 Greek Spirit as the medium between these two, begins with 
 Nature, but transforms it into a mere objective form of its 
 (Spirit's) own existence ; Spirituality is therefore not yet 
 absolutely free ; not yet absolutely ^//-produced, — is not self- 
 stimulation. Setting out from surmise and wonder, the Greek 
 Spirit advances to definite conceptions of the hidden mean- 
 ings of Nature. In the subject itself too, the same harmony 
 is produced. In Man, the side of his subjective existence 
 which he owes to Nature, is the Heart, the Disposition, Pas- 
 sion, and Variety of Temperament : this side is then deve- 
 loped in a spiritual direction to free Individuality ; so that the 
 character is not placed in a relation to universally valid 
 moral authorities, assuming the form of duties, but the 
 Moral appears as a nature peculiar to the individual — an exer- 
 tion of will, the result of disposition and individual consti- 
 tution. This stamps the Greek character as that of Indi- 
 viduality conditioned by Beauty, which is produced by Spirit, 
 
SECT. L THE ELEMENTS OF THE GREEK SPIRIT. 249 
 
 transforming the merely Natural into an expression of its 
 own being. The activity of Spirit does not yet possess in 
 itself the material and organ of expression, but needs the 
 excitement of Nature and the matter which Nature supplies: 
 it is not free, self-determining Spirituality, but mere natural- 
 ness formed to Spirituality — Spiritual Individuality. The 
 Greek Spirit is the plastic artist, forming the stone into a 
 work of art. In this formative process the stone does not 
 remain mere stone, — the form being only superinduced from 
 without ; but it is made an expression of the Spiritual, even 
 contrary to its nature, and thus transformed. Conversely, the 
 artist needs for his spiritual conceptions, stone, colours, 
 sensuous forms to express his idea. Without such au element 
 he can no more be conscious of the idea himself, than give it 
 an objective form for the contemplation of others ; since 
 it cannot in Thought alone become an object to him. The 
 Egyptian Spirit also was a similar labourer in Matter, but 
 the Natural had not yet been subjected to the Spiritual. 
 No advance was made beyond a struggle and contest with 
 it; the Natural still took an independent position, and 
 formed one side of the image, as in the body of the Sphinx. 
 In Greek Beauty the Sensuous is only a sign, an expression, 
 an envelope, in which Spirit manifests itself. 
 
 It must be added, that while the Greek Spirit is a trans- 
 forming artist of this kind, it knows itself free in its pro- 
 ductions ; for it is their creator, and they are what is called 
 the " work of man." They are, however, not merely this, 
 but Eternal Truth — the energizing of Spirit in its innate 
 essence, and quite as really not created as created by man. 
 He has a respect and veneration for these conceptions and 
 images, — this Olympian Zeus— this Pallas of the Acropolis, — 
 and in the same way for the laws, political and ethical, that 
 guide his actions. But He, the human being, is the womb 
 that conceived them, he the breast that suckled them, he the 
 Spiritual to which their grandeur and purity is owing. Thus 
 he feels himself calm in contemplating them, and not only 
 free in himself, but possessing the consciousness of his 
 freedom ; thus the honour of the Human is swallowed up in 
 the worship of the Divine. Men honour the Divine in and for 
 itself, but at the same time as their deed, their production, 
 their phenomenal existence ; thus the Divine receives its 
 
250 
 
 PAKT II. THE GEEEK WORLD. 
 
 honour through the respect paid to the Human, and th 
 Human in virtue of the honour paid to the Divine. 
 
 Such are the qualities of that Beautiful Individuality 
 which constitutes the centre of the Greek character. "W 
 must now consider the several radiations which this ide 
 throws out in realizing itself. All issue in works of art, an 
 we may arrange under three heads : the subjective work o 
 art, that is, the culture of the man himself ; —the objectiv 
 work of art, i.e., the shaping of the world of divinities ;- 
 lastly, the political work of art — the form of the Constitutio 
 and the relations of the Individuals who compose it. 
 
 SECTION II. 
 
 PHASES OF INDIVIDUALITY AESTHETICALLY CONDITIONED 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE SUBJECTIVE WORK OF ART. 
 
 Man with his necessities sustains a practical relation t 
 external Nature, and in making it satisfy his desires, an 
 thus using it up, has recourse to a system of means. Eo 
 natural objects are powerful, and offer resistance in variou 
 ways. In order to subdue them, man introduces othe 
 natural agents; thus turns Nature against itself, an 
 invents instruments for this purpose. These human inven 
 tions belong to Spirit, and such an instrument is to b 
 respected more than a mere natural object. We see, too 
 that the Greeks are accustomed to set an especial valu 
 upon them, for in Homer, man's delight in them appears i 
 a very striking way. In the notice of Agamemnon's sceptre, 
 its origin is given in detail : mention is made of doors which 
 turn on hinges, and of accoutrements and furniture, in a 
 way that expresses satisfaction. The honour of human 
 invention in subjugating Nature is ascribed to the gods. 
 
 But, on the other hand, man uses Nature for ornament, 
 which is intended only as a token of wealth and of that which 
 man has made of himself. We find Ornament, in this 
 
SECT. II. CHAP. I. THE SUBJECTIVE WORK OF AKT. 2öl 
 
 interest, already very much developed among the Homeric 
 Greeks. It is true that both barbarians and civilized 
 nations ornament themselves ; but barbarians content them- 
 selves with mere ornament ; — they intend their persons to 
 please by an external addition. But ornament by its very 
 nature is destined only to beautify something other than 
 itself, viz. the human body, which is man's immediate envi- 
 ronment, and which, in common with Nature at large, he 
 has to transform. The spiritual interest of primary import- 
 ance is, therefore, the development of the body to a perfect 
 organ for the Will — an adaptation which may on the one 
 hand itself be the means for ulterior objects, and on the other 
 hand, appear as an object per se. Among the Greeks, then, 
 we find this boundless impulse of individuals to display 
 themselves, and to find their enjoyment in so doing. Sen- 
 suous enjoyment does not become the basis of their condition 
 when a state of repose has been obtained, any more than the 
 dependence and stupor of superstition which enjoyment 
 entails. They are too powerfully excited, too much bent upon 
 developing their individuality, absolutely to adore Nature, 
 as it manifests itself in its aspects of power and beneficence. 
 That peaceful condition w r hich ensued when a predatory life 
 had been relinquished, and liberal nature had afforded 
 security and leisure, turned their energies in the direction 
 of self-assertion — the effort to dignify themselves. But 
 while on the one side they have too much independent per- 
 sonality to be subjugated by superstition, that sentiment has 
 not gone to the extent of making them vain; on the con- 
 trary, essential conditions must be first satisfied, before 
 this can become a matter of vanity with them. The exhilara- 
 ting sense of personality, in contrast with sensuous sub- 
 jection to nature, and the need, not of mere pleasure, but of 
 the display of individual powers, in order thereby to gain 
 special distinction and consequent enjoyment, constitute 
 therefore the chief characteristic and principal occupation of 
 the Greeks. Free as the bird singing in the sky, the indi- 
 vidual only expresses what lies in his untrammelled human 
 nature, — [to give the world " assurance of a man "], — to have 
 his importance recognized. This is the subjective beginning 
 of Greek Art, — in which the human being elaborates his 
 physical being, in free, beautiful movement and agile vigour, 
 
252 
 
 PART II. THE GEEEK WOELD. 
 
 to a work of art. The Greeks first trained their own 
 persons to beautiful configurations before they attempted 
 the expression of such in marble and in paintings. The 
 innocuous contests of games, in which every one exhibits his 
 powers, is of very ancient date. Homer gives a noble descrip- 
 tion of the games conducted by Achilles, in honour of Patro- 
 clus ; but in all his poems there is no notice of statues of the 
 gods, though he mentions the sanctuary at Dodona, and the 
 treasure-house of Apollo at Delphi. The games in Homer 
 consist in wrestling and boxing, running, horse and chariot 
 races, throwing the discus or javelin, and archery. With 
 these exercises are united dance and song, to express and 
 form part of the enjoyment of social exhilaration, and which 
 arts likewise blossomed into beauty. On the shield of 
 Achilles, Hephaestus represents, among other things, how 
 beautiful youths and maidens move as quickly " with well- 
 taught feet," as the potter turns his wheel. The multitude 
 stand round enjoying the spectacle ; the divine singer accom- 
 panies the song with the harp, and two chief dancers perform 
 their evolutions in the centre of the circle. 
 
 These games and aesthetic displays, with the pleasures and 
 honours that accompanied them, were at the outset only 
 private, originating in particular occasions ; but in the 
 sequel they became an affair of the nation, and were fixed 
 for certain times at appointed places. Besides the Olympic 
 games in the sacred district of Elis, there were also held the 
 Isthmian, the Pythian, and Nemean, at other places. 
 
 If we look at the inner nature of these sports, we shall 
 first observe how Sport itself is opposed to serious business, 
 to dependence and need. This wrestling, running, contend- 
 ing was no serious affair ; bespoke no obligation of defence, 
 no necessity of combat. Serious occupation is labour that 
 has reference to some want. I or Nature must succumb ; if 
 the one is to continue, the other must fall. In contrast 
 with this kind of seriousness, however, Sport presents the 
 higher seriousness ; for in it Nature is wrought into Spirit, 
 and although in these contests the subject has not ad- 
 vanced to the highest grade of serious thought, yet in this 
 exercise of his physical powers, man shews his Freedom, viz. 
 that he has transformed his body to an organ of Spirit. 
 
 Man has immediately in one of his organs, the Voice, an 
 
SECT. II. CIIAP. II. THE OBJECTIVE WORK OF ART. 253 
 
 element which admits and requires a more extensive purport 
 than the mere sensuous Present. We have seen how Song 
 is united with the Dance, and ministers to it : but, subse- 
 quently Song makes itself independent, and requires musical 
 instruments to accompany it ; it then ceases to be unmean- 
 ing, like the modulations of a bird, which may indeed express 
 emotion, but which have no objective import ; but it requires 
 an import created by imagination and Spirit, and which is 
 then further formed into an objective work of art. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE OBJECTIVE WORK OF ART. 
 
 If the subject of Song as thus developed among the Greeks 
 is made a question, we should say that its essential and 
 absolute purport is religious. We have examined the Idea 
 embodied in the Greek Spirit ; and Religion is nothing else 
 than this Idea made objective as the essence of being. 
 According to that Idea, we shall observe also that the Divine 
 involves the vis natures only as an element suffering a pro- 
 cess of transformation to spiritual power. Of this Natural 
 Element, as its origin, nothing more remains than the accord 
 of analogy involved in the representations they formed of 
 Spiritual power ; for the Greeks worshipped God as Spiri- 
 tual. We cannot, therefore, regard the Greek divinity as 
 similar to the Indian — some Power of Nature for which 
 the human shape supplies only an outward form. The 
 essence is the Spiritual itself, and the Natural is only the 
 point of departure. But on the other hand, it must be ob- 
 served, that the divinity of the Greeks is not yet the absolute, 
 free Spirit, but Spirit in a particular mode, fettered by the 
 limitations of humanity — still dependent as a determinate 
 individuality on external conditions. Individualities, objec- 
 tively beautiful, are the gods of the Greeks. The divine 
 Spirit is here so conditioned as to be not yet regarded as 
 abstract Spirit, but has a specialized existence — continues to 
 manifest itself in sense ; but so that the sensuous is not its 
 substance, but is only an element of its manifestation. This 
 
254 
 
 PART II. THE GREEK WORLD. 
 
 must be our leading idea in the consideration of the Greek 
 mythology, and we must have our attention fixed upon it so 
 much the more firmly, as — partly through the influence of 
 erudition, which has whelmed essential principles beneath 
 an infinite amount of details, and partly through that de- 
 structive analysis which is the work of the abstract Under- 
 standing — this mythology, together with the more ancient 
 periods of Greek history, has become a region of the greatest 
 intellectual confusion. 
 
 In the Idea of the Greek Spirit we found the two ele- 
 ments, Nature and Spirit, in such a relation to each other, 
 that Nature forms merely the point of departure. This 
 degradation of Nature is in the Greek mythology the turn- 
 ing point of the whole, — expressed as the War of the Gods, 
 the overthrow of the Titans by the race of Zeus. The 
 transition from the Oriental to the Occidental Spirit is 
 therein represented, for the Titans are the merely Physical — 
 natural existences, from whose grasp sovereignty is w r rested. 
 It is true that they continue to be venerated, but not as 
 governing powers ; for they are relegated to the verge [the 
 limbus] ot" the world. The Titans are powers of Nature, 
 Uranus, Ga:a, Oceanus, Selene, Helios, &c. Chronos ex- 
 presses the dominion of abstract Time, which devours its 
 children. The unlimited power of reproduction is restrained, 
 and Zeus appears as the head of the new divinities, who 
 embody a spiritual import, and are themselves Spirit. * It 
 is not possible to express this transition more distinctly and 
 naively than in this myth; the new dynasty of divinities 
 proclaim their peculiar nature to be of a Spiritual order. 
 
 The second point is, that the new divinities retain natural 
 elements, and consequently in themselves a determinate re- 
 lation to the powers of Nature, as was previously shewn. 
 Zeus has his lightnings and clouds, and Hera is the creatress 
 of the Natural, the producer of crescent vitality. Zeus is also 
 the political god, the protector of morals and of hospitality. 
 Oceanus, as such, is only the element of Nature which his 
 name denotes. Poseidon has still the wildness of that ele- 
 ment in his character ; but he is also an ethical personage ; to 
 
 * See Hegel's " Vöries, über die Philos. der Religion," II. p. 102. sqq 
 (2nd edition.) 
 
SECT. II. C1IAP. II. THE OBJECTIVE WORK OF AKT. 255 
 
 him is ascribed the building of walls and the production of 
 the Horse. Helios is the sun as a natural element. This 
 Light, according to the analogy of Spirit, has been transformed 
 to self-consciousness, and Apollo has proceeded from Helios. 
 The name Avkeioq points to the connection with light ; 
 Apollo was a herdsman in the employ of Admetus, but oxen 
 not subjected to the yoke were sacred to Helios : his rays, 
 represented as arrows, kill the Python. The idea of Light 
 as the natural power constituting the basis of the represen- 
 tation, cannot be dissociated from this divinity; especially as 
 the other predicates attached to it are easily united with it, 
 and the explanations of Müller and others, who deny that 
 basis, are much more arbitrary and far-fetched. For Apollo 
 is the prophesying and discerning god — Light, that makes 
 everything clear. He is, moreover, the healer and strength- 
 ened as also the destroyer, for he kills men. He is the 
 propitiating and purifying god, e.g., in contravention of the 
 Eumenides — the ancient subterrene divinities — who exact 
 hard, stern justice. He himself is pure ; he has no wife, but 
 only a sister, and is not involved in various disgusting adven- 
 tures, like Zeus ; moreover, he is the discerner and declarer, 
 the singer and leader of the dances — as the sun leads the 
 harmonious dance of stars. — In like manner the Naiads 
 became the Muses. The mother of the gods, Cybele — con- 
 tinuing to be worshipped at Ephesus as Artemis — is scarcely 
 to be recognized as the Artemis of the Greeks — the chaste 
 huntress and destroyer of wild beasts. Should it be said 
 that this change of the Natural into the Spiritual is owing 
 to our allegorizing, or that of the later Greeks, we may 
 reply, that this transformation of the Natural to the 
 Spiritual is the Greek Spirit itself. The epigrams of the 
 Greeks exhibit such advances from the Sensuous to the 
 Spiritual. But the abstract Understanding cannot compre- 
 hend this blending of the Natural with the Spiritual. 
 
 It must be further observed, that the Greek gods are to be 
 regarded as individualities, — not abstractions, like " Know- 
 ledge," " Unity," " Time," " Heaven," " Necessity." Such 
 abstractions do not form the substance of these divinities ; 
 they are no allegories, no abstract beings, to which various 
 attributes are attached, like the Horatian " Necessitas clavis 
 trabalibus." As little are the divinities symbols, for a 
 
256 
 
 PART II. THE GREEK WORLD. 
 
 symbol is only a sign, an adumbration of something els 
 The Greek gods express of themselves what they are. Th 
 eternal repose and clear intelligence that dignifies the he 
 of Apollo, is not a symbol, but the expression in whic 
 Spirit manifests itself, and shews itself present. The go 
 are personalities, concrete individualities : an allegoric 
 being has no qualities, but is itself one quality and no more 
 The gods are, moreover, special characters, since in each c 
 them one peculiarity predominates as the characteristic one 
 but it would be vain to try to bring this circle of characte 
 into a system. Zeus, perhaps, may be regarded as rulin 
 the other gods, but not with substantial power ; so th 
 they are left free to their own idiosyncrasy. Since th 
 whole range of spiritual and moral qualities was appr 
 priated by the gods, the unity, which stood above them a 
 necessarily remained abstract ; it was therefore formle 
 and unmeaning Fact, [the absolute constitution of things] 
 Necessity, whose oppressive character arises from the a 
 sence of the Spiritual in it ; whereas the gods hold a friendl 
 relation to men, for they are Spiritual natures. That highe 
 thought, the knowledge of Unity as God,— the One Spiri 
 — lay beyond that grade of thought which the Greeks h~ 
 attained. 
 
 With regard to the adventitious and special that attach 
 to the Greek gods, the question arises, where the extern 
 origin of this adventitious element is to be looked for. I 
 arises partly from local characteristics — the scattered co 
 dition of the Greeks at the commencement of their nation 
 life, fixing as this did on certain points, and consequent! 
 introducing local representations. The local divinities stan 
 alone, and occupy a much greater extent than they do afte 
 wards, when they enter into the circle of the divinities, an 
 are reduced to a limited position ; they are conditione 
 by the particular consciousness and circumstances of th 
 countries in which they appear. There are a multitude o 
 Herculeses and Zeuses, that have their local history like the 
 Indian gods, who also at different places possess temples to 
 which a peculiar legend attaches. A similar relation occurs 
 in the case of the Catholic saints and their legends ; though 
 here, not the several localities, but the one " Mater Dei" 
 supplies the point of departure, being afterwards localized in 
 
SECT. II. CHAP. II. TIIE OBJECTIVE WORK OF ART. 257 
 
 the most diversified modes. The Greeks relate the liveliest 
 and most attractive stories of their gods, — to which no limit 
 can be assigned, since rich fancies were always gushing 
 forth anew in the living Spirit of the Greeks. A second 
 source from which adventitious specialities in the conception 
 of the gods arose is that Worship of Nature, whose repre- 
 sentations retain a place in the Greek myths, as certainly as 
 they appear there also in a regenerated and transfigured con- 
 dition. The preservation of the original myths, brings us 
 to the famous chapter of the " Mysteries" already men- 
 tioned. These mysteries of the Greeks present something 
 which, as unknown, has attracted the curiosity of all times, 
 under the supposition of profound wisdom. It must first 
 be remarked that their antique and primary character, 
 in virtue of its very antiquity, shews their destitution of 
 excellence, — their inferiority ; — that the more refined truths 
 are not expressed in these mysteries, and that the view 
 which many have entertained is incorrect, viz. — that the 
 Unity of God, in opposition to polytheism, was taught in 
 them. The mysteries were rather antique rituals ; and it is 
 as unhistorical as it is foolish, to assume that profound 
 philosophical truths are to be found there ; since, on the con- 
 trary, only natural ideas — ruder conceptions of the metamor- 
 phoses occurring everywhere in nature, and of the vital prin- 
 ciple that pervades it— were the subjects of those mysteries. 
 If we put together all the historical data pertinent to the 
 question, the result we shall inevitably arrive at will be that 
 the mysteries did not constitute a system of doctrines, but 
 were sensuous ceremonies and exhibitions, consisting of 
 symbols of the universal operations of Nature, as, e.g., the 
 relation of the earth to celestial phenomena. The chief 
 basis of the representations of Ceres and Proserpine, Bac- 
 chus and his train, was the universal principle of Nature ; 
 and the accompanying details were obscure stories and re- 
 presentations, mainly bearing on the universal vital force 
 and its metamorphoses. An analogous process to that of 
 Nature, Spirit has also to undergo ; for it must be twice- 
 born, i.e., abnegate itself; and thus the representations 
 given in the mysteries called attention, though only feebly, 
 to the nature of Spirit. In the Greeks they produced an 
 emotion of shuddering awe ; for an instinctive dread comes 
 
 s 
 
25S 
 
 PART II. THE GREEK "WOHLD. 
 
 over men, when a signification is perceived in a form, whi 
 as a sensuous phenomenon does not express that significatio 
 and which therefore both repels and attracts, — awakes se- 
 mises by the import that reverberates through the whol 
 but at the same time a thrill of dread at the repellent for 
 iEschylus was accused of having profaned the mysteries ' 
 his tragedies. The indefinite representations and symbo 
 of the Mysteries, in which the profound import is only su 
 mised, are an element alien to the clear pure forms, and 
 threaten them with destruction ; on which account the gods 
 of Art remain separated from the gods of the Mysteries, and 
 the two spheres must be strictly dissociated. Most of their 
 gods the Greeks received from foreign lands, — as Herodotus 
 stales expressly with regard to Egypt, — but these exotic 
 myths were transformed and spiritualized by the Greeks ; 
 and that part of the foreign theogonies which accompanied 
 them, was, in the mouth of the Hellenes, worked up into a 
 legendary narrative which often redounded to the disadvan- 
 tage of the divinities. Thus also the brutes which con- 
 tinued to rank as gods among the Egyptians, were degraded 
 to external signs, accompanying the Spiritual god. While 
 they have each an individual character, the Greek gods are 
 also represented as human, and this anthropomorphism 
 is charged as a defect. On the contrary (we may imme- 
 diately rejoin) man as the Spiritual constitutes the element 
 of truth in the Greek gods, which rendered them superior to 
 all elemental deities, and all mere abstractions of the One and 
 Highest Being. On the other side it is alleged as an advan- 
 tage of the Greek gods, that they are represented as men 
 — that being regarded as not the case with the Christian 
 God. Schiller says : 
 
 " While the gods remained more human, 
 The men were more divine." 
 
 But the Greek gods must not be regarded as more human 
 than the Christian God. Christ is much more a Man : he 
 lives, dies — suffers death on the cross,— which is infinitely 
 more human than the humanity of the Greek Idea of the 
 Beautiful. But in referring to this common element of the 
 Greek and the Christian religion, it must be said of both, 
 that if a manifestation of God is to be supposed at all, his 
 
SECT. II. CHAP. IT. THE OBJECTIVE WORK OF ART. 259 
 
 natural form must be that of Spirit, which for sensuous 
 conception is essentially the human ; for no other form can 
 lay claim to spirituality. God appears indeed in the sun, 
 in the mountains, in the trees, in everything that has life ; but 
 a natural appearance of this kind, is not the form proper to 
 Spirit: here God is cognizable only in the mind of the per- 
 cipient. If God himself is to be manifested in a corres- 
 ponding expression, that can only be the human form : for 
 from this the Spiritual beams forth. But if it were asked : 
 Does God necessarily manifest himself? the question must 
 be answered in the affirmative ; for there is no essen- 
 tial existence that does not manifest itself. The real 
 defect of the Greek religion, as compared with the Chris- 
 tian, is, therefore, that in the former the manifestation con- 
 stitutes the highest mode in which the Divine being is 
 conceived to exist — the sum and substance of divinity ; 
 while in the Christian religion the manifestation is regarded 
 only as a temporary phase of the Divine. Here the manifested 
 God dies, and elevates himself to glory ; only after death 
 is Christ represented as sitting at the right hand of God. 
 The Greek god, on the contrary, exists for his worshippers 
 perennially in the manifestation — only in marble, in metal 
 or wood, or as figured by the imagination. But why did God 
 not appear to the Greeks in the flesh ? Because man was 
 not duly estimated, did not obtain honour and dignity, till he 
 had more fully elaborated and developed himself in the 
 attainment of the Freedom implicit in the aesthetic mani- 
 festation in question ; the form and shaping of the divinity 
 therefore continued to be the product of individual views, 
 [not a general, impersonal one]. One element in Spirit is. 
 that it produces itself — makes itself what it is : and the othei 
 is, that it is originally free — that Freedom is its nature and 
 its Idea. But the Greeks, since they had not attained an 
 intellectual conception of themselves, did not yet realize Spirit 
 in its Universality — had not the idea of man and the essential 
 unity of the divine and human nature according to the 
 Christian view. Only the self-reliant, truly subjective Spirit 
 can bear to dispense with the phenomenal side, and can 
 venture to assign the Divine Nature to Spirit alone. It 
 then no longer needs to inweave the Natural into its idea of 
 the Spiritual, in order to hold fast its conception of the 
 
 s 2 
 
2G0 
 
 PART II. i lib Gilfcr.A WORLD. 
 
 Divine, and to have its unity with the Divine, external] 
 visible ; but while free Thought thinks the Phenomenal, it i's 
 content to leave it as it is ; for it also thinks that union of the 
 Finite and the Infinite, and recognizes it not as a mere 
 accidental union, but as the Absolute — the eternal Idea 
 itself. Since Subjectivity was not comprehended in all its 
 depth by the Greek Spirit, the true reconciliation was not 
 attained in it, and the human Spirit did not yet assert its 
 true position. This defect shewed itself in the fact of Fate 
 as pure subjectivity appearing superior to the gods ; it also 
 shews itself in the fact, that men derive their resolves not 
 yet from themselves, but from their Oracles. Neither human 
 nor divine subjectivity, recognized as infinite, has as yet, ab- 
 solutely decisive authority. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE POLITICAL WOEK OF ART. 
 
 The State unites the two phases just considered, viz., the 
 Subjective and the Objective Work of Art. In the State, 
 Spirit is not a mere Object, like the deities, nor, on the other 
 hand, is it merely subjectively developed to a beautiful phy- 
 sique. It is here a living, universal Spirit, but which is at 
 the same time the self-conscious Spirit of the individuals 
 composing the community. 
 
 The Democratical Constitution alone was adapted to the 
 Spirit and political condition in question. In the East we 
 recognized Despotism, developed in magnificent proportions, 
 as a form of government strictly appropriate to the Dawn- 
 Land of History. Not less adapted is the democratical form 
 in Greece, to the part assigned to it in the same great drama. 
 In Greece, viz., we have the freedom of the Individual, but 
 it has not yet advanced to such a degree of abstraction, that 
 the subjective unit is conscious of direct dependence on 
 the [general] substantial principle — the State as such. In 
 this grade of Freedom, the individual will is unfettered in 
 the entire range of its vitality, and embodies that substantial 
 principle, [the bond of the political union], according to 
 
SECT. II. CHAP. III. THE POLITICAL WORK OF ART. 261 
 
 its particular idiosyncrasy. In Kome, on the other hand, 
 we shall observe a harsh sovereignty dominating over the 
 individual members of the State ; as also in the German 
 Empire, a monarchy, in which the Individual is connected 
 with and has devoirs to perform not only in regard to the 
 monarch, but to the whole monarchical organization. 
 
 The Democratical State is not Patriarchal,— does not rest 
 on a still unreflecting, undeveloped confidence, — but implies 
 laws, with the consciousness of their being founded on an 
 equitable and moral basis, and the recognition of these laws 
 as positive. At the time of the Kings, no political life had 
 as vet made its appearance in Hellas ; there are, therefore, 
 only slight traces of Legislation. But in the interval from 
 the Trojan War till near the time of Cyrus, its necessity 
 was felt. The first Lawgivers are known under the name of 
 The Seven Sages, — a title which at that time did not imply 
 any such character as that of the Sophists — teachers of 
 wisdom, designedly [and systematically] proclaiming the 
 Eight and True— but merely thinking men, whose thinking 
 stopped short of Science, properly so called. They were 
 practical politicians ; the good counsels which two of 
 them — Thales of Miletus and Bias of Priene — gave to the 
 Ionian cities, have been already mentioned. Thus Solon was 
 commissioned by the Athenians to give them laws, as those 
 then in operation no longer sufficed. Solon gave the Athe- 
 nians a constitution by w r hich all obtained equal rights, 
 yet not so as to render the Democracy a quite abstract 
 one. The main point in Democracy is moral disposition. 
 Virtue is the basis of Democracy, remarks Montesquieu ; and 
 this sentiment is as important as it is true in reference to 
 the idea of Democracy commonly entertained. The Sub- 
 stance, [the Principle] of Justice, the common weal, the 
 general interest, is the main consideration ; but it is so only 
 as Custom, in the form of Objective Will, so that morality 
 properly so called —subjective conviction and intention — has 
 not yet manifested itself. Law exists, and is in point of sub- 
 stance, the Law of Freedom, — rational [in its form and pur- 
 port,] and valid because it is Law, i.e. without ulterior 
 sanction. As in Beauty the Natural element — its sensuous 
 coefficient — remains, so also in this customary morality, laws 
 assume the form of a necessity of Nature. The Greeks oc- 
 
262 
 
 PART II. THE GREEK WORLD. 
 
 cupy the middle ground of Beauty and have not yet attained 
 the higher stand-point of Truth. "While Custom and Won 
 is the form in which the Right is willed and done, that form 
 is a stable one, and has not yet admitted into it the foe of 
 [unreflected] immediacy — reflection and subjectivity o 
 Will. The interests of the community may, therefore, con- 
 tinue to be entrusted to the will and resolve of the citizens, 
 — and this must be the basis of the Greek constitution ; for 
 no principle has as yet manifested itself, which can contra- 
 vene such Choice conditioned by Custom, and hinder its 
 realizing itself in action. The Democratic Constitu- 
 tion is here the only possible one : the citizens are still un- 
 conscious of particular interests, and therefore of a corrupt- 
 ing element : the Objective Will is in their case not disin- 
 tegrated. Athene the goddess is Athens itself,— i.e., the 
 real and concrete spirit of the citizens. The divinity ceases 
 to inspire their life and conduct, only when the Will has re- 
 treated within itself — into the adytum of cognition and con- 
 science, — and has posited the infinite schism between the 
 Subjective and the Objective. The above is the true position 
 of the Democratic polity ; its justification and absolute neces 
 sity rests on this still immanent Objective Morality. For the 
 modern conceptions of Democracy this justification cannot be 
 pleaded. These provide that the interests of the community, 
 the affairs of State, shall be discussed and decided by 
 the People ; that the individual members of the community 
 shall deliberate, urge their respective opinions, and give their 
 votes ; and this on the ground that the interests of the State 
 and its concerns are the interests of such individual members. 
 All this is very well ; but the essential condition and distinc- 
 tion in regard to various phases of Democracy is, What i 
 the character of these individual members ? They are abso- 
 lutely authorized to assume their position, only in as far as 
 their will is still Objective Will — not one that wishes this or 
 that, not mere "good" will. For good will is something 
 particular — rests on the morality of individuals, on their con- 
 viction and subjective feeling. That very subjective Freedom 
 which constitutes the principle and determines the peculiar 
 form of Freedom in our world, — which forms the absolute 
 basis of our political and religious life, could not manifest 
 itself in Greece otherwise than as a destructive element. 
 
SECT. II. CHAP. III. TUE POLITICAL WORK OF ART. 2Gli 
 
 Subjectivity was a grade not greatly in advance of that occu- 
 pied by the Greek Spirit ; that phase must of necessity soon 
 be attained : but it plunged the Greek world into ruin, for 
 the polity which that world embodied was not calculated 
 for this side of humanity — did not recognize this phase ; 
 since it had not made its appearance when that polity began 
 to exist. Of the Greeks in the first and genuine form of 
 . their Freedom, we may assert, that they had no conscience ; 
 the habit of living for their country without farther [analysis 
 or] reflection, was the principle dominant among them. The 
 consideration of the State in the abstract — which to our un- 
 derstanding is the essential point— was alien to them. Their 
 grand object was their country in its living and real aspect ; — 
 this actual Athens, this Sparta, these Temples, these Altars, 
 this form of social life, this union of fellow-citizens, these 
 manners and customs. To the Greek his country was a 
 necessary of life, without which existence was impossible. 
 It was the Sophists — the "Teachers of Wisdom" — who first 
 introduced subjective reflection, and the new doctrine that 
 each man should act according to his own conviction. When 
 reflection once comes into play, the inquiry is started 
 whether the Principles of Law (das Eecht) cannot be im- 
 proved. Instead of holding by the existing state of things, 
 internal conviction is relied upon ; and thus begins a sub- 
 jective independent Freedom, in which the individual finds 
 himself in a position to bring everything to the test of his 
 own conscience, even in defiance of the existing constitution. 
 Each one has his " principles," and that view which accords 
 with his private judgment he regards as practically the best, 
 and as claiming practical realization. This decay even Thucy- 
 dides notices, when he speaks of every one's thinking that 
 things are going on badly when he has not a hand in the 
 management. 
 
 To this state of things — in which every one presumes to 
 have a judgment of his own — confidence in Great Men i? 
 antagonistic. When, in earlier times, the Athenians com- 
 mission Solon to legislate for them, or when Lycurgus appears 
 at Sparta as lawgiver and regulator of the State, it is evi- 
 dently not supposed that the people in general think that 
 they know best what is politically right. At a later time 
 also, it was distinguished personages of plastic genius in 
 
PART II. THE GREEK "WORLD. 
 
 w hom the people placed their confidence : Cleisthenes, e.n. 
 who made the constitution still more democratic than it had 
 been, — Miltiades, Themistocles, Aristides, and Cimon, who 
 in the Median wars stand at the head of Athenian affairs, — 
 and Pericles, in whom Athenian glory centres as in its focus. 
 But as soon as any of these great men had performed what 
 was needed, envy intruded — i.e. the recoil of the sentiment 
 of equality against conspicuous talent— and he was either 
 imprisoned or exiled. Finally, the Sycophants arose among 
 the people, aspersing all individual greatness, and reviling 
 those who took the lead in public affairs. 
 
 But there are three other points in the condition of the 
 Greek republics that must be particularly observed. 
 
 1. With Democracy in that form in which alone it existed 
 in Greece, Oracles are intimately connected. To an inde- 
 pendent resolve, a consolidated Subjectivity of the Will (in 
 which the latter is determined by preponderating reasons) is 
 absolutely indispensable ; but the Greeks had not this element 
 of strength and vigour in their volition. When a colony 
 was to be founded, when it was proposed to adopt the wor- 
 ship of foreign deities, or when a general was about to give 
 battle to the enemy, the oracles were consulted. Before the 
 battle of Platsea, Pausanias took care that an augury should 
 be taken from the animals offered in sacrifice, and was in- 
 formed by the soothsayer Tisamenus that the sacrifices were 
 favourable to the Greeks provided they remained on the 
 hither side of the Asopus, but the contrary, if they crossed 
 the stream and began the battle. Pausanias, therefore, 
 awaited the attack. In their private affairs, too, the Greeks 
 came to a determination not so much from subjective con- 
 viction as from so-me extraneous suggestion. With the 
 advance of democracy we observe the oracles no longer con- 
 sulted on the most important matters, but the particular 
 views of popular orators influencing and deciding the policy 
 of the State. As at this time Socrates relied upon his 
 " Daemon," so the popular leaders and the people relied on 
 their individual convictions in forming their decisions. But 
 contemporaneously with this were introduced corruption, 
 disorder, and an unintermitted process of change in the 
 constitution. 
 
 2. Another circumstance that demands special attention 
 
SECT. II. CHAP. III. THE POLITICAL WOEK OF ART. 205 
 
 here, is the element of Slavery. This was a necessary con- 
 dition of an aesthetic democracy, where it was the right and 
 duty of every citizen to deliver or to listen to orations 
 respecting the management of the State in the place of 
 public assembly, to take part in the exercises of the Gym- 
 nasia, and to join in the celebration of festivals. It was a 
 necessary condition of such occupations, that the citizens 
 should be freed from handicraft occupations ; consequently, 
 that what among us is performed by free citizens — the work 
 of daily life — should be done by slaves. Slavery does not 
 cease until the "Will has been infinitely self-reflected* — until 
 Bight is conceived as appertaining to every freeman, and the 
 term freeman is regarded as a synonyme for man in his 
 generic nature as endowed with Reason. But here we still 
 occupy the stand-point of Morality as mere Wont and Cus- 
 tom, and therefore known only as a peculiarity attaching to a 
 certain kind of existence, [not as absolute and universal Law.] 
 3. It must also be remarked, thirdly, that such democratic 
 constitutions are possible only in small states — states which 
 do not much exceed the compass of cities. The whole Polis 
 of the Athenians is united m the one city of Athens. Tra- 
 dition tells that Theseus united the scattered Demes into an 
 integral totality. In the time of Pericles, at the beginning 
 of the Peloponnesian War, when the Spartans were march - 
 ing upon Attica, its entire population took refuge in the 
 
 . city. Only in such cities can the interests of all be similar ; 
 in large empires, on the contrary, diverse and conflicting 
 interests are sure to present themselves. The living to- 
 gether in one city, the fact that the inhabitants see each 
 other daily, render a common culture and a living democratic 
 polity possible. In Democracy, the main point is that the 
 character of the citizen be plastic, all " of a piece." He 
 
 , must be present at the critical stages of public business ; he 
 must take part in decisive crises with his entire personality, 
 — not with his vote merely ; he must mingle in the heat ot 
 action, — the passion and interest of the whole man being 
 
 : absorbed in the affair, and the warmth with which a resol\ e 
 was made being equally ardent during its execution. That 
 unity of opinion to which the whole community must be 
 
 * That is — the Objective and the Subjective Will must be harmonized. 
 
 Tu. 
 
266 PART II. THE GREEK WORLD. 
 
 brought [when any political step is to be taken,] must be 
 produced in the individual members of the state by oratorical 
 suasion. If this were attempted by writing — in an abstract, 
 lifeless way — no general fervour would be excited among the 
 social units ; and the greater the number, the less weight 
 would each individual vote have. In a large empire a gene- 
 ral inquiry might be made, votes might be gathered in the 
 several communities, and the results reckoned up — as w is 
 done by the French Convention. But a political existence 
 of this kind is destitute of life, and the World is ipso facto 
 broken into fragments and dissipated into a mere Paper- 
 world. In the French Revolution, therefore, the republican 
 constitution never actually became a Democracy : Tyranny, 
 Despotism, raised its voice under the mask of Freedom 
 and Equality. 
 
 We come now to the Second Period of Greek History. 
 The first period saw the Greek Spirit attain its aesthetic de- 
 velopment and reach maturity — realize its essential being. 
 The second shews it manifesting itself — exhibits it in its full 
 glory as producing a work for the world, asserting its prin- 
 ciple in the struggle with an antagonistic force, and trium- 
 phantly maintaining it against that attack. 
 
 THE WARS WITH THE PERSIANS. 
 
 The period of contact with the preceding World-His- 
 torical people, is generally to be regarded as the second in 
 the history of any nation. The World- Historical contact of 
 the Greeks was with the Persians ; in that, Greece exhibited 
 itself in its most glorious aspect. The occasion of the Me- 
 dian wars was the revolt of the Ionian cities against the 
 Persians, in which the Athenians and Eretrians assisted 
 them. That which, in particular, induced the Athenians to 
 take their part, was the circumstance that the son of Pisis- 
 tratus, after his attempts to regain sovereignty in Athens 
 had failed in Greece, had betaken himself to the King of 
 the Persians. The Father of History has given us a bril- 
 liant description of these Median wars, and for the object 
 we are now pursuing we need not dwell long upon them. 
 
 V 
 
SECT. II. THE WARS WTTII TUE PERSIANS. 2G7 
 
 At the beginning of the Median wars, Lacedaemon was in 
 
 ; possession of the Hegemony, partly as the result of having 
 subjugated and enslaved the free nation of the Messenians, 
 
 : partly because it had assisted many Greek states to expel 
 
 i their Tyrants. Provoked by the part the Greeks had taken 
 in assisting the Ionians against him, the Persian King sent 
 heralds to the Greek cities to require them to give Water 
 and Earth, i. e. to acknowledge his supremacy. The Persian 
 
 l envoys were contemptuously sent back, and the Lacedaemo- 
 nians went so far as to throw them into a well - a deed, 
 
 ' however, of which they afterwards so deeply repented, as to 
 
 i send two Lacedaemonians to Susa in expiation. The Per- 
 sian King then dispatched an army to invade Greece. With 
 its vastly superior force the Athenians and Plataeans, without 
 aid from their compatriots, contended at Marathon under Mil- 
 tiades, and gained the victory. Afterwards, Xerxes came down 
 upon Greece with his enormous masses of nations (Herodo- 
 tus gives a detailed description of this expedition) ; and with 
 the terrible array of land-forces was associated the not less 
 
 I formidable fleet. Thrace, Macedon, and Thessaly were soon 
 subjugated ; but the entrance into Greece Proper — the Pass 
 of Thermopylae — was defended by three hundred Spartans 
 and seven hundred Thespians, whose fate is well known. 
 Athens, voluntarily deserted by its inhabitants, was ravaged ; 
 the images of the gods which it contained were "an abomi- 
 nation " to the Persians, who worshipped the Amorphous, the 
 Unformed. In spite of the disunion of the Greeks, the Per- 
 
 ; sian fleet was beaten at Salamis ; and this glorious battle-day 
 presents the three greatest tragedians of Greece in remark- 
 able chronological association : for iEschylus was one of the 
 
 ! combatants, and helped to gain the victory, Sophocles 
 danced at the festival that celebrated it, and on the same 
 
 ; day Euripides was born. The host that remained in Greece, 
 under the command of Mardonius, was beaten at Plataea by 
 Pausanias, and the Persian power was consequently broken 
 at various points. 
 
 Thus was Greece freed from the pressure which threatened 
 
 ' to overwhelm it. Greater battles, unquestionably, have been 
 fought ; but these live immortal not in the historical records 
 of Nations only, but also of Science and of Art — of the 
 JSoble and the Moral generally. For these are World-His- 
 
268 
 
 PART II. THE GREEK WORLD. 
 
 torical victories ; they were the salvation of culture and 
 Spiritual vigour, and they rendered the Asiatic principle 
 powerless. How often, on other occasions, have not men 
 sacrificed everything for one grand object ! How often have 
 not warriors fallen for Duty and Öountry ! But here we 
 are called to admire not only valour, genius and spirit, 
 but the purport of the contest — the effect, the result, 
 which are unique in their kind. In all other battles a par- 
 ticular interest is predominant ; but the immortal fame of the 
 Greeks is none other than their due, in consideration of the 
 noble cause for whieh deliverance was achieved. In the history 
 of the world it is not the formal [subjective and individual] 
 valour that has been displayed, not the so-called merit of the 
 combatants, but the importance of the cause itself, that must 
 decide the fame of the achievement. In the case before us, 
 the interest of the World's History hung trembling in the 
 balance. Oriental despotism — a world united under one 
 lord and sovereign — on the one side, and separate states — 
 insignificant in extent and resources, but animated by free 
 individuality — on the other side, stood front to front in array 
 of battle. Never in History has the superiority of spiritual 
 power over material bulk — and that of no contemptible 
 amount — been made so gloriously manifest. This war, and 
 the subsequent development of the states which took the 
 lead in it, is the most brilliant period of Greece. Every- 
 thing which the Greek principle involved, then reached its 
 perfect bloom and came into the light of day. 
 
 The Athenians continued their wars of conquest for a con- 
 siderable time, and thereby attained a high degree of prospe- 
 rity ; while the Lacedaemonians, who had no naval power, 
 remained quiet. The antagonism of Athens and Sparta now 
 commences — a favourite theme for historical treatment. It 
 may be asserted that it is an idle inquiry, which of these two 
 states justly claims the superiority, and that the endeavour 
 should rather be, to exhibit each as in its own depart- 
 ment a necessary and worthy phase of the Greek Spirit. On 
 Sparta's behalf, e. g. many categories may be referred to in 
 which she displays excellence ; strictness in point of morals, 
 subjection to discipline, &c, may be advantageously cited. 
 But the leading principle that characterizes this state is 
 Political Virtue, which Athens and Sparta have, indeed, in 
 
SECT. II. ATHENS. 
 
 2G9 
 
 common, but which in the one state developed itself to a 
 work of Art, viz., Free Individuality— in the other retained 
 its substantial form. Before we speak of the Peloponnesian 
 War, in which the jealousy of Sparta and Athens broke out 
 into a flame, we must exhibit more specifically the funda- 
 mental character of the two states — their distinctions in a 
 political and moral respect. 
 
 ATHENS. 
 
 We have already become acquainted with Athens as an 
 asylum for the inhabitants of the other districts of Greece, 
 
 ' in which a very mixed population was congregated. The 
 various branches of human industry — agriculture, handi- 
 craft, and trade (especially by sea)— were united in Athens, 
 but gave occasion to much dissension. An antagonism had 
 early arisen between ancient and wealthy families and such 
 as were poorer. Three parties, whose distinction had been 
 
 1 grounded on their local position and the mode of life which 
 that position suggested, were then fully recognized. These 
 were, the Pediseans — inhabitants of the plain, the rich and 
 aristocratic ; the Diacrians — mountaineers, cultivators of the 
 vine and olive, and herdsmen, who were the most numerous 
 class ; and between the two [in political status and senti- 
 ment], the Paralians — inhabitants of the coast — the moderate 
 party. The polity of the state was wavering between Aris- 
 tocracy and Democracy. Solon effected, by his division into 
 four property-classes, a medium between these opposites. 
 All these together formed the popular assembly for delibe- 
 ration and decision on public affairs ; but the offices of 
 
 1 government were reserved for the three superior classes. It 
 is remarkable that even while Solon was still living and 
 actually present, and in spite of his opposition, Pisistratus 
 acquired supremacy. The constitution had, as it were, not 
 yet entered into the blood and life of the community ; it had 
 not yet become the habit of moral and civil existence. But 
 
 : it is still more remarkable that Pisistratus introduced no 
 legislative changes, and that he presented himself before the 
 Areopagus to answer an accusation brought against him. 
 
270 
 
 PART II. THE GREEK "WORLD. 
 
 The rule of Pisistratus and of his sons appears to have been 
 needed for repressing the power of great families and factions, 
 — for accustoming them to order and peace, and the citizens 
 generally, on the other hand, to the Solonian legislation. 
 This being accomplished, that rule was necessarily regarded 
 as superfluous, and the principles of a free code enter into 
 conflict with the power of the Pisistratidae. The Pisistra- 
 tidaewere expelled, Hipparchus killed, and Hippias banished. 
 Then factions were revived ; the Alcmaeonidae, who took the 
 lead in the insurrection, favoured Democracy ; on the other 
 hand, the Spartans aided the adverse party of Isagoras, 
 which followed the aristocratic direction. The Alcmae- 
 onida?, with Cleisthenes at their head, kept the upper hand. 
 This leader made the constitution still more democratic than 
 it had been ; the tyvXai, of which hitherto there had been 
 only four, were increased to ten, and this had the effect of 
 diminishing the influence of the clans. Lastly, Pericles 
 rendered the constitution yet more democratic by diminishing 
 the essential dignity of the Areopagus, and bringing causes 
 that had hitherto belonged to it, before the Demos and the 
 [ordinary] tribunals. Pericles was a statesman of plastic* 
 antique character : when he devoted himself to public life, 
 he renounced private life, withdrew from all feasts and ban- 
 quets, and pursued without intermission his aim of being 
 useful to the state, — a course of conduct by which he attained 
 such an exalted position, that Aristophanes calls him the 
 Zeus of Athens. We cannot but admire him in the highest 
 degree : he stood at the head of a light-minded but highly . 
 refined and cultivated people ; the only means by which he 
 could obtain influence and authority over them, was his 
 personal character and the impression he produced of his 
 being a thoroughly noble man, exclusively intent upon the 
 weal of the State, and of superiority to his fellow-citizens 
 in native genius and acquired knowledge. In force of indivi- 
 dual character no statesman can be compared with him. 
 
 Plastic," intimating 1 his absolute devotion to statesmanship; the 
 latter not being- a mere mechanical addition, but diffused as a vitalizing 
 and .formative power through the whole man. The same term is used 
 below to distinguish the vitalizing morality that pervades the dramas of 
 xEachylus and Sophocles, from the abstract sentimentalities of Euripides. 
 
 Tr. 
 
SECT. II. ATHENS. 
 
 271 
 
 As a general principle, the Democratic Constitution 
 affords the widest scope for the development of great political 
 characters ; for it excels all others in virtue of the fact that 
 it not only allows of the display of their powers on the part 
 of individuals, but summons them to use those powers for 
 the general weal. At the same time, no member of the 
 community can obtain influence unless he has the power of 
 satisfying the intellect and judgment, as well as the passions 
 and volatility of a cultivated people. 
 
 In Athens a vital freedom existed, and a vital equality of 
 manners and mental culture ; and if inequality of property 
 could not be avoided, it nevertheless did not reach an ex- 
 treme. Together with this equality, and within the compass 
 of this freedom, all diversities of character and talent, and 
 all variety of idiosyncrasy could assert itself in the most 
 unrestrained manner, and find the most abundant stimulus 
 to development in its environment ; for the predominant 
 elements of Athenian existence were the independence of 
 the social units, and a culture animated by the Spirit of 
 Beauty. It was Pericles who originated the production of 
 those eternal monuments of sculpture, whose scanty remains 
 astonish posterity ; it was before this people that the dramas 
 of iEschylus and Sophocles were performed ; and later on 
 those of Euripides — which, however, do not exhibit the 
 same plastic moral character, and in which the principle of 
 corruption is more manifest. To this people were addressed 
 the orations of Pericles : from it sprung a band of men 
 whose genius has become classical for all centuries ; for to 
 this number belong, besides those already named, Thucy- 
 dides, Socrates, Plato, and Aristophanes — the last of whom 
 preserved entire the political seriousness of his people at the 
 time when it was being corrupted ; and who, imbued with 
 this seriousness, wrote and dramatized with a view to his 
 country's weal. We recognize in the Athenians great 
 industry, susceptibility to excitement, and development of 
 individuality within the sphere of Spirit conditioned by the 
 morality of Custom. The blame with which we find them 
 visited in Xenophon and Plato, attaches rather to that later 
 period when misfortune and the corruption of the democracy 
 had already supervened. But if we would have the verdict 
 of the Ancients on the political life of Athens, we must 
 
272 PAßT II. THE GREEK WORLD. 
 
 turn, not to Xenophon, nor even to Plato, but to those who 
 had a thorough acquaiutance with the state in its full vigour — 
 who managed its affairs and have been esteemed its greatest 
 leaders — i.e., to its Statesmen. Among these, Pericles is 
 the Zeus of the human Pantheon of Athens. Thucydides 
 puts into his mouth the most profound description of 
 Athenian life, on the occasion of the funeral obsequies of 
 the warriors who fell in the second year of the Peloponnesian 
 "War. He proposes to shew for what a city and in support 
 of what interests they had died ; and this leads the speaker 
 directly to the essential elements of the Athenian com- 
 munity. He goes on to paint the character of Athens, and 
 what he says is most profoundly thoughtful, as well as most 
 just and true. " We love the beautiful," he says, " but 
 without ostentation or extravagance ; we philosophize with- 
 out being seduced thereby into effeminacy and inactivity 
 (for when men give themselves up to Thought, they get 
 further and further from the Practical— from activity for the 
 public, for the common weal). "We are bold and daring; 
 but this courageous energy in action does not prevent us 
 from giving ourselves an account of what we undertake (we 
 have a clear consciousness respecting it) ; among other 
 nations, on the contrary, martial daring has its basis in 
 deficiency of culture : we know best how to distinguish 
 between the agreeable and the irksome ; notwithstanding 
 which, we do not shrink from perils." Thus Athens ex- 
 hibited the spectacle of a state whose existence was essen- 
 tially directed to realizing the Beautiful, which had a 
 thoroughly cultivated consciousness respecting the serious 
 side of public affairs and the interests of Man's Spirit and 
 Life, and united with that consciousness, hardy courage and 
 practical ability. 
 
 SPARTA. 
 
 Here we witness on the other hand rigid abstract virtue, 
 — a life devoted to the State, but in which the activity and 
 freedom of individuality is put in the back-ground. The 
 polity of Sparta is based on institutions which do full justice 
 to the interest of the State, but whose object is a lifeless 
 
SECT. II. SPARTA. 
 
 273 
 
 equality — not free movement. The very first steps in 
 Spartan History are very different from the early stages of 
 Athenian development. The Spartans were Dorians — the 
 Athenians Ionians ; and this national distinction has an 
 influence on their Constitution also. In reference to the 
 mode in which the Spartan State originated, we observe that 
 the Dorians invaded the Peloponnesus with the Heracleidae, 
 subdued the indigenous tribes, and condemned them to 
 slavery ; for the Helots were doubtless aborigines. The fate 
 that had befallen the Helots, was suffered at a later epoch 
 by the Messenians ; for inhuman severity of this order was 
 innate in Spartan character. "While the Athenians had a 
 family-life, and slaves among them were inmates of the 
 house, the relation of the Spartans to the subjugated race 
 was one of even greater harshness than that of the Turks to 
 the Greeks ; a state of warfare was constantly kept up in 
 Lacedsemon. In entering upon office, the Ephors made an 
 unreserved declaration of war against the Helots, and the 
 latter were habitually given up to the younger Spartans to 
 be practised upon in their martial exercises. The Helots 
 were on some occasions set free, and fought against the 
 enemy ; moreover, they displayed extraordinary valour in 
 the ranks of the Spartans ; but on their return they were 
 butchered in the most cowardly and insidious way. As in 
 a slave-ship the crew are constantly armed, and the greatest 
 care is taken to prevent an insurrection, so the Spartans 
 exercised a constant vigilance over the Helots, and were 
 
 ' always in a condition of war, as against enemies. 
 
 Property in land was divided, even according to the con- 
 
 i stitution of Lycurgus (as Plutarch relates) into equal parts, 
 of which 9000 only belonged to the Spartans — i.e., the 
 inhabitants of the city — and 30,000 to the Lacedaemonians 
 or Periseci. At the same time it was appointed, in order to 
 maintain this equality, that the portions of ground should 
 
 ' not be sold. But how little such an institution avails to 
 effect its object, is proved by the fact, that in the sequel 
 Lacedsemon owed its ruin chiefly to the inequality of pos- 
 sessions. As daughters were capable of inheriting, many 
 estates had come by marriage into the possession of a few 
 families, and at last all the landed property was in the hands 
 of a limited number ; as if to shew how foolish it is to 
 
 X 
 
274 
 
 PAßT II. THE GEEEK WOELD. 
 
 attempt a forced equality, — an attempt which, while in- 
 effective in realizing its professed object, is also destructive 
 of a most essential point of liberty — the free disposition of 
 property. Another remarkable feature in the legislation of 
 Lycurgus, is his forbidding all money except that made of 
 iron — an enactment which necessitated the abolition of all 
 foreign business and traffic. The Spartans moreover had no 
 naval force — a force indispensable to the support and fur- 
 therance of commerce ; and on occasions when such a force 
 was required, they had to apply to the Persians for it. 
 
 It was with an especial view to promote similarity of man- 
 ners, and a more intimate acquaintance of the citizens with 
 each other, that the Spartans had meals in common — a 
 community, however, which disparaged family life ; for 
 eating and drinking is a private affair, and consequently 
 belongs to domestic retirement. It was so regarded among 
 the Athenians ; with them association was not material but 
 spiritual, and even their banquets, as we see from Xenophon 
 and Plato, had an intellectual tone. Among the Spartans, 
 on the other hand, the costs of the common meal were met 
 by the contributions of the several members, and he who 
 was too poor to offer such a contribution was consequently 
 excluded. 
 
 As to the Political Constitution of Sparta, its basis may 
 be called democratic, but with considerable modifications 
 which rendered it almost an Aristocracy and Oligarchy. At 
 the head of the State were two Kings, at whose side was a 
 Senate (yepovoia), chosen from the best men of the State, 
 and which also performed the functions of a court of justice — 
 deciding rather in accordance with moral and legal customs, 
 than with written laws.* The yepovaia was also the highest 
 State-Council — the Council of the Kings, regulating the 
 most important affairs. Lastly, one of the highest magis- 
 tracies was that of the Ephors, respecting whose election we 
 have no definite information ; Aristotle says that the mode 
 of choice was exceedingly childish. We learn from Aristotle 
 
 * Otfried Müller, in his History of the Dorians, gives too dignified an 
 aspect to this fact ; he says that Justice was, as it were, imprinted on 
 their minds. But such an imprinting is always something indefinite ; 
 laws must be written, that it may be distinctly known what is forbidden 
 and what is allowed. 
 
SECT. II. SPARTA. 
 
 275 
 
 that even persons without nobility or property could attain 
 this dignity. The Ephors had full authority to convoke 
 popular assemblies, to put resolutions to the vote, and to 
 propose laws, almost in the same way as the tribuni plebis in 
 Rome. Their power became tyrannical, like that which 
 Robespierre and his party exercised for a time in France. 
 
 While the Lacedaemonians directed their entire attention 
 to the State, Intellectual Culture — Art and Science — was not 
 domiciled among them. The Spartans appeared to the rest 
 of the Greeks, stiff, coarse, awkward beiugs, who could not 
 transact business involving any degree of intricacy, or at 
 least performed it very clumsily. Thucydides makes the 
 Athenians say to the Spartans : " You have laws and cus- 
 toms which have nothing in common with others ; and 
 besides this, you proceed, when you go into other countries, 
 neither in accordance with these, nor with the traditionary 
 usages of Hellas." In their intercourse at home, they were, 
 on the whole, honourable ; but as regarded their conduct 
 towards other nations, they themselves plainly declared that 
 they held their own good pleasure for the Commendable, 
 and what was advantageous for the Bight. It is well known 
 that in Sparta (as was also the case in Egypt) the taking 
 away of the necessaries of life, under certain conditions, 
 was permitted ; only the thief must not allow himself 
 to be discovered. Thus the two States, Athens and Sparta, 
 stand in contrast with each other. The morality of the latter 
 is rigidly directed to the maintenance of the State; in the 
 former we find a similar ethical relation, but with a cultivated 
 consciousness, and boundless activity in the production of' 
 the Beautiful, — subsequently, of the True also. 
 
 This Greek morality, though extremely beautiful, attrac- 
 tive and interesting in its manifestation, is not the 
 highest point of view for Spiritual self-consciousness. It 
 wants the form of Infinity, the reflection of thought within 
 itself, the emancipation from the Natural element — (the Sen- 
 suous that lurks in the character of Beauty and Divinity [as 
 comprehended by the Greeks]) — and from that imme- 
 diacy, [that undeveloped simplicity,] which attaches to their 
 ethics. Self- Comprehension on the part of Thought is want- 
 ing — illimitable Self-Consciousness — demanding, that what is 
 regarded by me as Eight and Morality should have its con- 
 
 t 2 
 
270 
 
 PART II. THE GEEEK "WOULD. 
 
 firination in myself — from the testimony of my own Spirit 
 that the Beautiful (the Idea as manifested in sensuous con 
 templation or conception) may also become the True— a 
 inner, supersensuous world. The stand-point occupied b 
 that iEsthetic Spiritual Unity which we have just describe 
 could not long be the resting-place of Spirit; and th 
 element in which farther advance and corruption originated 
 was that of Subjectivity — inward morality, individual reflec 
 tion, and an inner life generally. The perfect bloom of Gree 
 Life lasted only about sixty years — from the Median wars, B. 
 492, to the Peloponnesian War, b.c. 431. The principle 
 subjective morality which was inevitably introduced, becam 
 the germ of corruption, which, however, shewed itself in 
 different form in Athens from that which it assumed 
 Sparta : in Athens, as levity in public conduct, in Sparta, 
 private depravation of morals. In their fall, the Athenia 
 shewed themselves not only amiable, but great and noble 
 to such a degree that we cannot but lament it ; among t 
 Spartans, on the contrary, the principle of subjectivi 
 develops itself in vulgar greed, and issues in vulgar ruin. 
 
 THE PELOPONNESIAN WAR. 
 
 The principle of corruption displayed itself first in th 
 external political development — in the contest of the states 
 of Greece with each other, and the struggle of factions within 
 the cities themselves. The Greek Morality had made Hellas 
 unfit to form one common state ; for the dissociation of 
 small states from each other, and the concentration in cities, 
 where the interest and the spiritual culture pervading the 
 whole, could be identical, was the necessary condition of 
 that grade of Freedom which the Greeks occupied. It was 
 only a momentary combination that occurred in the Trojan 
 War, and even in the Median wars a union could not be 
 accomplished. AJthough the tendency towards such a union 
 is discoverable, the bond was but weak, its permanence was 
 always endangered by jealousy, and the contest for the 
 Hegemony set the States at variance with each other. A 
 general outbreak of hostilities in the Peloponnesian War 
 was the consummation. Before it, and even at its coin- 
 
SECT. TL THE PELOPONNESIAN WAE. 277 
 
 mencement, Pericles was at the bead of the Athenian nation 
 — that people most jealous of its liberty ; it was only his 
 elevated personality and great genius that enabled him to 
 maintain his position. After the wars with the Mede, 
 Athens enjoyed the Hegemony ; a number of allies — partly 
 islands, partly towns— were obliged to contribute to the 
 supplies required for continuing the war against the Per- 
 sians ; and instead of the contribution being made in the 
 form of fleets or troops, the subsidy was paid in money. 
 Thereby an immense power was concentrated in Athens ; a 
 part of the money was expended in great architectural 
 works, in the enjoyment of which, since they were products 
 of Spirit, the allies had some share. But that Pericles did 
 not devote the whole of the money to works of Art, but also 
 made provision for the Demos in other ways, was evident 
 after his death, from the quantity of stores amassed in 
 several magazines, but especially in the naval arsenal. 
 Xenophon says: " Who does not stand in need of Athens ? 
 Is she not indispensable to all lands that are rich in corn 
 and herds, in oil and wine — to all who wish to traffic either 
 in money or in mind ? — to craftsmen, sophists, philosophers, 
 poets, and all who desire what is worth seeing or hearing 
 in sacred and public matters ?" 
 
 In the Peloponnesian War, the struggle was essen- 
 tially between Athens and Sparta. Thucydides has left us 
 the history of the greater part of it, and his immortal work 
 is the absolute gain which humanity has derived from that 
 contest. Athens allowed herself to be hurried into the 
 extravagant projects of Alcibiades; and when these had 
 already much weakened her, she was compelled to suc- 
 cumb to the Spartans, who were guilty of the treachery of 
 applying for aid to Persia, and who obtained from the King 
 supplies of money and a naval force. They were also guilty 
 of a still more extensive treason, in abolishing democracy in 
 Athens and in the cities of Greece generally, and in giving 
 a preponderance to factions that desired oligarchy, but were 
 not strong enough to maintain themselves without foreign 
 assistance. Lastly, in the peace of Antalcidas, Sparta put 
 the finishing stroke to her treachery, by giving over the 
 Greek cities in Asia Minor to Persian dominion. 
 
 Lacedaemon had therefore, both by the oligarchies which 
 
278 
 
 PAKT II. THE GREEK WORLD. 
 
 it had set up in various countries, and by the garrison 
 which it maintained in some cities — as, e.g., Thebes — ob 
 tained a great preponderance in Greece. But the Gree" 
 states were far more incensed at Spartan oppression than 
 they had previously been at Athenian supremacy. "With 
 Thebes at their head, they cast off the yoke, and the Theban 
 became for a moment the most distinguished people in 
 Hellas. But it was to two distinguished men among it- 
 citizens that Thebes owed its entire power— Pelopidas an- 
 Epaminondas ; as for the most part in that state we find th 
 Subjective preponderant. In accordance with this principle 
 Lyrical Poetry — that which is the expression of subjectivit 
 — especially nourished there ; a kind of subjective amenity 
 of nature shews itself also in the so called Sacred Legion 
 which formed the kernel of the Theban host, and was re- 
 garded as consisting of persons connected by amatory bond 
 [amantes and amati] ; while the influence of subjectivit 
 among them was especially proved by the fact, that after th 
 death of Epaminondas, Thebes fell back into its forme 
 position. Weakened aud distracted, Greece could no longe 
 find safety in itself, and needed an authoritative prop. I 
 the towns there were incessant contests ; the citizens we 
 divided into factions, as in the Italian cities of the Middl 
 Ages. The victory of one party entailed the banishment o 
 the other ; the latter then usually applied to the enemies o 
 their native city, to obtain their aid in subjugating it b 
 force of arms. The various States could no longer co-exis 
 peaceably : they prepared ruin for each other, as well as fo 
 themselves. 
 
 "We have, then, now to investigate the corruption of th 
 Greek world in its profounder import, and may denote th 
 principle of that corruption as subjectivity obtaining emanc" 
 pation for itself. We see Subjectivity obtruding itself i 
 various ways. Thought — the subjectively Universal 
 menaces the beautiful religion of Greece, while the passion 
 of individuals and their caprice menace its political constitu 
 tion. In short, Subjectivity, comprehending and mani 
 festing itself, threatens the existing state of things in ever; 
 department — characterized as that state of things is b 
 Immediacy [a primitive, unreflecting simplicity]. Thought 
 therefore, appears here as the principle of decay — decay, viz 
 
SECT. IL THE PELOPONNESIAN WAE. 270 
 
 of Substantial [prescriptive] morality; for it introduces 
 I an antithesis, and asserts essentially rational principles. In 
 the Oriental states, in which there is no such antithesis, 
 moral freedom cannot be realized, since the highest principle 
 is [Pure] Abstraction. But when Thought recognizes its 
 positive "character, as in Greece, it establishes principles ; 
 and these bear to the real world the relation of Essence to 
 Form. For the concrete vitality found among the Greeks, 
 is Customary Morality— a life for Religion, for the State, 
 without farther reflection, and without analysis leading to ab- 
 stract definitions, which, must lead away from the concrete 
 embodiment of them, and occupy an antithetical position to 
 that embodiment. Law is part of the existing state of things, 
 with Spirit implicit in it. But as soon as Thought arises, 
 it investigates the various political constitutions : as the 
 result of its investigation it forms for itself an idea of an 
 improved state of society, and demands that this ideal should 
 take the place of things as they are. 
 
 In the principle of Greek Freedom, inasmuch as it is 
 Freedom, is involved the self-emancipation of Thought. We 
 observed the dawn of Thought in the circle of men men- 
 tioned above under their well-known appellation of the Seven 
 Sages. It was they who first uttered general propositions ; 
 though at that time wisdom consisted rather in a concrete 
 insight [into things, than in the power of abstract conception]. 
 Parallel with the advance in the development of Religious 
 Art and with political growth, we find a progressive 
 strengthening of Thought, its enemy and destroyer ; and at 
 the time of the Peloponnesian War science was already 
 developed. With the Sophists began the process of reflec- 
 tion on the existing state of things, and of ratiocination. 
 That very diligence and activity which we observed among 
 the Greeks in their practical life, and in the achievement of 
 works of art, shewed itself also in the turns and windings 
 which these ideas took ; so that, as material things are 
 changed, worked up and used for other than their original 
 purposes, similarly the essential being of Spirit — what is 
 thought and known — isvariously handled; itis made an object 
 about which the mind can employ itself, and this occupation 
 becomes an interest in and for itself. The movement of 
 Thought — that which goes on within its sphere [without 
 
280 PAET II. THE GREEK WORLD. 
 
 reference to an extrinsic object] — a process which had for- 
 merly no interest — acquires attractiveness on its own ac- 
 count. The cultivated Sophists, who were not erudite or 
 scientific men, but masters of subtle turns of thought, 
 excited the admiration of the Greeks. For all questions 
 they had an answer ; for all interests of a political or re- 
 ligious order they had general points of view ; and in the 
 ultimate development of their art, they claimed the ability 
 to prove everything, to discover a justifiable side in every 
 position. In a democracy it is a matter of the first importance, 
 to be able to speak in popular assemblies — to urge one's 
 opinions on public matters. Now this demands the power 
 of duly presenting before them that point of view which we 
 desire them to regard as essential. For such a purpose, 
 intellectual culture is needed, and this discipline the Greeks 
 acquired under their Sophists. This mental culture then 
 became the means, in the hands of those who possessed it, 
 of enforcing their views and interests on the Demos : the 
 expert Sophist knew how to turn the subject of discussion 
 this way or that way at pleasure, and thu3 the doors were 
 thrown wide open to all human passions. A leading prin- 
 ciple of the Sophists was, that " Man is the measure of all 
 things ; " but in this, as in all their apophthegms, lurks an 
 ambiguity, since the term " Man " may denote Spirit in it3 
 depth and truth, or in the aspect of mere caprice and 
 private interest. The Sophists meant Man simply as sub- 
 jective, and intended in this dictum of theirs, that mere 
 liking was the principle of Eight, and that advantage to the 
 individual was the ground of final appeal. This Sophistic prin- 
 ciple appears again and again, though under different forms, 
 in various periods of History ; thus even in oar own times 
 subjective opinion of what is right — mere feeling — is made 
 the ultimate ground of decision. 
 
 In Beauty, as the Greek principle, there was a concrete 
 unity of Spirit, united with Reality, with Country and 
 Family, &c. In this unity no fixed point of view had 
 as yet been adopted within the Spirit itself, and Thought, 
 as far as it transcended this unity, was still swayed by mere 
 liking ; [the Beautiful, the Becoming (to 7rpe7rov) conducted 
 men in the path of moral propriety, but apart from this they 
 had no firm abstract principle of Truth and Virtue]. But 
 
SECT. II. THE PELOPONNESIAN WAR. 281 
 
 Anaxa^oras himself had taught, that Thought itself was the 
 absolute Essence of the World. And it was in Socrates, that 
 at the beginning of the Peloponnesian War, the principle of 
 subjectivity— of the absolute inherent independence of 
 Thought— attained free expression. He taught that man 
 has to discover and recognize in himself what is the Eight 
 and Good, and that this Eight and Good is in its nature 
 universal. Socrates is celebrated as a Teacher of Morality, 
 but we should rather call him the Inventor of Morality. The 
 Greeks had a customary morality ; but Socrates undertook 
 to teach them what moral virtues, duties, &c. were. The 
 moral man is not he who merely wills and does that which 
 is right — not the merely innocent man — but he who has 
 the consciousness of what he is doing. 
 
 Socrates — in assigning to insight, to conviction, the deter- 
 mination of men's actions — posited the Individual as capable 
 of a final moral decision, in contraposition to Country and 
 to Customary Morality, and thus made himself an Oracle, 
 in the Greek sense. He said that he had a (üaifxopiov within 
 him, which counselled him what to do, and revealed to him 
 I what was advantageous to his friends. The rise of the 
 inner world of Subjectivity was the rupture with the existing 
 Keality. Though Socrates himself continued to perform his 
 duties as a citizen, it was not the actual State and its re- 
 ligion, but the world of Thought that was his true home. 
 Now the question of the existence and nature of the gods 
 came to be discussed. The disciple of Socrates, Plato, ban- 
 ished from his ideal state, Homer and Hesiod, the originators 
 of that mode of conceiving of religious objects which pre- 
 vailed among the Greeks ; for he desiderated a higher con- 
 ception of what was to be reverenced as divine — one more 
 in harmony with Thought. Many citizens now seceded from 
 practical and political life, to live in the ideal world. The 
 principle of Socrates manifests a revolutionary aspect towards 
 the Athenian State ; for the peculiarity of this State was, 
 that Customary Morality was the form in which its existence 
 was moulded, viz. — an inseparable connection of Thought 
 with actual life. When Socrates wishes to induce his friends to 
 reflection, the discourse has always a negative tone ; he 
 brings them to the consciousness that, they do not know 
 what the Eight is. But when on account of the giving 
 
 ■ 
 
282 
 
 PART II. THE GREEK WORLD. 
 
 utterance to that principle which was advancing to re- 
 cognition, Socrates is condemned to death, the sentence 
 bears on the one hand the aspect of unimpeachable rectitude 
 — inasmuch as the Athenian people condemns its deadliest 
 foe — but on the other hand, that of a deeply tragical cha- 
 racter, inasmuch as the Athenians had to make the dis- 
 covery, that what they reprobated in Socrates had already 
 struck firm root among themselves, and that they must be 
 pronounced guilty or innocent with him. With this feeling 
 they condemned the accusers of Socrates, and declared him 
 guiltless. In Athens that higher principle which proved the 
 ruin of the Athenian state, advanced in its development 
 without intermission. Spirit had acquired the propensity to 
 gain satisfaction for itself — to reflect. Even in decay the 
 Spirit of Athens appears majestic, because it manifests itself 
 as the free, the liberal — exhibiting its successive phases in 
 their pure idiosyncrasy — in that form in which they really 
 exist. Amiable and cheerful even in the midst of tragedy 
 is the light-heartedness and nonchalance with which the Athe- 
 nians accompany their [national] morality to its grave. We 
 recognize the higher interest of the new culture in the fact 
 that the people made themselves merry over their own 
 follies, and found great entertainment in the comedies of 
 Aristophanes, which have the severest satire for their con- 
 tents, while they bear the stamp of the most unbridled 
 mirth. 
 
 In Sparta the same corruption is introduced, since the 
 social unit seeks to assert his individuality against the 
 moral life of the community : but there we have merely the 
 isolated side of particular subjectivity — corruption in its un- 
 disguised form, blank immorality, vulgar selfishness and 
 venality. All these passions manifest themselves in Sparta, 
 especially in the persons of its generals, who, for the 
 most part living at a distance from their country, obtain an 
 opportunity of securing advantages at the expense of their 
 own state as well as of those to whose assistance they are 
 sent. 
 
SECT. II. THE MACEDONIAN EMPIRE. 
 
 283 
 
 THE MACEDONIAN EMPIRE. 
 
 After the fall of Athens, Sparta took upon herself the 
 Hegemony ; but misused it— as already mentioned — so 
 selfishly, that she was universally hated. Thebes could not 
 long sustain the part of humiliating Sparta, and was at last 
 exhausted in the war with the Phocians. The Spartans and 
 the Phocians — the former because they had surprised the 
 citadel of Thebes, the latter because they had tilled a piece 
 of land belonging to the Delphian Apollo — had been sen- 
 tenced to pay considerable sums of money. Both states 
 however refused payment ; for the Amphictyonic Council 
 had not much more authority than the old German Diet, 
 which the German princes obeyed only so far as suited their 
 inclination. The Phocians were then to be punished by the 
 Thebans; but by an egregious piece of violence— by dese- 
 crating and plundering the temple at Delphi — the former 
 attained momentary superiority. This deed completes the 
 ruin of Greece ; the sanctuary was desecrated, the god so to 
 speak, killed ; the last support of unity was thereby anni- 
 hilated ; reverence for that which in Greece had been as it 
 were always the final arbiter — its monarchical principle — was 
 displaced, insulted, and trodden under foot. 
 
 The next step in advance is then that quite simple one, that 
 the place of the dethroned oracle should be taken by another 
 deciding will— a real authoritative royalty. The foreign Ma- 
 cedonian King — Philip — undertook to avenge the violation 
 of the oracle, and forthwith took its place, by making him- 
 self lord of Greece. Philip reduced under his dominion the 
 Hellenic States, and convinced them that it was all over 
 with their independence, and that they could no longer 
 maintain their own footing. The charge of littleness, harsh- 
 ness, violence, and political treachery — all those hateful 
 characteristics with which Philip has so often been re- 
 proached — did not extend to the young Alexander, when he 
 placed himself at the head of the Greeks. He had no need 
 to incur such reproaches ; he had not to form a military 
 force, for he found one already in existence. As he had 
 only to mount Bucephalus, and take the rein in hand, 
 to make him obsequious to his will, just so he found that 
 Macedonian phalanx prepared for his purpose — that rigid 
 
284 
 
 PART II. THE GREEK WORLD. 
 
 well-trained iron mass, the power of which had been 
 demonstrated under Philip, who copied it from Epami- 
 nondas. 
 
 Alexander had been educated by the deepest and also the 
 most comprehensive thinker of antiquity — Aristotle; and the 
 education was worthy of the man who had undertaken it. 
 Alexander was initiated into the profoundest metaphysics : 
 therefore his nature was thoroughly refined and liberated from 
 thecustomary bonds of mere opinion, crudities andidle fancies. 
 Aristotle left this grand nature as untrammelled as it was 
 before his instructions commenced ; but impressed upon it a 
 deep perception of what the True is, and formed the spirit 
 which nature had so richly endowed, to a plastic being, rolling 
 freely like an orb through its circumambient aether. 
 
 Thus accomplished, Alexander placed himself at the head 
 of the Hellenes, in order to lead Greece over into Asia. A 
 youth of twenty, he commanded a thoroughly experienced 
 army, whose generals were all veterans, well versed in the 
 art of war. It was Alexander's aim to avenge Greece for all 
 that Asia had inflicted upon it for so many years, and to 
 fight out at last the ancient feud and contest between the 
 East and the West. While in this struggle he retaliated 
 upon the Oriental world what Greece had suffered from it, 
 he also made a return for the rudiments of culture which 
 had been derived thence, by spreading the maturity and 
 culmination of that culture over the East ; and, as it were, 
 changed the stamp of subjugated Asia and assimilated it 
 to an Hellenic land. The grandeur and the interest of this 
 work were proportioned to his genius, — to his peculiar 
 youthful individuality, — the like of which in so beautiful a 
 form we have not seen a second time at the head of such an 
 undertaking. For not only were the genius of a commander, 
 the greatest spirit, and consummate bravery united in him, 
 but all these qualities were dignified by the beauty of his 
 character as a man and an individual. Though his generals 
 are devoted to him, they had been the long tried servants of 
 his father ; and this made his position difficult : for his great- 
 ness and youth is a humiliation to them, as inclined to re- 
 gard themselves and the achievements of the past, as a com- 
 plete work ; so that while their envy, as in Clitus's case, arose 
 to blind rage, Alexander also was excited to great violence. 
 
SECT. II. THE MACEDONIAN EMPIRE. 285 
 
 Alexander's expedition to Asia was at the same time a 
 journey of discovery ; for it was he who first opened the 
 Oriental World to the Europeans, and penetrated into 
 countries — as e. g. Bactria, Sogdiana, northern India — which 
 have since been hardly visited by Europeans. The arrange- 
 ment of the march, and not less the military genius dis- 
 played in the disposition of battles, and in tactics generally, 
 will always remain an object of admiration. He was great 
 as a commander in battles, wise in conducting marches and 
 marshalling troops, and the bravest soldier in the thick of the 
 fight. Even the death of Alexander, which occurred at 
 Babylon in the three and thirtieth year of his age, gives us a 
 beautiful spectacle of his greatness, and shews in what rela- 
 tion he stood to his army : for he takes leave of it with the 
 perfect consciousness of his dignity, 
 
 Alexander had the good fortune to die at the proper time; 
 i. e. it may be called good fortune, but it is rather a neces- 
 sity. That he may stand before the eyes of posterity as a 
 youth, an early death must hurry him away. Achilles, as 
 remarked above, begins the Greek World, and his antitype 
 Alexander concludes it : and these youths not only supply a 
 picture of the fairest kind in their own persons, but at the 
 same time afford a complete and perfect type of Hellenic 
 existence. Alexander finished his work and completed his 
 ideal ; and thus bequeathed to the world one of the noblest 
 and most brilliant of visions, which our poor reflections only 
 serve to obscure. Eor the great World- Historical form of 
 Alexander, the modern standard applied by recent historical 
 " Philistines" — that of virtue or morality — will by no means 
 suffice. And if it be alleged in depreciation of his merit, 
 that he had no successor, and left behind no dynasty, we 
 may remark that the Greek kingdoms that arose in Asia 
 after him, are his dynasty. Eor two years he was engaged 
 in a campaign in Bactria, which brought him into contact with 
 the Massagetae and Scythians ; and there arose the Graeco- 
 Bactrian kingdom which lasted for two centuries. Thence the 
 Greeks came into connection with India, and even with 
 China. The Greek dominion spread itself over northern 
 India, and Sandrokottus (Chandraguptas) is mentioned as 
 the first who emancipated himself from it. The same name 
 presents itself indeed among the Hindoos, but for reasons 
 already stated, we can place very little dependence upon 
 
286 
 
 PABT II. THE GREEK WOßLD. 
 
 such mention. Other Greek Kingdoms arose in JktM 
 Minor, in Armenia, in Syria and Babylonia. But Egypt es- 
 pecially, among the kingdoms of the successors of Alexander, 
 became a great centre of science and art ; for a great num- 
 ber of its architectural works belong to the time of the 
 Ptolemies, as has been made out from the deciphered in- 
 scriptions. Alexandria became the chief centre of com- 
 merce — the point of union for Eastern manners and tradi- 
 tion with Western civilization. Besides these, the Mace- 
 donian Kingdom, that of Thrace, stretching beyond the 
 Danube, that of Illyria, and that of Epirus, flourished uuder 
 the sway of Greek princes. 
 
 Alexander was also extraordinarily attached to the sciences, 
 and he is celebrated as next to Pericles the most liberal patron 
 of the arts. Meier says in his History of Art, that his in- 
 telligent love of art would have secured him an immortality 
 of fame not less than his conquests. 
 
 SECTION III. 
 
 THE FALL OF THE GREEK SPIRIT. 
 
 This third period in the history of the Hellenic World, 
 which embraces the protracted development of the evil destiny 
 of Greece, interests us less. Those who had been Alexan- 
 der's Generals, now assuming an independent appearance 
 on the stage of history as Kings, carried on long wars with 
 each other, and experienced, almost all of them, the most 
 romantic revolutions of fortune. Especially remarkable and 
 prominent in this respect is the life of Demetrius Poli- 
 orcetes. 
 
 In Greece the States had preserved their existence: 
 brought to a consciousness of their weakness by Philip and 
 Alexander, they contrived to enjoy an apparent vitality, and 
 boasted of an unreal independence. That self-consciousness 
 which independence confers, they could not have ; and diplo- 
 matic statesmen took the lead in the several States — orators 
 who were not at the same time generals, as was the case 
 formerly — e.g. in the person of Pericles. The countries of 
 Greece now assume various relations to the different mo- 
 
SECT. III. THE FALL OF TUE GEEEK SPIRIT. 2S7 
 
 narchs, who continued to contend for the sovereignty of 
 the Greek States— partly also for their favour, especially for 
 that of Athens : for Athens still presented an imposing figure, 
 — if not as a Power, yet certainly as the centre of the higher 
 arts and sciences, especially of Philosophy and Rhetoric. 
 Besides it kept itself more free from the gross excess, 
 coarseness and passions which prevailed in the other States, 
 and made them contemptible ; and the Syrian and Egyptian 
 kings deemed it an honour to make Athens large presents 
 of corn and other useful supplies. To some extent too 
 the kings of the period reckoned it their greatest glory to 
 render and to keep the Greek cities and states independent. 
 The Emancipation of Greece had as it were, become the 
 general watch-word ; and it passed for a high title of fame to 
 be called the Deliverer of Greece. If we examine the hid- 
 den political bearing of this word, we shall find that it de- 
 notes the prevention of any indigenous Greek State from 
 obtaining decided superiority, and keeping all in a state of 
 weakness by separation and disorganization. 
 
 The special peculiarity by which each Greek State was 
 distinguished from the others, consisted in a difference simi- 
 lar to that of their glorious divinities, each one of whom has 
 his particular character and peculiar being, yet so that this 
 peculiarity does not derogate from the divinity common to all. 
 "When therefore, this divinity has become weak and has van- 
 ished from the States, nothing but the bare particularity re- 
 mains, — the repulsive speciality which obstinately and way- 
 wardly asserts itself, and which on that very account assumes 
 a position of absolute dependence and of conflict with others. 
 Tet the feeling of weakness and misery led to combinations 
 here and there. The JEtolians and their allies as a predatory 
 people, set up injustice, violence, fraud, and insolence 
 to others, as their charter of rights. Sparta was go- 
 verned by infamous tyrants and odious passions, and in this 
 condition was dependent on the Macedonian Kings. The 
 Boeotian subjective character had, after the extinction of 
 Theban glory, sunk down into indolence and the vulgar de- 
 sire of course sensual enjoyment The Aclicean league dis- 
 tinguished itself by the aim of its union (the expulsion of 
 Tyrants,) by rectitude and the sentiment of community. 
 But this too was obliged to take refuge in the most compli- 
 
288 
 
 PART II. THE GREEK WORLD. 
 
 cated policy. "What we see here on the whole, is a diploma- 
 tic condition — an infinite involvement with the most manifold 
 foreign interests — a subtle intertexture and play of parties, 
 whose threads are continually being combined anew. 
 
 In the internal condition of the states, which, enervated 
 by selfishness and debauchery, were broken up into factions 
 — each of which on the other hand directs its attention to fo- 
 reign lands, and with treachery to its native country begs for 
 the favour of the Kings — the point of interest is no longer the 
 fate of these states, but the great individuals, who arise amid 
 the general corruption, and honourably devote themselves to 
 their country. They appear as great tragic characters, who 
 with their genius, and the most intense exertion, are yet un- 
 able to extirpate the evils in question ; and perish in the strug- 
 gle, without having had the satisfaction of restoring to their 
 fatherland, repose, order and freedom, nay, even without 
 having secured a reputation with posterity free from all stain. 
 Livy says in his prefatory remarks : " In our times we can 
 neither endure our faults nor the means of correcting them." 
 And this is quite as applicable to these Last of the Greeks, 
 who began an undertaking which was as honourable and no- 
 ble, as it was sure of being frustrated. Agis and Cleomenes, 
 Aratus and Philopcemen, thus sunk under the struggle for 
 the good of their nation. Plutarch sketches for us a highly 
 characteristic picture of these times, in giving us a repre- 
 sentation of the importance of individuals during their con- 
 tinuance. 
 
 The third period of the history of the Greeks brings 
 us to their contact with that people which was to play the 
 next part on the theatre of the World's History; and the 
 chief excuse for this contact was — as pretexts had pre- 
 viously been — the liberation of Greece. After Perseus the last 
 Macedonian King, in the year 168 b.c. had been conquered by 
 the Romans and brought in triumph to Eome, the Achaean 
 league was attacked and broken up, and at last in the year 
 146 b.c. Corinth was destroyed. Looking at Greece as 
 Polybius describes it, we see how a noble nature such as his, 
 has nothing left for it but to despair at the state of affairs and 
 to retreat into Philosophy; or if it attempts to act, can only die 
 in the struggle. In deadly contraposition to the multiform 
 variety of passion which Greece presents — that distracted 
 
PART III. THE ROMAN "WORLD. 
 
 289 
 
 condition which whelms good and evil in one common 
 ruin — stands a blind fate, — an iron power ready to shew up 
 that degraded condition in all its Aveakness, and to dash it to 
 pieces in miserable ruin; for cure, amendment, and consolation 
 arc impossible. And this crushing Destiny is the Roman 
 power. 
 
 PAKT III. 
 
 THE ROMAN WORLD. 
 
 Napoleox, in a conversation which he once had with Goethe 
 on the nature of Tragedy, expressed the opinion that its mo- 
 dern phase differed from the ancient, through our no longer 
 recognizing a Destiny to which men are absolutely subject, and 
 that Policy occupies the place of the ancient Pate. \La 'poli- 
 tique est la fatalite). This therefore he thought must be 
 used as the modern form of Destiny in Tragedy — the irresis- 
 tible power of circumstances to which individuality must 
 bend. Such a power is the Soman World, chosen for the very 
 purpose of casting the moral units into bonds, as also of col- 
 lecting all Deities and all Spirits into the Pantheon of Uni- 
 versal dominion, in order to make out of them an abstract uni- 
 versality of power. The distinction between the Roman and 
 
 ; the Persian principle is exactly this, — that the former stifles 
 all vitality, while the latter allowed of its existence in the 
 fullest measure. Through its being the aim of the State, that 
 
 1 the social units in their moral life should be sacrificed to it, 
 the world is sunk in melancholy : its heart is broken, and it 
 
 : is all over with the Natural side of Spirit, which has sunk into 
 a feeliug of unhappiness. Yet only from this feeling could 
 arise the supersensuous, the free Spirit in Christianity. 
 In the Greek principle we have seen spiritual existence in 
 
 - its exhilaration — its cheerfulness and enjoyment : Spirit had 
 not yet drawn back into abstraction ; it was still involved with 
 the Natural element — the idiosyncrasy of individuals ; — on 
 which account the virtues of individuals themselves became 
 moral works of art. Abstract universal Personality had not 
 yet appeared, for Spirit must first develop itself to that form 
 of abstract Universality which exercised the severe discipline 
 
 u" 
 
290 PART III. THE ROMAN WORLD. 
 
 over humanity now under consideration. Here, in Rome then, 
 we find that free universality, that abstract Freedom, which 
 on the one hand sets an abstract state, a political consti- 
 tution and power, over concrete individuality ; on the other 
 side creates a personality in opposition to that universality, 
 — the inherent freedom of the abstract Ego, which must be 
 distinguished from individual idiosyncrasy. For Personality 
 constitutes the fundamental condition of legal Eight : it ap- 
 pears chiefly in the category of Property, but it is indifferent 
 to the concrete characteristics of the living Spirit with which 
 individuality is concerned. These two elements, which con- 
 stitute Rome, — political Universality on the one hand, and 
 the abstract freedom of the individual on the other, — appear, 
 in the first instance, in the form of Subjectivity. This Sub- 
 jectivity — this retreating into one's self which we observed as 
 the corruption of the Greek Spirit — becomes here the ground 
 on which a new side of the World's History arises. In con- 
 sidering the Roman World, we have not to do with a con- 
 cretely spiritual life, rich in itself ; but the world-historical 
 element in it is the abstractum of Universality, and the ob- 
 ject which is pursued with soulless and heartless severity, is 
 mere dominion, in order to enforce that abstractum. 
 
 In Greece, Democracy was the fundamental condition of 
 political life, as in the East, Despotism ; here we have Aristo- 
 cracy of a rigid order, in a state of opposition to the people. : 
 In Greece also the Democracy was rent asunder, but only in 
 the way of factions ; in Rome it is principles that keep the 
 entire community in a divided state, — they occupy a hostile 
 position towards, and struggle with each other : first the 
 Aristocracy with the Kings, then the Plebs with the Aristo- 
 cracy, till Democracy gets the upper hand ; then first 
 arise factions in which originated that later aristocracy of 
 commanding individuals which subjugated the world. It is 
 this dualism that, properly speakiug, marks Rome's inmost 
 being. 
 
 Erudition has regarded the Roman History from various 
 points of view, and has adopted very different and opposing 
 opinions : this is especially the case with the more ancient 
 part of the history, which has been taken up by three differ- 
 ent classes of literati, — Historians, Philologists, and Jurists. 
 The Historians hold to the grand features, and shew respect 
 
PART III. THE ROMAN WORLD. 
 
 291 
 
 for the history as such ; so that we may after all see our way 
 best under their guidance, since they allow the validity of 
 the records in the case of leading events. It is otherwise 
 with the Philologists, by whom generally received traditions 
 are less regarded, and who devote more attention to small 
 details which can be combined in various ways. These 
 combinations gain a footing first as historical hypotheses, 
 but soon after as established facts. To the same degree as 
 the Philologists in their department, have the Jurists in that 
 of Kornau law, instituted the minutest examination and in- 
 volved their inferences with hypothesis. The result is that 
 the most ancient part of Eoman History has been declared 
 to be nothing but fable ; so that this department of inquiry is 
 brought entirely within the province of learned criticism, 
 which always finds the most to do where the least is to be 
 got for the labour. While on the one side the poetry and 
 the myths of the Greeks are said to contain profound his- 
 torical truths, and are thus transmuted into history, the 
 Kornaus on the contrary have myths and poetical views 
 affiliated upon them; and epopees are affirmed to be at the 
 basis of what has been hitherto taken forprosaicand historical. 
 
 With these preliminary remarks w r e proceed to describe 
 the Locality. 
 
 The Kornau World has its centre in Italy ; which is ex- 
 tremely similar to Greece, and, like it, forms a peninsula, only 
 not so deeply indented. Within this country, the city of 
 Kome itself formed the centre of the centre. Napoleon in 
 his Memoirs takes up the question, which city — if Italy were 
 independent and formed a totality — would be best adapted 
 for its capital. Kome, Yenice, and Milan may put forward 
 claims to the honour; but it is immediately evident that 
 none of these cities would supply a centre. Northern Italy 
 constitutes a basin of the river Po, and is quite distinct 
 from the body of the peninsula ; Venice is connected only 
 with Higher Italy, not with the south ; Kome, on the other 
 hand, would, perhaps, be naturally a centre for Middle and 
 Lower Italy, but only artificially and violently for those 
 lands which were subjected to it in Higher Italy. The Kornau 
 State rests geographically, as well as historically, on the 
 element of force. 
 
 The locality of Italy, then, presents no natural unity — as 
 the valley of the Nile ; the unity was similar to that 
 
 ü 2 
 
292 
 
 PAßT HI. THE HOHATf WOELD. 
 
 which Macedonia by its sovereignty gave to Greece ; thou 
 Italy wanted that permeation by one spirit, which Gree 
 possessed through equality of culture ; for it was inhabited 
 by very various races. Niebuhr has prefaced his Soman 
 history by a profoundly erudite treatise on the peoples of 
 Italy ; but from which no connection between them and the 
 Roman History is visible. In fact, Niebuhr's History can 
 only be regarded as a criticism of Roman History, for it 
 consists of a series of treatises which by no means possess 
 the unity of history. 
 
 "We observed subjective inwardness as the general prin- 
 ciple of the Roman World. The course of Roman History, 
 therefore, involves the expansion of undeveloped subjectivity 
 — inward conviction of existence — to the visibility of the 
 real world. The principle of subjective inwardness receives 
 positive application in the first place only from without 
 — through the particular volition of the sovereignty, the 
 government, &c. The development consists in the purifica- 
 tion of inwardness to abstract personality, which gives itself 
 reality in the existence of private property ; the mutually 
 repellent social units can then be held together only by des» 
 potic power. The general course of the Roman World 
 may be defined as this; the transition from the inner sanctum 
 of subjectivity to its direct opposite. The development is here 
 not of the same kind as that in Greece, — the unfolding and 
 expanding of its own substance on the part of the principle ; 
 but it is the transition to its opposite, which latter does not 
 appear as an element of corruption, but is demanded and 
 posited by the principle itself. — As to the particular sections 
 of the Roman History, the common division is that into the 
 Monarchy, the Republic, and the Empire, — as if in these forms 
 different principles made their appearance ; but the same 
 principle — that of the Roman Spirit — underlies their develop- 
 ment. In our division, we must rather keep in view the 
 course of History generally. The annals of every World- 
 historical people were divided above into three periods, and 
 this statement must prove itself true in this case also. The 
 ■first period comprehends the rudiments of Rome, in which 
 the elements which are essentially opposed, still repose in 
 calm unity ; until the contrarieties have acquired strength, 
 and the unity of the State becomes a powerful one, through 
 that antithetical condition having been oroduced and main- 
 
SECT. I. HISTORY TO THE SECOTTD PUNIC WAE. 293 
 
 tained within it. In this vigorous condition the State directs 
 
 ' its forces outwards— -a. e., in the second period -and makes 
 its debut on the theatre of general history ; this is the noblest 
 
 ! period of Rome — the Punic Wars and the contact with the 
 antecedent World-Historical people. A wider stage is 
 
 - opened, towards the East ; the history at the epoch of this 
 contact has been treated by the noble Polybius. The Ro- 
 
 ; man Empire now acquired that world-conquering extension 
 which paved the way for its fall. Internal distraction super- 
 vened, while the antithesis was developing itself to self-con- 
 tradiction and utter incompatibility ; it closes with Despo- 
 tism, which marks the third period. The Roman powef 
 appears here in its pomp and splendour ; but it is at the 
 same time profoundly ruptured within itself, and the Christian 
 Religion, which begins with the imperial dominion, receives 
 a great extension. The third period comprises the contact 
 of Rome with the North and the German peoples, whose 
 turn is now come to play their part in History. 
 
 SECTION I. 
 
 ROME TO THE TIME OF THE SECOND PUNIC WAR. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE ELEMENTS OF THE ROMAN SPIRIT. 
 
 Befoee we come to the Roman History, we have to con- 
 sider the Elements of the Roman Spirit in general, and men- 
 tion and investigate the origin of Rome with a reference to 
 them. Rome arose outside recognized countries, viz., in an 
 angle where three different districts met, — those of the La- 
 tins, Sabines and Etruscans ; it was not formed from some 
 ancient stem, connected by natural patriarchal bonds, whose 
 origin might be traced up to remote times (as seems to have 
 been the case with the Persians, who, however, even then 
 ruled a large empire) ; but Rome was from the very begin- 
 ning, of artificial and violent, not spontaneous growth. It 
 is related that the descendants of the Trojans, led by iEneas 
 
294 PATtT lit. THE ROMAN WORLD. 
 
 to Italy, founded Borne ; for the connection with Asia 
 was a much cherished tradition, and- there are in Italy, 
 France, and Germany itself (Xanten) many towns which 
 refer their origin, or their names, to the fugitive Trojans. 
 Livy speaks of the ancient tribes of Rome, the Bamnenses, 
 Titienses, and Luceres. Now if we look upon these as 
 distinct nations, and assert that they were really the elements 
 from which Eome was formed, — a view which in recent times 
 has very often striven to obtain currency, — we directly sub- 
 vert the historical tradition. All historians agree that at an 
 early period, shepherds, under the leadership of chieftains, 
 roved about on the hills of Home ; that the first Roman com- 
 munity constituted itself as a predatory state ; and that it 
 was with difficulty that the scattered inhabitants of the vici- 
 nity were thus united. The details of these circumstances are 
 also given. Those predatory shepherds received every contri- 
 bution to their community that chose to join them (Livy calls 
 it a colluvies). The rabble of all the three districts between 
 which Borne lay, was collected in the new city. The histo- 
 rians state that this point was very well chosen on a hill 
 close to the river, and particularly adapted to make it an asy- 
 lum for all delinquents. It is equally historical that in the 
 newly formed state there were no women, and that the 
 neighbouring states would enter into no connubia with it : 
 both circumstances characterize it as a predatory union, with 
 which the other states wished to have no connexion. They 
 also refused the invitation to their religious festivals; and only 
 the Sabines, — a simple agricultural people, among whom, as 
 Livy says, prevailed a tristis atque tetrica superstitio, — partly 
 from superstition, partly from fear, presented themselves at 
 them. The seizure of the Sabine women is also a universally 
 received historical fact. This circumstance itself involves 
 a very characteristic feature, viz., that Beligion is used as a 
 means for furthering the purposes of the infant State. An- 
 other method of extension was the conveying to Borne of 
 the inhabitants of neighbouring and conquered towns. At 
 a later date there was also a voluntary migration of foreigners 
 to Borne ; as in the case of the so celebrated family of the 
 Claudii, bringing their whole clientela. The Corinthian Dema- 
 ratus, belonging to a family of consideration, had settled in 
 Etruria ; but as being an exile and a foreigner, he was little 
 
SECT. I. HISTORY TO THE SECOND PUNIC WAR. 20ü 
 
 respected there, and his son, Lucumo, could no longer endure 
 this degradation. He betook himself to Eome, says Livy, 
 because a new people and &repentina atque exvirtutenubih- 
 
 ; tas were to be found there. Lucumo attained, we are told 
 such a degree of respect, that he afterwards became king. 
 
 It is this peculiarity in the founding of the State which 
 must be regarded as the essential basis of the idiosyncrasy 
 
 , of Home. For it directly involves the severest discipline, 
 and self-sacrifice to the grand object of the union. A State 
 which had first to form itself, and which is based on force, 
 must be held together by force. It is not a moral, liberal 
 connection, but a compulsory condition of subordination, 
 that results from such an origin. The Roman virtus is valour ; 
 not, however, the merely personal, but that which is essen- 
 tially connected with a union of associates ; which union 
 is regarded as the supreme interest, and may be combined 
 with lawless violence of all kinds. While the Romans formed 
 a union of this kind, they were not, indeed, like the Lace- 
 daemonians, engaged in an internal contest with a conquered 
 and subjugated people ; but there arose a distinction and a 
 struggle between Patricians and Plebeians. This distinction 
 was mythically adumbrated in the hostile brothers, Romu- 
 lus and Remus. Remus was buried on the Aventine mount ; 
 this is consecrated to the evil genii, and to it are directed 
 the Secessions of the Plebs. The question comes, then, how 
 this distinction originated ? It has been already said, that 
 Rome was formed by robber-herdsmen, and the concourse of 
 rabble of all sorts. At a later date, the inhabitants of cap- 
 tured and destroyed towns were also conveyed thither. The 
 weaker, the poorer, the later additions of population are 
 naturally underrated by, and in a condition of dependence 
 upon those who originally founded the state, and those 
 who were distinguished by valour, and also by wealth. It 
 is not necessary, therefore, to take refuge in a hypothesis 
 which has recently been a favourite one — that the Patricians 
 formed a particular race. 
 
 The dependence of the Plebeians on the Patricians is often 
 represented as a perfectly legal relation, — indeed, even a 
 sacred one ; since the patricians had the sacra in their hands, 
 while the plebs would have been godless, as it were, without 
 them. The plebeians left to the patricians their hypocritical 
 
296 PART III. THE ROMAN WORLD. 
 
 stuff {ad decipiendam plehe?)i, Cic.) and cared nothing for 
 their sacra and auguries ; but in disjoining political rights 
 from these ritual observances, and making good their claim 
 to those rights, they were no more guilty of a presumptuous 
 sacrilege than the Protestants, when they emancipated the 
 political power of the State, and asserted the freedom of con- 
 science. The light in which, as previously stated, we mi^t 
 regard the relation of the Patricians and Plebeians is, that 
 those who were poor, and consequently helpless, were com- 
 pelled to attach themselves to the richer and more respectable, 
 and to seek for their patrocinium : in this relation of protection 
 on the part of the more wealthy, the protected are called 
 client es. But we find very soon a fresh distinction between 
 the plebs and the clientes. In the contentions between the 
 patricians and the plebeians, the clientes held to their patroni, 
 though belonging to the plebs as decidedly as any class. 
 That this relation of the clientes had not the stamp of right 
 and law is evident from the fact, that with the introduction 
 and knowledge of the laws among all classes, the cliental 
 relation gradually vanished ; for as soon as individuals found 
 protection in the law, the temporary necessity for it could 
 not but cease. 
 
 In the first predatory period of the state, every citizen 
 was necessarily a soldier, for the state was based on war ; this 
 burden was oppressive, since every citizen was obliged to main- 
 tain himself in the field. This circumstance, therefore, gave 
 rise to the contracting of enormous debts, — the patricians 
 becoming the creditors of the plebeians. With the intro- 
 duction of laws, this arbitrary relation necessarily ceased; but 
 only gradually, for the patricians were far from being imme- 
 diately inclined to release the plebs from the cliental relation ; 
 they rather strove to render it permanent. The laws of the 
 Twelve Tables still contained much that was undefined ; very 
 much was still left to the arbitrary will of the judge — the 
 patricians alone being judges ; the antithesis, therefore, be- 
 tween patricians and plebeians, continues till a much later 
 period. Only by degrees do the plebeians scale all the 
 heights of official station, and attain those privileges which 
 formerly belonged to the patricians alone. 
 
 In the life of the Greeks, although it did not any more 
 than that of the Eomans originate in the patriarchal rela- 
 
SECT. I. HISTOET TO THE SECONG PUN T IC "WAR. 297 
 
 tion, Family love and the Family tie appeared at its very 
 ' commencement, and the peaceful aim of their social existence 
 had for its necessary condition the extirpation of freebooters 
 > both by sea and land. The founders of Rome, on the con- 
 trary — Romulus and Eemus — are, according to the tradition, 
 themselves freebooters — represented as from their earliest 
 days thrust out from the Family, and as having grown up in 
 i a state of isolation from family affection. In like manner, 
 the first Romans are said to have got their wives, not by free 
 courtship and reciprocated inclination, but by force. This 
 commencement of the Roman life in savage rudeness exclud- 
 ing the sensibilities of natural morality, brings with it one 
 characteristic element — harshness in respect to the family 
 relation ; a selfish harshness, which constituted the funda- 
 mental condition of Roman manners and laws, as we observe 
 them in the sequel. We thus find family relations among 
 the Romans not as a beautiful, free relation of love and feel- 
 ing ; the place of confidence is usurped by the principle of 
 severity, dependence, and subordination. Marriage, in its 
 strict and formal shape, bore quite the aspect of a mere con- 
 tract; the wife was part of the husband's property (in ma- 
 num convent io), and the marriage ceremony was based on a 
 coendio, in a form such as might have been adopted on the oc- 
 casion of any other purchase. The husband acquired a power 
 over his wife, such as he had over his daughter ; nor less over 
 her property ; so that everything which she gained, she gained 
 for her husband. During the good times of the republic, 
 the celebration of marriages included a religious ceremony, 
 — " confarreatio " — but which was omitted at a later period. 
 The husband obtained not less power than by the coemtio, 
 when he married according to the form called " usus," — that 
 is, when the wife remained in the house of her husband with- 
 out having been absent a " trinoctium " in a year. If the 
 husband had not married in one of the forms of the " in ma- 
 nual conventio," the wife remained either in the power ot 
 her father, or under the guardianship of her " agnates," and 
 was free as regarded her husband. The Roman matron, 
 therefore, obtained honour and dignity only through inde- 
 pendence of her husband, instead of acquiring her honour 
 through her husband and by marriage. If a husband 
 who had married under the freer condition — that is, when 
 
298 
 
 PART III. THE ROMAN WORLD. 
 
 the union was not consecrated by the "confarreatio, — wish 
 to separate from his wife, he dismissed her without furthe 
 ceremony. The relation of sons was perfectly similar : the^ 
 were, on the one hand, about as dependent on the patera 
 power as the wife on the matrimonial ; they could not po 
 sess property, — it made no difference whether they filled 
 high office in the State or not (though the " peculia c~ 
 trensia" and "adventitial were differently regarded) ; b 
 on the other hand, when they were emancipated, they had 
 connection with their father and their family. An c 
 dence of the degree in which the position of children w 
 regarded as analogous to that of slaves, is presented in f 
 " imaginär ia servitus (mancipium) ," through which emanc 
 pated children had to pass. In reference to inheritan 
 morality would seem to demand that children should sha~ 
 equally. Among the Romans, on the contrary, testamenta. 
 caprice manifests itself in its harshest form. 
 
 Thus perverted and demoralized, do we here see the f 
 damental relations of ethics. The immoral active severity 
 the Romans in this private side of character, necessarily finds 
 its counterpart in the passive severity of their political 
 union. For the severity which the Roman experienced from 
 the State he was compensated by a severity, identical in 
 nature, which he was allowed to indulge towards his family, 
 — a servant on the one side, a despot on the other. This 
 constitutes the Roman greatness, whose peculiar character- 
 istic was stern inflexibility in the union of individuals with 
 the State, and with its law and mandate. In order to obtain 
 a nearer view of this Spirit, we must not merely keep in view 
 the actions of Roman heroes, confronting the enemy as soldiers 
 or generals, or appearing as ambassadors — since in these 
 cases they belong, with their whole mind and thought, only 
 to the state and its mandate, without hesitation or yielding 
 — but pay particular attention also to the conduct of the 
 plebs in times of revolt against the patricians. How often 
 in insurrection and in anarchical disorder was the plebs 
 brought back into a state of tranquillity by a mere form, and 
 cheated of the fulfilmeut of its demands, righteous or un- 
 righteous ! How often was a Dictator, e.g., chosen by the 
 senate, when there was neither war nor danger from an 
 enemy, in order to get the plebeians into the army, and to 
 
SECT. I. HISTORY TO TIIE SECOND PUNIC WAR. 20f> 
 
 bind them to strict obedience by the military oath ! It took 
 I Licinius ten years to carry laws favourable to the plebs; 
 
 the latter allowed itself to be kept back by the mere formality 
 1 of the veto on the part of other tribunes, and still more 
 patiently did it wait for the long-delayed execution of these 
 laws. It may be asked : By what was such a disposition 
 ) and character produced ? Produced it cannot be, but it is 
 ' essentially latent in the origination of the State from that 
 primal robber-community, as also in the idiosyncrasy of the 
 people who composed it, and lastly, in that phase of the World- 
 Spirit which was just ready for development. The elements 
 of the Eoman people were Etruscan, Latin and Sabine ; these 
 must have contained an inborn natural adaptation to produce 
 the Roman Spirit. Of the spirit, the character, and the life 
 of the ancient Italian peoples we know very little — thanks to 
 the non-intelligent character of Roman historiography ! — and 
 that little, for the most part, from the Greek writers on 
 Roman history. But of the general character of the Romans 
 we may say that, in contrast with that primeval wild poetry 
 and transmutation of the finite, w'hich we observe in the 
 East— in contrast with the beautiful, harmonious poetry and 
 well-balanced freedom of Spirit among the Greeks — here, 
 among the Romans the prose of life makes its appearance — 
 the self-consciousness of finiteness — the abstraction of the 
 Understanding and a rigorous principle of personality, which 
 even in the Family does not expand itself to natural mora- 
 lity, but remains the unfeeling non-spiritual unit, and re- 
 cognizes the uniting bond of the several social units only 
 in abstract universality. 
 
 This extreme prose of the Spirit we find in Etruscan 
 art, which though technically perfect and so far true to 
 nature, has nothing of Greek Ideality and Beauty : w T e also 
 observe it in the development of Roman Law and in the 
 Roman religion. 
 
 To the constrained, non-spiritual, and unfeeling intelli- 
 gence of the Roman world we owe the origin and the de- 
 velopment of positive law. For we saw above, how in the 
 East, relations in their very nature belonging to the sphere 
 of outward or inward morality, were made legal mandates ; 
 even among the Greeks, morality was at the same time 
 juristic right, and on that very account the constitution was 
 
300 PAET III. THE EOMAN WORLD. 
 
 entirely dependent on morals and disposition, and had not 
 yet a fixity of principle within it, to counterbalance the 
 mutability of men's inner life and individual subjectivity. 
 The Romans then completed this important separation, and 
 discovered a principle of right, which is external — i.e., orje 
 not dependent on disposition and sentiment. While they 
 have thus bestowed upon us a valuable gift, in point of form, 
 we can use and enjoy it without becoming victims to that 
 sterile Understanding, — without regarding it as the ne plus 
 ultra of Wisdom and Reason. They were its victims, 
 living beneath its sway ; but they thereby secured for others 
 Freedom of Spirit — viz., that inward Freedom which has con- 
 sequently become emancipate from the sphere of the Limited 
 and the External. Spirit, Soul, Disposition, Religion have 
 now no longer to fear being involved with that abstract 
 juristical Understanding. Art too has its external side ; 
 when in Art the mechanical side has been brought to per- 
 fection, Free Art can arise and display itself. But those must 
 be pitied who knew of nothing but that mechanical side, and 
 desired nothing farther ; as also those who, when Art has 
 arisen, still regard the Mechanical as the highest. 
 
 We see the Romans thus bound up in that abstract under- 
 standing which pertains to finiteness. This is their highest 
 characteristic, consequently also their highest conscious- 
 ness, in Religion. In fact, constraint was the religion of 
 the Romans ; among the Greeks, on the contrary, it was 
 the cheerfulness of free phantasy. We are accustomed to 
 regard Greek and Roman religion as the same, and use the 
 names Jupiter, Minerva, &c. as Roman deities, often with- 
 out distinguishing them from those of Greeks. This is ad- 
 missible inasmuch as the Greek divinities were more or 
 less introduced among the Romans ; but as the Egyptian 
 religion is by no means to be regarded as identical with the 
 Greek, merely because Herodotus and the Greeks form to 
 themselves an idea of the Egyptian divinities under the 
 names " Latona," " Pallas," &c, so neither must the Roman 
 be confounded with the Greek. We have said that in the 
 Greek religion the thrill of awe suggested by Nature was 
 fully developed to something Spiritual — to a free conception, 
 a spiritual form of fancy — that the Greek Spirit did not re- 
 main in the condition of inward fear, but proceeded to make 
 
SECT. I. HISTORY TO THE SECOND PUNIC "WAIt. 301 
 
 the relation borne to man by Nature, a relation of freedom 
 and cheerfulness. The Romans, on the contrary, remained 
 satisfied with a dull, stupid subjectivity; consequently, the 
 external was only an Object — something alien, something 
 hidden. The Roman spirit which thus remained involved in 
 subjectivity, came into a relation of constraint and depen- 
 dence, to which the origin of the word " religio " (lig-are) 
 points. The Roman had always to do with something secret ; 
 in everything he believed in and sought for something con- 
 ceded ; and while in the Greek religion everything is open 
 and clear, present to sense and contemplation — not pertain- 
 ing to a future world, but something friendly, and of this 
 world, — among the Romans everything exhibits itself as 
 mysterious, duplicate : they saw in the object first itself, and 
 then that which lies concealed in it : their history is pervaded 
 by this duplicate mode of viewing phenomena. The city of 
 Rome had besides its proper name another secret one, known 
 only to a few. It is believed by some to have been " Valen- 
 tia," the Latin translation of "Roma;" others think it 
 was "Amor" ("Roma" read backwards). Romulus, the 
 founder of the State, had also another, a sacred name — 
 "Quirinus," — by which title he was worshipped : the Romans 
 too were also called Quirites. (This name is connected with 
 the term " curia : " in tracing its etymology, the name of 
 the Sabine town "Cures," has been had recourse to.) 
 
 Among the Romans the religious thrill of awe remained 
 undeveloped ; it was shut up to the mere subjective certainty 
 of its own existence. Consciousness has therefore given 
 itself no spiritual objectivity — has not elevated itself to 
 the theoretical contemplation oi the eternally divine nature, 
 and to freedom in that contemplation ; it has gained no reli- 
 gious substantiality for itself from Spirit. The bare subjec- 
 tivity of conscience is characteristic of the Roman in all that 
 he does and undertakes — in his covenants, political relations, 
 obligations, family relations, &c. ; and all these relations 
 receive thereby not merely a legal sanction, but as it were 
 a solemnity analogous to that of an oath. The infinite 
 number of ceremonies at the comitia, on assuming offices, 
 Ac, are expressions and declarations that concern this firm 
 bond. Everywhere the sacra play a very important part. 
 Transactions, naturally the most alien to constraint, became 
 
302 
 
 PAKT III. THE ROMAN WOL.LD. 
 
 a sacrum, and were petrified, as it were, into that. To this 
 category belongs, e.g., in strict marriages, the confarreatio, 
 and the auguries and auspices generally. The knowledge of 
 these sacra is utterly uninteresting and wearisome, affording 
 fresh material for learned research as to whether they are of 
 Etruscan, Sabine, or other origin. On their account the 
 Roman people have been regarded as extremely pious, both 
 in positive and negative observances ; though it is ridiculous 
 to hear recent writers speak with unction and respect of 
 these sacra. The Patricians were especially fond of them ; 
 they have therefore been elevated in the judgment of some, 
 to the dignity of sacerdotal families, and regarded as the 
 sacred gentes — the possessors and conservators of Hornau 
 religion: the plebeians then become the godless element. 
 On this head what is pertinent has already been said. 
 The ancient kings were at the same time also reges sacrorum. 
 After the royal dignity had been done away with, there still 
 remained a Rex Sacrorum ; but he, like all the other 
 priests, was subject to the Pontifex Maximus, who presided 
 over all the " sacra," and gave them such a rigidity and 
 fixity as enabled the patricians to maintain their religious 
 power so long. 
 
 But the essential point in pious feeling is the subject 
 matter with which it occupies itself — though it is often 
 asserted, on the contrary, in modern times, that if pious 
 feelings exist, it is a matter of indifference what object 
 occupies them. It has been already remarked of the Romans, 
 that their religious subjectivity did not expand into a free 
 spiritual and moral comprehensiveness of being. It can be 
 said that their piety did not develop itself into religion ; for 
 it remained essentially formal, and this formalism took its 
 real side from another quarter. From the very definition 
 given, it follows that it can only be of a finite, unhallowed 
 order, since it arose outside the secret sanctum of religion. 
 The chief characteristic of Roman Religion is therefore a hard 
 and dry contemplation of certain voluntary aims, which they 
 regard as existing absolutely in their divinities, and whose 
 accomplishment they desire of them as embodying absolute 
 power. These purposes constitute that for the sake of which 
 they worship the gods, and by which, in a constrained, limited 
 way, they are bound to their deities. The Roman religion 
 
SECT. I. HISTORY TO THE SECOND PUNIC WAR. 203 
 
 is therefore the entirely prosaic one of narrow aspirations, ex- 
 pediency, profit. The divinities peculiar to them are entirely 
 prosaic; they are conditions [of mind or body], sensations, 
 or useful arts, to which their dry fancy, having elevated them 
 to independent power, gave objectivity ; they are partly ab- 
 stractions, which could only become frigid allegories,— partly 
 conditions of being which appear as bringing advantage or 
 injury, and which were presented as objects of worship in 
 their original bare and limited form. We can but briefly 
 notice a few examples. The Romans worshipped " Pax," 
 " Tranquillitas," "Vacuna" (Repose), " Angeronia" (Sorrow 
 ami grief), as divinities; they consecrated altars to the 
 Plague, to Hunger, to Mildew (Robigo), to Fever, and to the 
 Dea Cloacina. Juno appears among the Romans not merely 
 as " Lucina," the obstetric goddess, but also as "Juno 
 Ossipagina," the divinity who forms the bones of the child, 
 and as " Juno Unxia," who anoints the hinges of the doors at 
 marriages (a matter which was also reckoned among the 
 "sacra"). How little have these prosaic conceptions in 
 common with the beauty of the spiritual powers and deities 
 of the Greeks ! On the other hand, Jupiter as " Jupiter 
 Capitolinus" represents the generic essence of the Roman 
 Empire, which is also personified in the divinities u Roma" 
 and " Fortuna Publica." 
 
 It was the Romans especially who introduced the practice 
 of not merely supplicating the gods in time of need, and 
 celebrating "lectisternia," but of also making solemn promises 
 and vows to them. For help in difliculty they sent even 
 into foreign countries, and imported foreign divinities and 
 rites. The introduction of the gods and most of the Roman 
 temples thus arose from necessity — from a vow of some kind, 
 and an obligatory, not disinterested acknowledgment of 
 favours. The Greeks on the contrary erected and instituted 
 their beautiful temples, and statues, and rites, from love to 
 beauty and divinity for their own sake. 
 
 Only one side of the Roman religion exhibits something 
 attractive, and that is the festivals, which bear a relation to 
 country life, and whose observance was transmitted from the 
 earliest times. The idea of the Saturnian time is partly their 
 basis — the conception of a state of things antecedent to and 
 beyond the limits of civil society and political combination ; 
 
304 PART III. THE ROMAN WORLD. 
 
 but their import is partly taken from Nature generally — the 
 Sun, the course of the year, the seasons, months, &c, (with 
 astronomical intimations) — partly from the particular aspects 
 of the course of Nature, as bearing upon pastoral and agri- 
 cultural life. There were festivals of sowing and harvesting 
 and of the seasons ; the principal was that of the Saturnalia, 
 &c. In this aspect there appears much that is naive and inge- 
 nious in the tradition. Yet this series of rites, on the 
 whole, presents a very limited and prosaic appearance ; 
 deeper views of the great powers of nature and their generic 
 processes are not deducible from them ; for they are entirely 
 directed to external vulgar advantage, and the merriment 
 they occasioned, degenerated into a buffoonery unrelieved by 
 intellect. While among the Greeks their tragic art de- 
 veloped itself from similar rudiments, it is on the other hand 
 remarkable that among the Kornaus the scurrilous dances 
 and songs connected with the rural festivals, were kept up 
 till the latest periods without any advance from this naive 
 but rude form to anything really artistic. 
 
 It has already been said that the Romans adopted the 
 Greek Gods, (the mythology of the Roman poets is entirely 
 derived from the Greeks) ; but the worship of these beauti- 
 ful gods of the imagination appears to have been among thern 
 of a very cold and superficial order. Their talk of Jupiter, 
 Juno, Minerva, sounds like a mere theatrical mention of 
 them. The Greeks made their Pantheon the embodiment of 
 a rich intellectual material, and adorned it with bright fan- 
 cies ; it was to them an object calling forth continual inven- 
 tion and exciting thoughtful reflection ; and an extensive, nay 
 inexhaustible treasure has thus been created for sentiment, 
 feeling and thought, in their mythology. The Spirit of the 
 Kornaus did not indulge and delight itself in that play of 
 a thoughtful fancy; the Greek mythology appears lifeless and 
 exotic in their hands. Among the Roman poets — especially 
 Virgil — the introduction of the gods is the product of a frigid 
 Understanding and of imitation. The gods are used in these 
 poems as machinery, and in a merely superficial way ; re- 
 garded much in the same way as in our didactic treatises on 
 the belles lettres, where among other directions we find one 
 relating to the use of such machinery in epics —in order 
 to produce astonishment. 
 
SECT. I. HISTORY TO THE SECOND PUNIC WAR. 30f> 
 
 The Komans were as essentially different from the Greeks 
 in respect to their public games. In these the Romans were, 
 properly speaking, only spectators. The mimetic and the- 
 atrical representation, the dancing, foot-racing and wrestling, 
 they left to manumitted slaves, gladiators, or criminals con- 
 demned to death. Nero's deepest degradation was his 
 appearing on a public stage as a singer, lyrist and comba- 
 tant. As the Romans were only spectators, these diversions 
 were something foreign to them ; they did not enter into 
 them with their whole souls. With increasing luxury the 
 taste for the baiting of beasts and men became particularly 
 keen. Hundreds of bears, lions, tigers, elephants, croco- 
 diles, and ostriches, were produced, and slaughtered for mere 
 amusement. A body consisting of hundreds, nay thousands 
 of gladiators, when entering the amphitheatre at a certain 
 festival to engage in a sham sea-fight, addressed the Em- 
 peror with the words : " Those who are devoted to death 
 salute thee," to excite some compassion. In vain! the 
 whole were devoted to mutual slaughter. In place of hu- 
 man sufferings in the depths of the soul and spirit, occasioned 
 by the contradictions of life, and which find their solution in 
 Destiny, the Romans instituted a cruel reality of corporeal 
 sufferings : blood in streams, the rattle in the throat which 
 signals death, and the expiring gasp were the scenes that 
 delighted them. — This cold negativity of naked murder ex- 
 hibits at the same time that murder of all spiritual objective 
 aim which had taken place in the soul. I need only mention in 
 addition, the auguries, auspices, and Sibylline books, to remind 
 you how fettered the Romans were by superstitions of all 
 kinds, and that they pursued exclusively their own aims in 
 all the observances in question. The entrails of beasts, 
 flashes of lightning, the flight of birds, the Sibylline dicta 
 'determined the administration and projects of the State. 
 All this was in the hands of the patricians, who consciously 
 made use of it as a mere outward, [non-spiritual, secular] 
 means of constraint to further their own ends and oppress 
 the people. 
 
 The distinct elements of Roman religion are, according to 
 what has been said, subjective religiosity and a ritualism 
 having for its object purely superficial external aims. Se- 
 cular aims are left entirely free, instead of being limited 
 
 x 
 
306 
 
 PART III. THE ROMAN" WORLD. 
 
 by religion— in fact they are rather justified by it. The 
 Romans are invariably pious, whatever may be the sub- 
 stantial character of their actions. But as the sacred prin- 
 ciple here is nothing but an empty form, it is exactly of such 
 a kind that it can be an instrument in the power of the de- 
 votee ; it is taken possession of by the individual, who seeks 
 his private objects aud iuterests ; whereas the truly Divine 
 possesses on the contrary a concrete power in itself. But 
 where there is only a powerless form, the individual— the 
 Will, possessing an independent concreteness able to make 
 that form its own, and render it subservient to its views — 
 stands above it. This happened in Rome on the part of the pa- 
 tricians. The possession of sovereignty by the patricians is 
 thereby made firm, sacred, incommunicable, peculiar: the 
 administration of government, and political privileges, receive 
 the character of hallowed private property. There does not 
 exist therefore a substantial national unity, — not that beauti- 
 ful and moral necessity of united life in the Polis ; but every 
 " gens" is itself firm, stern, having its own Penates and sa- 
 cra ; each has its own political character, which it always 
 preserves : strict, aristocratic severity distinguished the 
 Claudii ; benevolence towards the people, the Valerii ; noble- 
 ness of spirit, the Cornelii. Separation and limitation was 
 extended even to marriage, for the connubia of patricians with 
 plebeians were deemed profane. But in that very subjectivity 
 of religion we find also the principle of arbitrariness: and while 
 on the one hand we have arbitrary choice invoking religion 
 to bolster up private possession, we have on the other hand the 
 revolt of arbitrary choice against religion. Eor the same or- 
 der of things can, on the one side, be regarded as privileged 
 by its religious form, and on the other side wear the aspect 
 of being merely a matter of choice — of arbitrary volition on 
 the part of man. When the time was come for it to be 
 degraded to the rank of a mere form, it was necessarily 
 known and treated as a form, — trodden under foot, — represen- 
 ted as formalism. — The inequality which enters into the do- 
 main of sacred things forms the transition from religion to 
 the "bare reality of political life. The consecrated inequality of 
 will and of private property constitutes the fundamental 
 condition of the change. The Roman principle admits of 
 aristocracy alone as the constitution proper to it, but which 
 
SECT I. lIISTOltY TO THE SECOND PUNIC WAR. 3()7 
 
 directly manifests itself only in an antithetical form — inter- 
 nal inequality. Only from necessity and the pressure of 
 adverse circumstances is this contradiction momentarily 
 smoothed over ; for it involves a duplicate power, the stern- 
 ness and malevolent isolation of whose components can only 
 be mastered and bound together by a still greater sternness, 
 into a unity maintained by force. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE HISTORY OF ROME TO THE SECOND PUNIC WAR. 
 
 In the first period, several successive stages display 
 their characteristic varieties. The Roman State here exhibits 
 its first phase of growth, under Kings; then it receives a re- 
 publican constitution, at whose head stand Consuls. The 
 struggle between patricians and plebeians begins ; and after 
 this has been set at rest by the concession of the plebeian 
 demands, there ensues a state of contentment in the internal 
 affairs of Rome, and it acquires strength to combat victoriously 
 with the nation that preceded it on the stage of general his- 
 tory. As regards the accounts of the first Roman kings, every 
 datum has met with flat contradiction as the result of criti- 
 cism ; but it is going too far to deny them all credibility. 
 Seven kings in all, are mentioned by tradition ; and even the 
 - Higher Criticism' is obliged to recognize the last links in the 
 series as perfectly historical. Romulus is called the founder of 
 this union of freebooters ; he organized it into a military state. 
 Although the traditions respecting him appear fabulous, they 
 only contain what is in accordance with the Roman Spirit 
 as above described. To the second king, Numa, is ascribed 
 the introduction of the religious ceremonies. This trait is 
 very remarkable from its implying that religion was intro- 
 duced later than political union, while among other peoples 
 religious traditions make their appearance in the remotest 
 periods and before all civil institutions. The king was at 
 the same time a priest (reo; is referred by etymologists to 
 ftsfeiv— to sacrifice.) As is the case with states generally, 
 
 * 2 
 
308 
 
 PART III. THE ROMAN WORLD. 
 
 the Political was at first united with the Sacerdotal, and a the- 
 ocratical state of things prevailed. The King stood here at 
 the head of those who enjoyed privileges in virtue of the 
 sacra. 
 
 The separation of the distinguished and powerful citizens 
 as senators and patricians took place as early as the first 
 kings. Romulus is said to have appointed 100 patres, res- 
 pecting which however the Higher Criticism is sceptical. In 
 religion, arbitrary ceremonies — the sacra — became fixed 
 marks of distinction, and peculiarities of the gentes and ordeis. 
 The internal organization of the State was gradually realized. 
 Livy says that as JNuma established all divine matters, so 
 Servius Tullius introduced the different Classes, and the Cen- 
 sus, according to which the share of each citizen in the 
 administration of public affairs was determined. The patri- 
 cians were discontented with this scheme, especially be- 
 cause Servius Tullius abolished a part of the debts owed by 
 the plebeians, and gave public lands to the poorer citizens, 
 which made them possessors of landed property. He divided 
 the people into six classes, of which the first together with 
 the knights formed 98 centuries, the inferior classes 
 proportionately fewer. Thus, as they voted by centuries, the 
 class first in rank had also the greatest weight in the State. It 
 appears that previously the patricians had the power exclu- 
 sively in their hands, but that after Servius's division they had 
 merely a preponderance ; which explains their discontent with 
 his institutions. With Servius the history becomes more 
 distinct ; and under him and his predecessor, the elder Tar- 
 quinius, traces of prosperity are exhibited. Niebuhr is sur- 
 prised that according to Dionysius and Livy, the most 
 ancient constitution was democratic, inasmuch as the vote of 
 every citizen had equal weight in the assembly of the people. 
 But Livy only says that Servius abolished the suffragium 
 viritim. Now in the comitia curiata — the cliental relation, 
 which absorbed the plebs, extending to all — the patricians 
 alone had a vote, and populus denoted at that time only the 
 patricians. Dionysius therefore does not contradict himself, 
 when he says that the constitution according to the laws of 
 Romulus was strictly aristocratic. 
 
 Almost all the Kings were foreigners, — a circumstance 
 
SECT. I. HISTORY TO THE SECOND PUNIC WAE. 309 
 
 very characteristic of the origin of Borne. Numa, who suc- 
 ceeded the founder of Eome, was according to the tradition, 
 one of the Sabines— a people which under the reign of Romu- 
 lus, led by Tatius, is said to have settled on one of the Roman 
 hills. At a later date however the Sabine country appears as a 
 region entirely separated from the Roman State. Numa was 
 followed by Tullus Hostilius, and the very name of this king- 
 points to his foreign origin. Ancus Martins, the fourth king, 
 was the grandson of Numa. Tarquinius Priscus sprang 
 from a Corinthian family, as we had occasion to observe 
 above. Servius Tullius was from Corniculum, a conquered 
 Latin town ; Tarquinius Superbus was descended from the 
 elder Tarquinius. Under this last king Rome reached a high 
 degree of prosperity : even at so early a period as this, a com- 
 mercial treaty is said to have been concluded with the 
 Carthaginians ; and to be disposed to reject this as mythical 
 would imply forgetfulness of the connection which Rome had, 
 even at that time, with the Etrurians and other bordering 
 peoples whose prosperity depended on trade and maritime 
 pursuits. The Romans were probably even then acquainted 
 with the art of writing, and already possessed that clear- 
 sighted comprehension which was their remarkable character- 
 istic, and which led to that perspicuous historical composition 
 for which they are famous. 
 
 In the growth of the inner life of the state, the power of 
 the Patricians had been much reduced ; and the kings often 
 courtedthe support of the people — as weseewas frequently the 
 case in the mediaeval history of Europe — in order to steal a 
 march upon the Patricians. We have already observed this 
 in Servius Tullius. The last king, Tarquinius Superbus, 
 consulted the senate but little in state affairs ; he also neglected 
 to supply the place of its deceased members, and acted in 
 every respect as if he aimed at its utter dissolution. Then 
 ensued a state of political excitement which only needed an 
 occasion to break out into open revolt. An insult to the ho- 
 nour of a matron — the invasion ofthat sanctum sanctorum — 
 by the son of the king, supplied such an occasion. The kings 
 were banished in the year 244 of the City and 510 of the 
 Christian Era (that is, if the building of Rome is to be dated 
 753 b.c.) and the royal dignity abolished for ever. 
 
 The Kings were expelled by the patricians, not by the 
 
310 PA ET III. THE EOMAK WORLD. 
 
 plebeians ; if therefore the patricians are to be regarded as 
 possessed of " divine right" as being a sacred race, it is wor- 
 thy of note that we find them here contravening such legiti- 
 mation ; for the King was their High Priest. We observe on : 
 this occasion with what dignity the sanctity of marriage was 
 invested in the eyes of the Romans. The principle of 
 subjectivity and piety (pudor) was with them the religious 
 and guarded element ; and its violation becomes the occasion 
 of the expulsion of the Kings, and later on of the Decem- 
 virs too. We find monogamy therefore also looked upon by 
 the Romans as an understood thing. It was not introduced 
 by an express law ; we have nothing but an incidental testi- 
 mony in the Institutes, where it is said that marriages un- 
 der certain conditions of relationship are not allowable, 
 because a man may not have two wives. It is not until the 
 reign of Diocletian that we find a law expressly determining 
 that no one belonging to the Roman empire may have 
 two wives, " since according to a praetorian edict also, infamy 
 attaches to such a condition" (cum etiam in edicto prsetoris 
 hujusmodi viri infamia notati sunt.) Monogamy therefore 
 is regarded as naturally valid, and is based on the prin- 
 ciple of subjectivity. — Lastly, we must also observe that 
 royalty was not abrogated here as in Greece by suicidal 
 destruction on the part of the royal races, but was ex- 
 terminated in hate. The King, himself the chief priest, had 
 been guilty of the grossest profanation ; the principle of sub- 
 jectivity revolted against the deed, and the patricians, there- 
 by elevated to a sense of independence, threw off the yoke 
 of royalty. Possessed by the same feeling, the plebs at a 
 later date rose against the patricians, and the Latins and the 
 Allies against the Romans ; until the equality of the social 
 units was restored through the whole Roman dominion, (a 
 multitude of slaves, too, being emancipated) and they were 
 held together by simple Despotism. 
 
 Livy remarks that Brutus hit upon the right epoch for the 
 expulsion of the kings, for that if it had taken place earlier, 
 the state would have suffered dissolution. What would have 
 happened, he asks, if this homeless crowd had been liberated 
 earlier, when living together had not yet produced a mutual 
 conciliation of dispositions ? — The constitution now became 
 in name republican. If we look at the matter more closely 
 it is evident (Livy ii. 1.) that no other essential change took 
 
SECT. I. HISTORY TO THE SECOND PUNIC WAR. 311 
 
 place than the transference of the power which was previously 
 permanent in the King, to two annual Consuls. These two, 
 equal in power, managed military aud judicial as well as ad- 
 ministrative business ; for praetors, as supreme judges, do 
 not appear till a later date. 
 
 At first all authority remained in the hands of the consuls ; 
 and at the beginning of the republic, externally and internally, 
 the state was in evil plight. In the Roman history a period 
 occurs as troubled as that in the Greek which followed the ex- 
 tinction of the dynasties. The Kornaus had first to sustain a 
 severe conflict with their expelled King, who had sought and 
 found help from the Etrurians. In the war against Porsena 
 the Eomans lost all their conquests, and even their indepen- 
 dence : they were compelled to lay down their arms and to 
 give hostages ; according to an expression of Tacitus (Hist. 
 3, 72.) it seems as if Porsena had even taken Rome. Soon 
 after the expulsion of the Kings we have the contest between 
 the patricians and plebeians ; for the abolition of royalty had 
 taken place exclusively to the advantage of the aristocracy, 
 to which the royal power was transferred, while the plebs lost 
 the protection which the Kings had afforded it. All magis- 
 terial and juridical power, and all property in land was at this 
 time in the hands of the patricians ; while the people, con- 
 tinually dragged out to war, could not employ themselves in 
 peaceful occupations : handicrafts could not flourish, and the 
 only acquisition the plebeians could make was their share in 
 the booty. The patricians had their territory and soil cul- 
 tivated by slaves, and assigned some of their land to their 
 clients, who on condition of paying taxes and contributions, 
 — as tenant cultivators, therefore — had the usufruct of it. This 
 relation, on account of the form in which the dues were paid 
 by the Clientes, was very similar to vassalage : they were 
 obliged to give contributions towards the marriage of the 
 daughters of the Patronus, to ransom him or his sons when 
 in captivity, to assist them in obtaining magisterial offices, 
 and to make up the losses sustained in suits at law. The 
 administration of justice was likewise in the hands of the 
 patricians, and that without the limitations of definite and 
 written laws; a desideratum which at a later period the Decem- 
 virs were created to supply. All the power of government 
 
312 
 
 PA ET III. THE EOMAN WORLD. 
 
 belonged moreover to the patricians, for they were in posses- 
 sion of all offices— first of the consulship, afterwards of the 
 military tribuneship and censorship, (instituted a. u. c. 
 311) — by which the actual administration of government as 
 likewise the oversight of it, was left to them alone. Lastly, 
 it was the patricians who constituted the Senate. The ques- 
 tion as to how that body was recruited appears very im- 
 portant. But in this matter no systematic plan w T as followed. 
 Romulus is said to have founded the senate, consisting then 
 of one hundred members •; the succeeding kings increased 
 this number, and Tarquinius Priscus fixed it at three hun- 
 dred. Junius Brutus restored the senate, which had very 
 much fallen away, de novo. In after times it would appear 
 that the censors and sometimes the dictators filled up the 
 vacant places in the senate. In the second Punic War, 
 A.u.c. 538, a dictator w T as chosen, who nominated 177 new 
 senators : he selected those who had been invested with 
 curule dignities, the plebeian iEdiles, Tribunes of the People 
 and Qusestors, citizens who had gained spolia opima or the 
 corona civica. Under Csesar the number of the senators was 
 raised to eight hundred ; Augustus reduced it to six hun- 
 dred. It has been regarded as great negligence on the part 
 of the Roman historians, that they give us so little informa- 
 tion respecting the composition and redintegration of the 
 senate. But this point which appears to us to be invested 
 with infinite importance, was not of so much moment to the 
 Romans at large ; they did not attach so much weight to formal 
 arrangements, for their principal concern was, Jioiu the 
 government w T as conducted. How in fact can we suppose 
 the constitutional rights of the ancient Romans to have been 
 so well defined, and that at a time which is even regarded as 
 mythical, and its traditionary history as epical ? 
 
 The people were in some such oppressed condition as, e.g. 
 the Irish were a few years ago in the British Isles, while they 
 remained at the same time entirely excluded from the 
 government. Often they revolted and made a secession 
 from the city. Sometimes they also refused military service ; 
 yet it always remains a very striking fact that the senate 
 could so long resist superior numbers irritated by oppression 
 and practised in war ; for the main struggle lasted for more 
 
SECT. I. HISTORY TO THE SECOND PUNIC WAE. 313 
 
 than a hundred years. In the fact that the people could so 
 long be kept in check is manifested its respect for legal 
 order and the sacra. But of necessity the plebeians at last 
 secured their righteous demands, and their debts were often 
 remitted. The severity of the patricians their creditors, 
 the debts due to whom they had to discharge by slave-work, 
 drove the plebs to revolts. At first it demanded and re- 
 ceived only what it had already enjoyed under the kings — landed 
 property and protection against the powerful. It received 
 assignments of land, and Tribunes of the People— func- 
 tionaries that is to say, who had the power to put a veto on 
 every decree of the senate. When this office commenced, the 
 number of tribunes w r as limited to two : later there were ten 
 of them ; which however was rather injurious to the plebs, 
 since all that the senate had to do was to gain over one of 
 the tribunes, in order to thwart the purpose of all the rest 
 by his single opposition. The plebs obtained at the same time 
 the provocatio ad populum : that is, in every caseof magisterial 
 oppression, the condemned person might appeal to the deci- 
 sion of the people— a privilege of infinite importance to the 
 plebs, and which especially irritated the patricians. At the 
 repeated desire of the people the Decemviri were nominated — 
 the Tribunate of the People being suspended — to supply the 
 desideratum of a determinate legislation ; they perverted, as 
 is well known, their unlimited power to tyranny ; and were 
 driven from power on an occasion entailing similar disgrace 
 to that which led to the punishment of the Kings. The de- 
 pendence of the clientela was in the meantime weakened ; 
 after the decemviral epoch the clientes are less and less pro- 
 minent and are merged in the plebs, which adopts resolu- 
 tions (pleiiscita) ; the senate by itself could only issue 
 senatus consulta, and the tribunes, as well as the senate, 
 could now impede the comitia and elections. By degrees the 
 plebeians effected their admissibility to all dignities and 
 offices ; but at first a plebeian consul, gedile, censor, &c. was not 
 equal to the patrician one, on account of the sacra which the 
 latter kept in his hands ; and a long time intervened after this 
 concession before a plebeian actually became a consul. It was 
 the tribunus plebis, Licinius, who established the whole 
 cycle of these political arrangements, — in the second half of 
 the fourth century, a. h. c. 387. It was he also who chiefly 
 
314 
 
 PART III. THE EOMAN WOULD. 
 
 commenced the agitation for the lex agraria, respecting 
 which so much has been written and debated among the 
 learned of the day. The agitators for this law excited during 
 every period very great commotions in Rome. The plebeians 
 were practically excluded from almost all the landed property, 
 and the object of the Agrarian Laws was to provide lands for 
 them — partly in the neighbourhood of Rome, partly in the 
 conquered districts, to which colonies were to be then led out, 
 In the time of the Republic we frequently see military leaders 
 assigning lands to the people ; but in every case they 
 were accused of striving after royalty, because it was the 
 kings w T ho had exalted the plebs. The Agrarian Law re- 
 quired that no citizen should possess more than five hundred 
 jugera : the patricians were consequently obliged to surrender 
 a large part of their property. Niebulir in particular has 
 undertaken extensive researches respecting the agrarian laws, 
 and has conceived himself to have made great and important 
 discoveries: he says, viz. that an infringement of the sacred 
 right of property was never thought of, but that the state 
 had only assigned a portion of the public lands for the use of 
 the plebs, having always had the right of disposing of them 
 as its own property. I only remark in passing that Hege- 
 wisch had made this discovery before Niebuhr, and that 
 Niebuhr derived the particular data on which his asser- 
 tion rests from Appian and Plutarch ; that is from Greek 
 authors, respecting whom he himself allows that we should 
 have recourse to them only in an extreme case. How 
 often does Livy, as well as Cicero and others, speak of the 
 Agrarian laws, while nothing definite can be inferred from 
 their statements ! — This is another proof of the inaccu- 
 racy of the Eoman historians. The whole affair ends in no- 
 thing but a useless question of jurisprudence. The land 
 which the patricians had taken into possession or in which 
 colonies settled, w r as originally public land ; but it also cer- 
 tainly belonged to those in possession, and our information 
 is not at all promoted by the assertion that it always remained 
 public land. This discovery of Niebuhr's turns upon a very 
 immaterial distinction, existing perhaps in his ideas, but 
 not in reality. — The Licinianlaw was indeed carried, but 
 soon transgressed and utterly disregarded. Licinius Stolo 
 himself, who had first ' agitated ' for the law, was punished 
 
SECT I. HI STOUT TO THE SECOND PUNIC WAR. 1315 
 
 because he possessed a larger property in land than was al- 
 lowed, and the patricians opposed the execution of the law 
 with the greatest obstinacy. We must here call especial at- 
 tention to the distinction which exists between the Roman, 
 the Greek, and our own circumstances. Our civil society rests 
 on other principles, and in it such measures are not necessary. 
 Spartans and Athenians, who had not arrived at such an ab- 
 stract idea of the State as was so tenaciously held by the 
 Romans, did not trouble themselves with abstract rights, but 
 simply desired that the citizens should have the means of 
 subsistence ; and they required of the state that it should 
 take care that such should be the case. 
 
 This is the chief point in the first period of Roman History, 
 — that the plebs attained the right of being eligible to the 
 higher political offices, and that by a share which they too 
 managed to obtain in the land and soil, the means of subsis- 
 tence were assured to the citizens. By this union of the 
 patriciate and the plebs, Rome first attained true internal 
 consistency ; and only after this had been realized could the 
 Roman power develope itself externally. A period of satis- 
 fied absorption in the common interest ensues, and the citizens 
 are weary of internal struggles. When after civil discords 
 nations direct their energies outward, they appear in their 
 greatest strength ; for the previous excitemeut continues, 
 and no longer having its object within, seeks for it without. 
 This direction given to the Roman energies was able for a mo- 
 ment to conceal the defect of that union ; equilibrium was 
 restored, but without an essential centre of unity and sup- 
 port. The contradiction that existed could not but break out 
 again fearfully at a later period ; but previously to this time 
 the greatness of Rome had to display itself in war and the 
 conquest of the world. The power, the wealth, the glory 
 derived from these wars, as also the difficulties to which they 
 led, kept the Romans together as regards the internal affairs 
 of the state. Their courage and discipline secured their vic- 
 tory. As compared with the Greek or Macedonian, the Ro- 
 man art of war has special peculiarities. The strength of the 
 phalanx lay in its mass and in its massive character. The 
 Roman legions also present a close array, but they had 
 at the same time an articulated organization : they united 
 the two extremes of massiveness on the one hand, and of dis- 
 
316 
 
 PART III. THE ROMAN WORLD. 
 
 persion into light troops on the other hand : they held 
 firmly together, while at the same time they were capable of 
 ready expansion. Archers and slingers preceded the main 
 body of the Eoman army when they attacked the enemy,— 
 afterwards leaving the decision to the sword. 
 
 It would be a wearisome task to pursue the wars of the Ko- 
 rnaus in Italy ; partly because they are in themselves unim- 
 portant — even the often empty rhetoric of the generals in Livy 
 cannot very much increase the interest — partly on account of 
 the unintelligent character of the Eoman annalists, in whose 
 pages we see the Romans carrying on war only with "enemies' 
 without learning anything farther of their individuality — e.g 
 the Etruscans, the Samnites, the Ligurians, with whom they 
 carried on wars during many hundred years. — It is singular in 
 regard to these transactions that the Eomans, who have the 
 justification conceded by "World-History on their side, should 
 also claim for themselves the minor justification in respect 
 to manifestoes and treaties on occasion of minor infringe 
 ments of them, and maintain it as it were after the 
 fashion of advocates. But in political complications io 
 this kind, either party may take offence at the conduct of the 
 other, if it pleases, and deems it expedient to be offended. — 
 The Eomans had long and severe contests to maintain with 
 the Samnites, the Etruscans, the Gauls, the Marsi, the Urn- 
 brians and the Bruttii, before they could make themselves 
 masters of the whole of Italy. Their dominion was extended 
 thence in a southerly direction ; they gained a secure footing 
 in Sicily, where the Carthaginians had long carried on war ; 
 then they extended their power towards the west : from 
 Sardinia and Corsica they went to Spain. They thus soon 
 came into frequent contact with the Carthaginians, and were 
 obliged to form a naval power in opposition to them. This 
 transition was easier in ancient times than it would perhaps 
 be now, when long practice and superior knowledge are re- 
 quired for maritime service. The mode of warfare at sea was 
 not very different from that on land. 
 
 We have thus reached the end of the first epoch of Eoman 
 History, in which the Eomans by their retail military transac- 
 tions had become capitalists in a strength proper to them- 
 selves, and with which they were to appear on the theatre of 
 
SECT. II. THE SECOND PUNIC WAE TO THE EMPERORS. 317 
 
 the world. The Eoman dominion was, on the whole, not yet 
 very greatly extended : only a few colonies had settled on the 
 other side of the Po, and on the south a considerable power 
 confronted that of Eome. It was the Second Punic War, 
 therefore, that gave the impulse to its terrible collision with 
 the most powerful states of the time; through it the Eomans 
 came into contact with Macedonia, Asia, Syria, and subse- 
 quently also with Egypt. Italy and Eome remained the centre 
 of their great far-stretching empire, but this centre was, as al- 
 ready remarked, not the less an artificial, forced, and compul- 
 sory* one. This grand period of the contact of Eome with 
 other states, and of the manifold complications thence arising, 
 has been depicted by the noble Achaean, Polybius, whose fate 
 it was to obserye the fall of his country through the dis- 
 graceful passions of the Greeks and the baseness and inexor- 
 able persistency of the Eomans. 
 
 SECTION II. 
 
 ROME FROM THE SECOND PUNIC WAR TO THE EMPERORS. 
 
 The second period, according to our division, begins with 
 the Second Punic AYar, that epoch which decided and 
 stamped a character upon Eoman dominion. In the first 
 Punic War the Eomans had shewn that they had become a 
 match for the mighty Carthage, which possessed a great part 
 of the coast of Africa and southern Spain, and had gained a 
 firm footing in Sicily and Sardinia. The second Punic War 
 laid the might of Carthage prostrate in the dust. The proper 
 element of that state was the sea ; but it had no original 
 territory, formed no nation, had no national army ; its hosts 
 were composed of the troops of subjugated and allied peoples. 
 In spite of this, the great Hannibal with such a host, formed 
 from the most diverse nations, brought Eome near to destruc- 
 tion. Without any support he maintained his position in 
 Italy for sixteen years against Eoman patience and persever- 
 ance; duriug which time however the Scipios conquered Spain 
 
318 
 
 PART III. THE EOMAN WOULD. 
 
 and entered into alliances with the princes of Africa. Han- 
 nibal was at last compelled to hasten to the assistance of his 
 hard-pressed country ; he lost the battle of Zama in the year 
 552 a. u. c. and after six and thirty years revisited his pater- 
 nal city, to which he was now obliged to offer pacific counsels. 
 The second Punic War thus eventually established the un- 
 disputed power of Rome over Carthage ; it occasioned the 
 hostile collision of the Eomans with the king of Macedonia, 
 who was conquered five years later. Now Antiochus, the king 
 of Syria, is involved in the melee. He opposed a huge power 
 to the Romans, was beaten at Thermopylae and Magnesia, and 
 was compelled to surrender to the Romans Asia Minor as far 
 as the Taurus. After the conquest of Macedonia both that 
 country and Greece were declared free by the Romans, — a 
 declaration whose meaning we have already investigated, in 
 treating of the preceding Historical nation. It was not 
 till this time that the Third Punic War commenced, for Car- 
 thage had once more raised its head and excited the jealousy 
 of the Romans. After long resistance it was taken and laid 
 in ashes. Nor could the Achaean league now long maintain 
 itself in the face of Roman ambition : the Romans were 
 eager for war, destroyed Corinth in the same year as Carthage, 
 and made Greece a province. The fall of Carthage and the 
 subjugation of Greece were the central points from which 
 the Romans gave its vast extent to their sovereignty. 
 
 Rome seemed now to have attained perfect security ; no 
 external power confronted it : she was the mistress of the 
 Mediterranean — that is of the media terra of all civilization. 
 In this period of victory, its morally great and fortunate 
 personages, especially the Scipios, attract our attention. 
 They were morally fortunate — although the greatest of the 
 Scipios met with an end outwardly unfortunate — because 
 they devoted their energies to their country during a period 
 when it enjoyed a sound and unimpaired condition. But after 
 the feeling of patriotism — the dominant instinct of Rome 
 — had been satisfied, destruction immediately invades the 
 state regarded en masse ; the grandeur of individual character 
 becomes stronger in intensity, and more vigorous in the use 
 of means, on account of contrasting circumstances. We 
 see the internal contradiction of Rome now beginning 
 to manifest itself in another form ; and the epoch which con- 
 
SECT. II. THE SECOND PUNIC WAR TO THE EMPERORS. 310 
 
 eludes the second period is also the second mediation of that 
 contradiction. "We observed that contradiction previously 
 in the struggle of the patricians against the plebeians : now 
 it assumes the form of private interest, contravening pa- 
 triotic sentiment ; and respect for the state no longer holds 
 these opposites in the necessary equipoise. Rather, we 
 observe now side by side with wars for conquest, plunder 
 and glory, the fearful spectacle of civil discords in Rome, and 
 intestine wars. There does not follow, as among the Greeks 
 after the Median wars, a period of brilliant splendour in 
 culture, art and science, in which Spirit enjoys inwardly and 
 ideally that which it had previously achieved in the world of 
 action. If inward satisfaction was to follow the period of 
 that external prosperity in war, the principle of Roman life 
 must be more concrete. But if there were such a concrete 
 life to evolve as an object of consciousness from the depths of 
 their souls by imagination and thought, what would it have 
 been ! Their chief spectacles were triumphs, the treasures 
 gained in war, and captives from all nations, unsparingly sub- 
 jected to the yoke of abstract sovereignty. The concrete 
 element, which the Romans actually find within themselves, 
 is only this unspiritual unity, and any definite thought or feel- 
 ing of a non-abstract kind, can lie only in the idiosyncrasy of 
 individuals. The tension of virtue is now relaxed, because the 
 danger is past. At the time of the first Punic War, necessity 
 united the hearts of all for the saving of Rome. In the fol- 
 lowing wars too, with Macedonia, Syria, and the Grauls in 
 Upper Italy, the existence of the entire state was still con- 
 cerned. But after the danger from Carthage and Macedon 
 was over, the subsequent wars were more and more the 
 mere consequences of victories, and nothing else was needed 
 than to gather in their fruits. The armies were used for 
 particular expeditions, suggested by policy, or for the ad- 
 vantages of individuals, — for acquiring wealth, glory, sove- 
 reignty in the abstract. The relation to other nations was 
 purely that of force. The national individuality of peoples 
 did not, as early as the time of the Romans, excite respect, 
 as is the case in modern times. The various peoples were 
 not yet recognized as legitimated ; the various states had not 
 yet acknowledged each other as real essential existences. 
 Equal right to existence entails an union of states, such as 
 
320 
 
 PAET III. THE ROMAN WORLD. 
 
 exists in modern Europe, or a condition like that of Greece, 
 in which the states had an equal right to existence under the 
 protection of the Delphic god. The Romans do not enter 
 into such a relation to the other nations, for their god is 
 only the Jupiter Capitolinus ; neither do they respect the 
 sacra of the other nations (any more than the plebeians those 
 of the patricians) ; but as conquerors in the strict sense of 
 the term, they plunder the Palladia of the nations. Eomo 
 kept standing armies in the conquered provinces, and pro- 
 consuls and propraetors were sent into them as viceroys. 
 The Equites collected the taxes and tributes, which they 
 farmed under the State. A net of such fiscal farmers (publi- 
 cani) was thus drawn over the whole Eoman world. — Cato 
 used to say, after every deliberation of the senate : " Cete- 
 rum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam :" and Cato was a 
 thorough Eoman. The Eoman principle thereby exhibits 
 itself as the cold abstraction of sovereignty and power, as the 
 pure egotism of the will in opposition to others, involving no 
 moral element of determination, but appearing in a concrete 
 form only in the shape of individual interests. Increase in 
 the number of provinces issued in the aggrandisement of 
 individuals within Eome itself, and the corruption thence 
 arising. Erom Asia, luxury and debauchery were brought 
 to Eome. Eiches flowed in after the fashion of spoils 
 in war, and were not the fruit of industry and honest ac- 
 tivity ; in the same way as the marine had arisen, not from 
 the necessities of commerce, but with a warlike object. The 
 Eoman state, drawing its resources from rapine, came to be 
 rent in sunder by quarrels about dividing the spoil. For the 
 first occasion of the breaking out of contention within it, was 
 the legacy of Attalus, King of Pergamus, who had bequeathed 
 his treasures to the Eoman State. Tiberius Gracchus came 
 forward with the proposal, to divide it among the Eoman 
 citizens ; he likewise renewed the Licinian Agrarian laws, 
 which had been entirely set aside during the predominance 
 of individuals in the state. His chief object was to pro- 
 cure property for the free citizens, and to people Italy with 
 citizens instead of slaves. This noble Eoman, however, was 
 vanquished by the grasping nobles, for the Eoman constitu- 
 tion was no longer in a condition to be saved by the consti- 
 tution itself. Caius Gracchus, the brother of Tiberius, 
 
SECT. II. THE SECOND PUNIC WAR TO THE EMPERORS. 32 1 
 
 prosecuted the same noble aim as his brother, and shared the 
 same fate. Ruin now broke in unchecked, and as there 
 existed no generally recognized and absolutely essential object 
 to which the country's energy could be devoted, individuali- 
 ties and physical force were in the ascendant. The enormous 
 corruption of Rome displays itself in the war with Jugurtha, 
 who had gained the senate by bribery, and so indulged 
 himself in the most atrocious deeds of violence and crime. 
 Kome was pervaded by the excitement of the struggle against 
 the Cimbri and Teutones, who assumed a menacing position 
 towards the State. With great exertions the latter were 
 utterly routed in Provence, near Aix ; the others in 
 Lombardy at the Adige by Marius the conqueror of Ju- 
 gurtha. Then the Italian allies, whose demand of Roman 
 citizenship had been refused, raised a revolt ; and while the 
 Romans had to sustain a struggle against a vast power in 
 Italy, they received the news, that at the command of 
 Mithridates, 80,000 Romans had been put to death in Asia 
 Minor. Mithridates was King of Pontus, governed Colchis 
 and the lands of the Black Sea, as far as the Tauric peninsula, 
 and could summon to his standard in his war with Rome 
 the populations of the Caucasus, of Armenia, Mesopotamia, 
 and a part of Syria, through his son-in-law Tigranes. Sulla, 
 who had already led the Roman hosts in the Social AVar, 
 conquered him. Athens, which had hitherto been spared, 
 was beleaguered and taken, but " for the sake of their fathers" 
 — as Sulla expressed himself— not destroyed. He then re- 
 turned to Rome, reduced the popular faction, headed by 
 Marius and Cinna, became master of the city, and commenced 
 systematic massacres of Roman citizens of consideration. 
 Porty senators and six hundred knights were sacrificed to 
 his ambition and lust of power. 
 
 Mithridates was indeed defeated, but not overcome, and 
 was able to begin the war anew. At the same time, Ser- 
 torius, a banished Roman, arose in revolt in Spain, carried 
 on a contest there for eight years, and perished only through 
 treachery. The war against Mithridates was terminated by 
 Pompey ; the King of Pontus killed himself when his re- 
 sources were exhausted. The Servile War in Italy is a 
 contemporaneous event. A great number of gladiators and 
 mountaineers had formed a union under Spartacus, but 
 
 y 
 
322 
 
 PAßT III. THE EOMAN WOBLD. 
 
 were vanquished by Crassus. To this confusion was added 
 the universal prevalence of piracy, which Pompey rapidly 
 reduced by a large armament. 
 
 We thus see the most terrible and dangerous powers rising 
 against Rome ; yet the military force of this state is victorious 
 over all. Great individuals now appear on the stage as during 
 the times of the fall of Greece. The biographies of Plutarch 
 are here also of the deepest interest. It was from the disrup- 
 tion of the state, which had no longer any consistency or firm- 
 ness in itself, that these colossal individualities arose, instinc- 
 tively impelled to restore that political unity which was 
 no longer to be found in men's dispositions. It is their 
 misfortune that they cannot maintain a pure morality, for 
 their course of action contravenes things as they are, and is 
 a series of transgressions. Even the noblest — the Gracchi 
 — were not merely the victims of injustice and violence from 
 without, but were themselves involved in the corruption and 
 wrong that universally prevailed. But that which these 
 individuals purpose and accomplish, has on its side the 
 higher sanction of the World- Spirit, and must eventually 
 triumph. The idea of an organization for the vast empire 
 being altogether absent, the senate could not assert the 
 authority of government. The sovereignty was made de- 
 pendent on the people — that people which was now a 
 mere mob, and was obliged to be supported by corn from 
 the Roman provinces. We should refer to Cicero to see 
 how all affairs of state were decided in riotous fashion, and 
 with arms in hand, by the wealth and power of the grandees 
 on the one side, and by a troop of rabble on the other. The 
 Roman citizens attach themselves to individuals who flatter 
 them, and who then become prominent in factions, in order 
 to make themselves masters of Rome. Thus we see in 
 Pompey and Caesar the two foci of Home's splendour coming 
 into hostile opposition : on the one side, Pompey with 
 the Senate, and therefore apparently the defender of the 
 Republic, — on the other, Caesar with his legions and a 
 superiority of genius. This contest between the two most 
 powerful individualities could not be decided at Rome in the 
 Forum. Caesar made himself master in succession, of Italy, 
 Spain, and Greece, utterly routed his enemy at Pharsalus, 
 forty-eight years b.c., made himself sure of Asia, and so re- 
 turned victor to Rome. 
 
SECT. II. FROM THE SECOND PUNIC WAE TO THE EMPIRE. 323 
 
 In this way the world-wide sovereignty of Rome became 
 the property of a single possessor. This important change 
 must not be regarded as a thing of chance ; it was necessary 
 — postulated by the circumstances. The democratic constitu- 
 tion could no longer be really maintained in Rome, but only 
 kept up in appearance. Cicero, who had procured himself 
 great respect through his high oratorical talent, and whose 
 learning acquired him considerable influence, always attri- 
 butes the corrupt state of the republic to individuals and their 
 passions. Plato, whom Cicero professedly followed, had the 
 full consciousness that the Athenian state, as it presented 
 itself to him, could not maintain its existence, and there- 
 lore sketched the plan of a perfect constitution accordant 
 with his views. Cicero, on the contrary, does not consider 
 it impossible to preserve the Roman Republic, and only 
 desiderates some temporary assistance for it in its adversity. 
 The nature of the State, and of the Roman State in par- 
 ticular, transcends his comprehension. Cato, too, says of 
 Caesar : " His virtues be execrated, for they have ruined 
 piy country ! " But it was not the mere accident of 
 Csesar's existence that destroyed the Republic— it was 
 Necessity. All the tendencies of the Roman principle 
 were to sovereignty and military force : it contained in it no 
 spiritual centre which it could make the object, occupation, 
 and enjoyment of its Spirit. The aim of patriotism — that 
 of preserving the State — ceases when the lust of personal 
 dominion becomes the impelling passion. The citizens 
 were alienated from the state, for they found in it no objective 
 satisfaction ; and the interests of individuals did not take the 
 same direction as among the Greeks, who could set against 
 the incipient corruption of the practical world, the noblest 
 works of art in painting, sculpture and poetry, and espe- 
 cially a highly cultivated philosophy. Their works of art were 
 only what they had collected from every part of Greece, and 
 therefore not productions of their own ; their riches were not 
 the fruit of industry, as was the case in Athens, but the result 
 of plunder. Elegance — Culture — was foreign to the Romans 
 per se ; they sought to obtain it from the Greeks, and for 
 this purpose a vast number of Greek slaves were brought to 
 Rome. Delos was the centre of this slave trade, and it is 
 said that sometimes on a single day, ten thousand slaves 
 
 T 2 
 
324 
 
 PA. BT III. THE ROMAN WORLD. 
 
 were purchased there. To the Romans, Greek slaves were 
 their poets, their authors, the superintendents of their 
 manufactories, the instructors of their children. 
 
 The Republic could not longer exist in Rome. We see, 
 especially from Cicero's writings, how all public affairs were 
 decided by the private authority of the more eminent citizens 
 — by their power, their wealth ; and what tumultuary pro- 
 ceedings marked all political transactions. In the republic, 
 therefore, there was no longer any security ; that could be 
 looked for only in a single will. Caesar, who may be ad- 
 duced as a paragon of Roman adaptation of means to ends, 
 — who formed his resolves with the most unerring per- 
 spicuity, and executed them with the greatest vigour and 
 practical skill, without any superfluous excitement of mind 
 — Caesar, judged by the great scope of history, did the Right; 
 since he furnished a mediating element, and that kind of 
 political bond which men's condition required. Caesar effected 
 two objects : he calmed the internal strife, and at the same 
 time originated a new one outside the limits of the empire. 
 Tor the conquest of the world had reached hitherto only to 
 the circle of the Alps, but Caesar opened a new scene of 
 achievement : he founded the theatre which was on the 
 point of becoming the centre of History. He then achieved 
 universal sovereignty by a struggle which was decided not 
 in Rome itself, but by his conquest of the whole Roman 
 World. His position was indeed hostile to the republic, 
 but, properly speaking, only to its shadow ; for all that 
 remained of that republic was entirely powerless. Pompey, 
 and all those who were on the side of the senate, exalted 
 their dignitas auctoritas — their individual rule — as the power 
 of the republic ; and the mediocrity which needed protection 
 took refuge under this title. Caesar put an end to the empty 
 formalism of this title, made himself master, and held to- 
 gether the Roman world by force, in opposition to isolated 
 factions. Spite of this we see the noblest men of Rome 
 supposing Caesar's rule to be a merely adventitious thing, 
 and the entire position of affairs to be dependent on his 
 individuality. So thought Cicero, so Brutus and Cassius. 
 They believed that if this one individual were out of the 
 way, the Republic would be ipso facto restored. Possessed 
 by this remarkable hallucination, Brutus, a man of highly 
 
SECT. BZ. HOME UNDER THE EMPERORS. 325 
 
 noble character, and Cassius, endowed with greater practical 
 energy than Cicero, assassinated the man whose virtues they 
 appreciated. But it became immediately manifest that only 
 a single will could guide the Eoman State, and now the 
 Kornaus were compelled to adopt that opinion ; since in all 
 periods of the world a political revolution is sanctioned in 
 men's opinions, when it repeats itself. Thus Napoleon was 
 twice defeated, and the Bourbons twice expelled. By repe- 
 tition that which at first appeared merely a matter of chance 
 and contingency, becomes a real and ratified existence. 
 
 SECTION III. 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 ROME UNDER THE EMPERORS. 
 
 During this period the Romans come into contact with 
 the people destined to succeed them as a "World-Historical 
 nation ; and we have to consider that period in two essential 
 aspects, the secular and the spiritual. In the secular aspect 
 two leading phases must be specially regarded : first, the 
 position of the Ruler ; and secondly, the conversion of mere 
 individuals into persons— the world of legal relations. 
 
 The first thing to be remarked respecting the imperial 
 rule, is that the Roman government was so abstracted from 
 interest, that the great transition to that rule hardly 
 changed anything in the constitution. The popular assem- 
 blies alone were unsuited to the new state of things, and 
 disappeared. The emperor was princeps senatus, Censor, 
 Consul, Tribune : he united all their nominally continuing 
 offices in himself; and the military power — here the most 
 essentially important — was exclusively in his hands. The 
 constitution was an utterly unsubstantial form, from which 
 all vitality, consequently all might and power, had de- 
 parted ; and the only means of maintaining its existence 
 were the legions which the Emperor constantly kept in the 
 vicinity of Rome. Public business was indeed brought 
 before the senate, and the Emperor appeared simply as one 
 
326 
 
 PAET III. THE EOMAN WOBLD. 
 
 of its members ; but the senate was obliged to obey, and 
 whoever ventured to gainsay his will was punished with 
 death, and his property confiscated. Those therefore who 
 had certain death in anticipation, killed themselves, that if 
 they could do nothing more, they might at least preserve 
 their property to their family. Tiberius was the most 
 odious to the Eomans on account of his power of dissimula- 
 tion : he knew very well how to make good use of the base- 
 ness of the senate, in extirpating those among them whom 
 he feared. The power of the Emperor rested, as we have 
 said, on the army, and the Praetorian body-guard which sur- 
 rounded him. But the legions, and especially the Praetorians, 
 soon became conscious of their importance, and arrogated to 
 themselves the disposal of the imperial throne. At first 
 they continued to shew some respect for the family of Caesar 
 Augustus, but subsequently the legions chose their own 
 generals ; such, viz., as had gained their good will and 
 favour, partly by courage and intelligence, partly also by 
 bribes, and indulgence in the administration of military 
 discipline. 
 
 The Emperors conducted themselves in the enjoyment of 
 their power with perfect simplicity, and did not surround 
 themselves with pomp and splendour in Oriental fashion. 
 We find in them traits of simplicity which astonish us. 
 Thus, e.g., Augustus writes a letter to Horace, in which he 
 reproaches him for having failed to address any poem to him, 
 and asks him whether he thinks that that would disgrace 
 him with posterity. Sometimes the Senate made an attempt 
 to regain its consequence by nominating the Emperor : but 
 their nominees were either unable to maintain their ground, 
 or could do so only by bribing the Praetorians. The choice 
 of the senators and the constitution of the senate was more- 
 over left entirely to the caprice of the Emperor. The politi- 
 cal institutions were united in the person of the Emperor ; 
 no moral bond any longer existed ; the will of the Emperor 
 was supreme, and before him there was absolute equality. 
 The freedmen who surrounded the Emperor were often the 
 mightiest in the empire ; for caprice recognizes no distinc- 
 tion. In the person of the Emperor isolated subjectivity 
 lias gained a perfectly unlimited realization. Spirit has re- 
 nounced its proper nature, inasmuch as Limitation of being 
 
SECT, III. HOME UNDER THE EMPERORS. 
 
 327 
 
 and of volition has been constituted an unlimited absolute 
 existence. This arbitrary choice, moreover, has only one 
 limit, the limit of all that is human — death ; and even death 
 I became a theatrical display. Nero, e.g., died a death, which 
 i may furnish an example for the noblest hero, as for the most 
 resigned of sufferers. Individual subjectivity thus entirely 
 emancipated from control, has no inward life, no prospective 
 nor retrospective emotions, no repentance, nor hope,nor fear — 
 not even thought ; for all these involve fixed conditions and 
 aims, while here every condition is purely contingent. The 
 springs of action are none other than desire, lust, passion, 
 fancy — in short, caprice absolutely unfettered. It finds so 
 little limitation in the will of others, that the relation of will 
 to will may be called that of absolute sovereignty to absolute 
 slavery. In the whole known world, no will is imagined 
 that is not subject to the will of the Emperor. But under 
 the sovereignty of. that One, everything is in a condition of 
 order ; for as it actually is [as the Emperor has willed it], it 
 is in due order, and government consists in bringing all into 
 harmony with the sovereign One. The concrete element in 
 the character of the Emperors is therefore of itself of no 
 interest, because the concrete is not of essential importance. 
 Thus there were Emperors of noble character and noble 
 nature, and who highly distinguished themselves by mental 
 and moral culture. Titus, Trajan, the Antonines, are 
 known as such characters, rigorously strict in self-govern- 
 ment ; yet even these produced no change in the state. The 
 proposition was never made during their time, to give the 
 Eoman Empire an organization of free social relationship : 
 they were only a kind of happy chance, which passes over 
 without a trace, and leaves the condition of things as it 
 was. Eor these persons find themselves here in a position 
 in which they cannot be said to act, since no object 
 confronts them in opposition ; they have only to will — well 
 or ill — and it is so. The praiseworthy emperors Vespasian 
 and Titus were succeeded by that coarsest and most loath- 
 some tyrant, Domitian : yet the Eoman historian tells us 
 that the Eoman world enjoyed tranquillizing repose under 
 him. Those single points of light, therefore, effected no 
 change ; the whole empire was subject to the pressure of 
 taxation and plunder ; Italy was depopulated ; the most 
 
328 
 
 PAET III. THE ROMAN WORLD. 
 
 fertile lands remained untilled : and this state of things lay 
 as a fate on the Roman world. 
 
 The second point which we have particularly to remark, 
 is the position taken by individuals as persons. Individuals 
 were perfectly equal (slavery made only a trifling distinc- 
 tion), and without any political rights. As early as the 
 termination of the Social War, the inhabitants of the whole 
 of Italy were put on an equal footing with Roman citizens ; 
 and under Caracalla all distinction between the subjects of 
 the entire Roman empire was abolished. Private Right de- 
 veloped and perfected this equality. The right of property 
 had been previously limited by distinctions of various kinds, 
 which were now abrogated. We observed the Romans pro- 
 ceeding from the principle of abstract Subjectivity, which 
 now realizes itself as Personality in the recognition of Private 
 Right. Private Right, viz., is this, that the social unit as 
 such enjoys consideration in the state, in the reality which 
 he gives to himself — viz., in property. The living political 
 body — that Roman feeling which animated it as its soul - 
 is now brought back to the isolation of a lifeless Private 
 Right. As, when the physical body suffers dissolution, each 
 point gains a life of its own, but which is only the miserable 
 life of worms ; so the political organism is here dissolved into 
 atoms— viz., private persons. Such a condition is Roman 
 life at this epoch : on the one side, Pate and the abstract 
 universality of sovereignty ; on the other, the individual 
 abstraction, " Person," which involves the recognition of 
 the independent dignity of the social unit — not on the 
 ground of the display of the life which he possesses — in his 
 complete individuality — but as the abstract individuum. 
 
 Jt is the pride of the social units to enjoy absolute im- 
 portance as private persons ; for the Ego is thus enabled to 
 assert unbounded claims ; but the substantial interest thus 
 comprehended — the meum — is only of a superficial kind, and 
 the development of private right, which this high principle 
 introduced, involved the decay of political life. — The 
 Emperor domineered only, and could not be said to rule ; for 
 the equitable and moral medium between the sovereign and 
 the subjects was wanting — the bond of a constitution and 
 organization of the state, in which a gradation of circles of 
 social life, enjoying independent recognition, exists in com- 
 
SECT. III. HOME UNDER THE EMPEUOliS. 329 
 
 muiiities and provinces, which, devoting their energies 
 to the general interest, exert an influence on the general 
 government. There are indeed Curia? in the towns, but 
 they are either destitute of weight, or used only as means 
 for oppressing individuals, and for systematic plunder. That, 
 therefore, which was abidingly present to the minds of men 
 was not their country, or such a moral unity as that supplies : 
 the whole state of things urged them to yield themselves to 
 fate, and to strive for a perfect indifference to life,— an in- 
 difference which they sought either in freedom of thought 
 or in directly sensuous enjoyment. Thus man was either at 
 war with existence, or entirely given up to mere sen- 
 suous existence. He either recognized his destiny in the 
 task of acquiring the means of enjoyment through the 
 favour of the Emperor, or through violence, testamentary 
 frauds, and cunning ; or he sought repose in philosophy, 
 which alone was still able to supply something firm and 
 independent : for the systems of that time — Stoicism, Epi- 
 cureanism, and Scepticism — although within their com- 
 mon sphere opposed to each other, had the same general 
 purport, viz., rendering the soul absolutely indifferent to 
 everything which the real world had to offer. These phi- 
 losophies were therefore widely extended among the culti- 
 vated: they produced in man a self-reliant immobility as 
 the result of Thought, i.e. of the activity which produces the 
 Universal. But the inward reconciliation by means of 
 philosophy was itself only an abstract one — in the pure 
 principle of personality ; for Thought, which, as perfectly 
 refined, made itself its own object, and thus harmonized itself, 
 was entirely destitute of a real object, and the immobility 
 of Scepticism made aimlessness itself the object of the Will. 
 This philosophy knew nothing but the negativity of all that 
 assumed to be real, and was the counsel of despair to a 
 world which no longer possessed anything stable. It could 
 not satisfy the living Spirit, which longed after a higher 
 reconciliation. 
 
330 
 
 PART III. THE ROMAN WORLD. 
 
 CHAPTEE II. 
 
 CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 It has been remarked that Caesar inaugurated the Modern 
 "World on the side of reality, while its spiritual and inward 
 existence was unfolded under Augustus. At the beginning of 
 that empire, whose principle we have recognized as finiteness 
 and particular subjectivity exaggerated to infinitude, the 
 salvation of the "World had its birth in the same principle of 
 subjectivity — viz., as a particular person, in abstract subjec- 
 tivity, but in such a way that conversely, finiteness is only 
 the form of his appearance, while infinity and absolutely 
 independent existence constitute the essence and substantial 
 being which it embodies. The Roman World, as it has been 
 described — in its desperate condition and the pain of aban- 
 donment by God — came to an open rupture with reality, and 
 made prominent the general desire for a satisfaction such as 
 can only be attained in "the inner man," the Soul, — thus 
 preparing the ground for a higher Spiritual World. Rome 
 was the Tate that crushed down the gods and all genial life 
 in its hard service, while it was the power that purified the 
 human heart from all speciality. Its entire condition is 
 therefore analogous to a place of birth, and its pain is like the 
 travail-throes of another and higher Spirit, which manifested 
 itself in connection with the Christian Religion. This higher 
 Spirit involves the reconciliation and emancipation of Spirit; 
 while man obtains the consciousness of Spirit in its univer- 
 sality and infinity. The Absolute Object, Truth, is Spirit ; 
 and as man himself is Spirit, he is present [is mirrored] to 
 himself in that object, and thus in his Absolute Object has 
 found Essential Being and his own essential being.* But in 
 order that the objectivity of Essential Being may be done 
 away with, and Spirit be no longer alien to itself — may be 
 with itself, [self-harmonized] — the Naturalness of Spirit — 
 
 * The harsh requirements of an ung-enial tyranny call forth man'a 
 highest powers of self-sacrifice ; he learns his moral capacity ; dis- 
 satisfaction with anything 1 short of perfection ensues, — consciousness of 
 ein ; and this sentiment in its greatest intensity, produces union with God. 
 — Tr. 
 
SECT. III. ROME UNDER THE EMPERORS — CHRISTIANITY". 331 
 
 that in virtue of which man is a special, empirical existence 
 — must be removed ; so that the alien element may be de- 
 stroyed, and the reconciliation of Spirit be accomplished. 
 
 God is thus recognized as Spirit, only when known as the 
 Triune. This new principle is the axis on which the History 
 of the World turns. This is the goal and the starting point 
 of History. " When the fulness of the time was come, God 
 sent his Son," is the statement of the Bible. This means 
 nothing else than that self-consciousness had reached the 
 phases of development [Momente], whose resultant consti- 
 tutes the Idea of Spirit, and had come to feel the necessity 
 of comprehending those phases absolutely. This must now 
 be more fully explained. We said of the Greeks, that the 
 law for their Spirit was : " Man, know thyself." The Greek 
 Spirit was a consciousness of Spirit, but under a limited 
 form, having the element of Nature as an essential ingre- 
 dient. Spirit may have had the upper hand, but the unity 
 of the superior and the subordinate was itself still Natural. 
 Spirit appeared as specialized in the idiosyncrasies of the 
 genius of the several Greek nationalities and of their di- 
 vinities, and was represented by Art, in whose sphere the 
 Sensuous is elevated only to the middle ground of beautiful 
 form and shape, but not to pure Thought. The element of 
 Subjectivity that was wanting to the Greeks, we found 
 among the Romans : but as it was merely formal and in 
 itself indefinite, it took its material from passion and caprice ; 
 — even the most shameful degradations could be here con- 
 nected with a divine dread (vide the declaration of Hispala 
 respecting the Bacchanalia, Livy xxxix. 13). This element 
 of subjectivity is afterwards further realized as Personality 
 of Individuals — a realization which is exactly adequate to 
 the principle, and is equally abstract and formal. As such 
 an Ego [such a personality], I am infinite to myself, and my 
 phenomenal existence consists in the property recognized as 
 mine, and the recognition of my personality. This inner 
 existence goes no further ; all the applications of the prin- 
 ciple merge in this. Individuals are thereby posited as 
 atoms ; but they are at the same time subject to the severe 
 rule of the One, which as monas monadum is a power over 
 private persons [the connection between the ruler and the 
 ruled is not mediated by the claim of Divine or of Con- 
 
332 
 
 PAET III. THE KOHAN WOHLD. 
 
 stitutional Right, or any general principle, but is direct 
 and individual, the Emperor being the immediate lord of 
 each subject in the Empire], That Private Eight is there- 
 fore, ipso facto, a nullity, an ignoring of the personality ; 
 and the supposed condition of Eight turns out to be 
 an absolute destitution of it. This contradiction is the 
 misery of the Roman World. Each person is, according to 
 the principle of his personality, entitled only to possession, 
 while the Person of Persons lays claim to the possession of 
 all these individuals, so that the right assumed by the social 
 unit is at once abrogated and robbed of validity. But the 
 misery of this contradiction is the Discipline of the World. 
 "Zucht" (discipline) is derived from " Ziehen" (to draw).* 
 This " drawing " must be towards something ; there must 
 be some fixed unity in the background in whose direction 
 that drawing takes place, and for which the subject of it is 
 being trained, in order that the standard of attainment may 
 be reached. A renunciation, a disaccustoming, is the means 
 of leading to an absolute basis of existence. That contra- 
 diction which afflicts the Roman "World is the very state of 
 things which constitutes such a discipline — the discipline of 
 that culture which compels personality to display its nothing- 
 ness. But it is reserved for us of a later period to regard 
 this as a training ; to those who are thus trained [traincs, 
 dragged], it seems a blind destiny, to which they submit in 
 the stupor of suffering. The higher condition, in which the 
 soul itself feels pain and longing — in which man is not only 
 " drawn," but feels that the drawing is into himself [into his 
 own inmost nature] — is still absent. What has been reflection 
 on our part must arise in the mind of the subject of this dis- 
 cipline in the form of a consciousness that in himself he is 
 miserable and null. Outward suffering must, as already said, 
 be merged in a sorrow of the inner man. He must feel himself 
 as the negation of himself; he must see that his misery is 
 the misery of his nature — that he is in himself a divided and 
 discordant being. This state of mind, this self-chastening, 
 this pain occasioned by our individual nothingness — the 
 wretchedness of our [isolated] self, and the longing to tran- 
 scend this condition of soul— must be looked for elsewhere 
 
 * So the English " train " from French " trainer "= to draw or drag 1 .— Tr. 
 
SECT. III. ROME UNDER TIIE EMPERORS CHRISTIANITY. 333 
 
 than in the properly Roman World. It is this w hich gives 
 to the Jewish People their World-Historical importance and 
 weight ; for from this state of mind arose that higher phase 
 in which Spirit came to absolute self-consciousness — passing 
 from that alien form of being which is its discord and pain, 
 and mirroring itself in its own essence. The state of feeling 
 in question we find expressed most purely and beautifully in 
 the Psalms of David, and in the Prophets ; the chief burden 
 of whose utterances is the thirst of the soul after God, its 
 profound sorrow for its transgressions, and the desire for 
 righteousness and holiness. Of this Spirit we have the 
 mythical representation at the very beginning of the Jewish 
 canonical books, in the account of the Fall. Man, created 
 in the image of God, lost, it is said, his state of absolute con- 
 tentment, by eating of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good 
 and Evil. Sin consists here only in Knowledge : this is the 
 sinful element, and by it man is stated to have trifled away 
 his Natural happiness. This is a deep truth, that evil lies in 
 consciousness : for the brutes are neither evil nor good ; the 
 merely Natural Man quite as little.* Consciousness occa- 
 sions the separation of the Ego, in its boundless freedom as 
 arbitrary choice, from the pure essence of the Will — i.e., 
 from the Good. Knowledge, as the disannulling of the unity 
 of mere Nature, is the " Fall," which is no casual concep- 
 tion, but the eternal history of Spirit. For the state of 
 innocence, the paradisaical condition, is that of the brute. 
 Paradise is a park, where only brutes, not men, can remain. 
 For the brute is one with God only implicitly [not con- 
 sciously]. Only Man's Spirit (that is) has a self-cognizant 
 existence. This existence for self, this consciousness, is at 
 the same time separation from the Universal and Divine 
 Spirit. If I hold to my abstract Freedom, in contraposition 
 to the Good, I adopt the stand-point of Evil. The Fall is 
 therefore the eternal Mythus of Man — in fact, the very 
 transition by which he becomes man. Persistence in this 
 stand-point is, how ever, Evil, and the feeling of pain at such 
 a condition, and of longing to transcend it, we find in 
 David, when he says : " Lord, create lor me a pure heart, a 
 new steadfast Spirit." This feeling we observe even in the 
 
 " I was alive without the law once, &c."' Rom. vii. 9. — Tr. 
 
334 PART III. THE BO MATT WORLD. 
 
 account of the Fall ; though an announcement of Reconcilia- 
 tion is not made there, but rather one of continuance in 
 misery. Tet we have in this narrative the prediction of re- 
 conciliation in the sentence, " The serpent's head shall be 
 bruised;" but still more profoundly expressed where it ia 
 stated that when God saw that Adam had eaten of that tree, 
 he said, " Behold Adam is become as one of us, knowing 
 Good and Evil." God confirms the words of the Serpent. 
 Implicitly and explicitly, then, we have the truth, that man 
 through Spirit — through cognition of the Universal and the 
 Particular — comprehends God Himself. But it is only God 
 that declares this, — not man : the latter remains, on the 
 contrary, in a state of internal discord. The joy of recon- 
 ciliation is still distant from humanity ; the absolute and 
 final repose of his whole being is not yet discovered to mau. 
 It exists, in the first instance, only for God. As far as the 
 present is concerned, the feeling of pain at his condition is 
 regarded as a final award. The satisfaction which man 
 enjoys at first, consists in the finite and temporal blessings 
 conferred on the Chosen Family and the possession of the 
 Land of Canaan. His repose is not found in God. Sacri- 
 fices are, it is true, offered to Him in the Temple, and atone- 
 ment made by outward offerings and inward penitence. But 
 that mundane satisfaction in the Chosen Family, and its 
 possession of Canaan, was taken from the Jewish people in 
 the chastisement inflicted by the Roman Empire. The 
 Syrian kings did indeed oppress it, but it was left for the 
 Romans to annul its individuality. The Temple of Zion is 
 destroyed ; the God-serving nation is scattered to the winds. 
 Here every source of satisfaction is taken away, and the 
 nation is driven back to the stand-point of that primeval 
 mythus — the stand-point of that painful feeling which hu- 
 manity experiences when thrown upon itself. Opposed to 
 the universal Fatum of the Roman World, we have here the 
 consciousness of Evil and the direction of the mind God- 
 wards. All that remains to be done, is that this funda- 
 mental idea should be expanded to an objective universal 
 sense, and be taken as the concrete existence of man — as the 
 completion of his nature. Formerly the Land of Canaan 
 and themselves as the people of God had been regarded by 
 the Jews as that concrete and complete existence. But this 
 
SECT. III. ROME UND EE THE EMPERORS — CHRISTIANITY. 335 
 
 basis of satisfaction is now lost, and thence arises the sense 
 of misery and failure of hope in God, with whom that happy 
 reality had been essentially connected. Here, then, misery 
 is not the stupid immersion in a blind Fate, but a boundless 
 energy of longing. Stoicism taught only that the Negative 
 j s no t — that pain must not be recognized as a veritable ex- 
 istence ; but Jewish feeling persists in acknowledging Eeality 
 and desires harmony and reconciliation within its sphere ; 
 for that feeling is based on the Oriental Unity of Nature — 
 i.e., the unity of Beality, of Subjectivity, with the substance 
 of the One Essential Being. Through the loss of mere out- 
 ward reality Spirit is driven back within itself ; the side of 
 reality is thus refined to Universality, through the reference 
 of it to the One. The Oriental antithesis of Light and 
 Darkness is transferred to Spirit, and the Darkness becomes 
 Sin. For the abnegation of reality there is no compensation 
 but Subjectivity itself — the Human Will as intrinsically 
 universal ; and thereby alone does reconciliation become 
 possible. Sin is the discerning of Good and Evil as separa- 
 tion; but this discerning likewise heals the ancient hurt, 
 and is the fountain of infinite reconciliation. The discerning 
 in question brings with it the destruction of that which is 
 external and alien in consciousness, and is consequently the 
 return of Subjectivity into itself. This, then, adopted into 
 the actual self-consciousness of the World is the Reconcilia- 
 tion [atonement] of the World. From that unrest of infi- 
 nite sorrow — in which the two sides of the antithesis stand 
 related to each other — is developed the unity of God with 
 Beality (which latter had been posited as negative) i.e., with 
 Subjectivity which had been separated from Him. The 
 infinite loss is counterbalanced only by its infinity, and 
 thereby becomes infinite gain. The recognition of the iden- 
 tity of the Subject and God was introduced into the World 
 when the fulness of Time was come : the consciousness of 
 this identity is the recognition of God in his true essence. 
 The material of Truth is Spirit itself — inherent vital move- 
 ment. The nature of God as pure Spirit, is manifested to 
 man in the Christian Religion. 
 
 But what is Spirit ? It is the one immutably homo- 
 geneous Infinite — pure Identity — which in its second phase 
 separatesitself from itself and makes this second aspect its own 
 
336 PART III. THE ROMAN "WORLD. 
 
 polar opposite, viz. as existence for and in self as contrasted 
 with the Universal. But this separation is annulled by the 
 fact that atomistic Subjectivity, as simple relation to itself, [as 
 occupied with self alone,] is itself the Universal, the Identical 
 with self. If Spirit be defined as absolute reflection within 
 itself in virtue of its absolute duality - Love on the one 
 hand as comprehending the Emotional, [Empfindung] 
 Knowledge on the other hand as Spirit [including the penetra- 
 tive and active faculties, as opposed to the receptive] — it is 
 recognized as Triune: the " Father " and the " Son," and that 
 duality which essentially characterizes it as " Spirit." It must 
 further be observed, that in this truth, the relation of man to 
 this truth is also posited. Eor Spirit makes itself its own 
 [polar] opposite — and is the return from this opposite into 
 itself. Comprehended in pure ideality, that antithetic form 
 of Spirit is the Son of God ; reduced to limited and 
 particular conceptions, it is the "World — Nature and 
 Finite Spirit : Finite Spirit itself therefore is posited 
 as a constituent element [Moment] in the Divine Being. 
 Man himself therefore is comprehended in the Idea of 
 God, and this comprehension may be thus expressed — 
 that the unity of Man with God is posited in the Christian 
 Religion. But this unity must not be superficially con- 
 ceived, as if God were only Man, and Man, without further 
 condition, were God. Man, on the contrary, is God only in so 
 far as he annuls the merely Natural and Limited in his Spirit 
 and elevates himself to God. That is to say, it is obliga- 
 tory on him who is a partaker of the truth, and knows that 
 he himself is a constituent [Moment] of the Divine Idea, 
 to give up his merely natural being : for the Natural is 1he 
 Unspiritual. In this Idea of God, then, is to be found also 
 the Reconciliation that heals the pain and inward suffering of 
 man. For Suffering itself is henceforth recognized as an 
 instrument necessary for producing the unity of man with 
 God. This implicit unity exists in the first place only for 
 the thinking speculative consciousness ; but it must also 
 exist for the sensuous, representative consciousness, — it 
 must become an object for the World, — it must appear, and 
 that in the sensuous form appropriate to Spirit, which is the 
 human. Christ has appear -ed, — a Man who is God, — God 
 who is Man ; and thereby peace and reconciliation have 
 
SECT. III. ROME UNDER THE EMPERORS — CHRISTIANITY. \Y.\1 
 
 accrued to the World. Our thoughts naturally reverts to the 
 Greek anthropomorphism, of which we affirmed that it did not 
 go far enough. .For that natural elation of soul which charac- 
 terized the Greeks did not rise to the Subjective Freedom of 
 the Ego itself — to the inwardness that belongs to the Christian 
 Religion — to the recognition of Spirit as a definite 'positive 
 being. — The appearance of the Chris ian God involves fur- 
 ther its being unique in its kind ; it can occur only once, 
 for God is realized as Subject, and as manifested Subjectivity 
 is exclusively One Individual. The Lamas are ever and 
 anon chosen anew ; because God is known in the East as 
 Substance, whose infinity of form is recognized merely in an 
 unlimited multeity of outward and particular manifestations. 
 But subjectivity as infinite relation to self, has its form in 
 itself, and as manifested, must be a unity excluding all others. 
 — Moreover the sensuous existence in which Spirit is em- 
 bodied is only a transitional phase. Christ dies ; only as 
 dead, is he exalted to Heaven and sits at the right hand of 
 God ; only thus is he Spirit. He himself says : " When 1 
 I am no longer with you, the Spirit will guide you into all 
 I truth." Sot till the Feast of Pentecost were the Apostles 
 I filled with the Holy Ghost. To the Apostles, Christ as 
 
 • living, was not that which he was to them subsequently as 
 the Spirit of the Church, in which he became to them for the 
 
 • first time an object for their truly spiritual consciousness. 
 
 I On the same principle, we do not adopt the right point of 
 I view in thinking of Christ only as an historical bygone per- 
 i sonality. So regarded, the question is asked, What are we 
 i to make of his birth, his Father and Mother, his early 
 domestic relations, his miracles, &c? — i. e. What is he unspi- 
 \ ritually regarded ? Considered only in respect of his talents, 
 character and morality — as a Teacher and so forth — we place 
 him in the same category with Socrates and others, though 
 I his morality may be ranked higher. But excellence of 
 , character, morality, &c. — all this is not the ne plus ultra in 
 I the requirements of Spirit — does not enable man to gain the 
 i ; speculative idea of Spirit for his conceptive faculty. If 
 Christ is to be looked upon only as an excellent, even im- 
 peccable individual, and nothing more, the conception of the 
 Speculative Idea, of Absolute Truth is ignored. But this is 
 the desideratum, the point from which we have to start, 
 
 z 
 
338 PAET III. THE EOMAN WOELD. 
 
 Make of Christ what you will, exegetically, critically, histori- 
 cally, — demonstrate as you please, how the doctrines of the 
 Church were established by Councils, attained currency as 
 the result of this or that episcopal interest or passion, or 
 originated in this or that quarter ; — let all such circumstances 
 have been what they might, — the only concerning question 
 is: What is the Idea or the Truth in and for itself? 
 
 Further, the real attestation of the Divinity of Christ is the 
 witness of one's own Spirit, — not Miracles ; for only Spirit 
 recognizes Spirit. The miracles may lead the way to such 
 recognition. A miracle implies that the natural course of 
 things is interrupted : but it is very much a question of 
 relation what we call the "natural course;" and the 
 phenomena of the magnet might under cover of this defi- 
 nition, be reckoned miraculous. Nor does the miracle of the 
 Divine Mission of Christ prove anything ; for Socrates like- 
 wise introduced a new self- consciousness on the part of 
 Spirit, diverse from the traditional tenor of men's concep- 
 tions. The main question is not his Divine Mission but 
 the revelation made in Christ and the purport of his mission. 
 Christ himself blames the Pharisees for desiring miracles 
 of him, and speaks of false prophets who wül perform 
 miracles. 
 
 We have next to consider how the Christian view resulted 
 in the formation of the Church. To pursue the rationale of 
 its development from the Idea of Christianity would lead 
 us too far, and we have here to indicate only the general 
 phases which the process assumed. The first phase is the 
 founding of the Christian religion, in which its principle is 
 expressed with unrestrained energy, but in the first instance 
 abstractly. This we find in the Gospels, where the infinity 
 of Spirit, — its elevation into the spiritual world [as the exclu- 
 sively true and authorized existence] — is the main theme. 
 With transcendant boldness does Christ stand forth among 
 the Jewish people. ' k Blessed are the pure in heart, for they 
 shall see God," he proclaims in the Sermon on the Mount, 
 — a dictum of the noblest simplicity, and pregnant with an 
 elastic energy of rebound against all the adventitious 
 appliances with which the human soul can be burdened. 
 The pure heart is the domain in which God is present to 
 man : he who is imbued with the spirit of this apopntnegm 
 
SECT. III. HOME UNDER TIIE EMPERORS — CHRISTIANITY. 339 
 
 is armed against all alien bonds and superstitions. The other 
 utterances are of the same tenor : " Blessed are the peace- 
 makers : for they shall be called the children of God ;" and, 
 " Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness' 
 sake : for their's is the kingdom of heaven ;" and, " Be ye 
 perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect." 
 Christ enforces here a completely unmistakeable requirement. 
 The infinite exaltation of Spirit to absolute purity is 
 placed at the beginning as the foundation of all. The form of 
 the instrumentality by which that result is to be accomplished 
 is not yet given, but the result itself is the subject of an 
 absolute command. As regards the relation of this stand- 
 point of Spirit to secular existence, we find that spiritual 
 purity presented as the substantial basis. " Seek ye first 
 the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all things 
 shall be added unto you;" and, " The sufferings of this pre- 
 sent time are not worthy to be compared with that glory. " # 
 Here Christ says that outward sufferings, as such, are not to 
 be feared or fled from, for they are nothing as compared with 
 that glory. Further on, this doctrine, as tbe natural conse- 
 quence of its appearing in an abstract form, assumes & polemi- 
 cal direction. " If thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out and 
 cast it from thee : if thy right hand offend thee, cut it off and 
 cast it from thee. It is better that one of thy members 
 should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast 
 into hell." Whatever might disturb the purity of the soul, 
 should be destroyed. So in reference to property and 
 worldly gain, it is said : " Care not for your life, what ye shall 
 eat and drink, nor for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not 
 the life more than meat, and the body more than raiment ? 
 Behold the fowls of the air : for they sow not, neither do 
 they reap, nor gather into barns ; yet your heavenly Father 
 feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they ?" 
 Labour for subsistence is thus reprobated: "Wilt thou be 
 perfect, go and sell what thou hast, and give it to the poor, so 
 shalt thou have a treasure in heaven, and come, follow me." 
 Were this precept directly complied with, a social revolu- 
 tion must take place ; the poor would become the rich. Of 
 
 * The words in the text occur in Rom. viii. 18. but the import of Mat. 
 v. i2. is Dearly the same. Tr. 
 
 z2 
 
340 PART III. THE ROMAN WORLD. 
 
 such supreme moment, it is implied, is the doctrine of 
 Christ, that all duties and moral bonds are unimportant as 
 compared with it. To a youth who wishes to delay the duties 
 of discipleship till he has buried his father, Christ says : 
 " Let the dead bury their dead — follow thou me." " He that 
 loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of 
 me." He said: "Who is my mother? and who are my 
 brethren ? and stretched his hand out over his disciples and 
 said, Behold my mother and my brethren ! For he that 
 doeth the will of my Father in heaven, the same is my 
 brother, and sister and mother." Yes, it is even said : " Think 
 not that I am come to send peace on the Earth. I am not 
 come to send peace but the siuord. For I am come to set a 
 man against his father, and the daughter against her mother, 
 and the mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law" Here 
 then is an abstraction from all that belongs to reality, even 
 from moral ties. We may say that nowhere are to be found 
 such revolutionary utterances as in the Grospels ; for every- 
 thing that had been respected, is treated as a matter of in- 
 difference — as worthy of no regard. 
 
 The next point is the development of this principle ; 
 and the whole sequel of History is the history of its 
 development. Its first realization is the formation by the 
 friends of Christ, of a Society — a Church. It has been al- 
 ready remarked that only after the death of Christ could the 
 Spirit come upon his friends ; that only then were they able to 
 conceive the true idea of Glod, viz., that in Christ man is 
 redeemed and reconciled : for in him the idea of eternal truth 
 is recognized, the essence of man acknowledged to be Spirit, 
 and the fact proclaimed that only by stripping himself of his 
 finiteness and surrendering himself to pure self-consciousness, 
 does he attain the truth. Christ — man as man — in whom 
 the unity of G od and man has appeared, has in his death, and 
 his history generally, himself presented the eternal history of 
 Spirit, — a history which every man has to accomplish in him- 
 self, in order to exist as Spirit, or to become a child of Grod, 
 a citizen of his kingdom. The followers of Christ, who 
 combine on this principle and live in the spiritual life as their 
 aim, form the Church, which is the Kingdom of Grod. " Where 
 two or three are gathered together in my name" (i.e. "in 
 the character of partakers in my being ") says Christ, 
 
SECT. III. ROME UNDER THE EMPERORS — CHRISTIANITY. 311 
 
 "there am I in the midst of them." The Church is a real 
 present life in the Spirit of Christ. 
 
 It is important that the Christian religion be not limited 
 to the teachings of Christ himself: it is in the Apostles 
 that the completed and developed truth is first exhibited. 
 This complex of thought unfolded itself in the Christian com- ' 
 munity. That community, in its first experiences, found 
 itself sustaining a double relation — first, a relation to the 
 Roman World, and secondly, to the truth whose develop- 
 ment was its aim. "We will pursue these different relations 
 separately. 
 
 The Christian community found itself in the Roman world, 
 and in this world the extension of the Christian religion 
 was to take place. That community must therefore keep 
 itself removed from all activity in the State— constitute it- 
 self a separate company, and not react against the decrees, 
 views, and transactions of the state. But as it was secluded 
 from the state, and consequently did not hold the Emperor 
 for its absolute sovereign, it was the object of persecution 
 and hate. Then was manifested that infinite inward liberty 
 which it enjoyed, in the great steadfastness with which suf- 
 ferings and sorrows were patiently borne for the sake of the 
 highest truth. It was less the miracles of the Apostles 
 that gave to Christianity its outward extension and inward 
 strength, than the substance, the truth of the doctrine itself. 
 Christ himself says : " Many will say to me at that day : 
 , Lord, Lord ! have we not prophesied in thy name, have we 
 i not cast out devils in thy name, have we not in thy name 
 done many wonderful deeds? Then will I profess unto 
 them : I never knew you, depart from me all ye workers of 
 iniquity." 
 
 As regards its other relation, viz., that to the Truth, it 
 I is especially important to remark that the Dogma — the 
 Theoretical — was already matured within the Roman World, 
 while we find the development of the State from that principle, 
 a much later growth. The Fathers of the Church and the 
 Councils constituted the dogma; but a chief element in this 
 constitution was supplied by the previous development of 
 philosophy. Let us examine more closely how the philoso- 
 phy of the time stood related to religion. It has already 
 been remarked that the Roman inwardness and subjectivity, 
 
312 PART lit. THE ROMAN WORLD. 
 
 which presented itself only abstractly, as soulless per- 
 sonality in the exclusive position assumed by the Ego, was 
 refined by the philosophy of Stoicism and Scepticism to the 
 form of Universality. The ground of Thought was thereby 
 reached, and G-od was known in Thought as the One Infinite. 
 The Universal stands here only as an unimportant predicate — 
 not itself a Subject, but requiring a concrete particular appli- 
 cation to make it such. But the One and Universal, the 
 Illimitable conceived by fancy, is essentially Oriental ; for 
 measureless conceptions, carrying all limited existence beyond 
 iuS proper bounds, are indigenous to the East. Presented in 
 the domain of Thought itself, the Oriental One is the invisible 
 and non-sensuous Grod of the Israelitish people, but whom 
 they also make an object of conception as a person. This 
 principle became "World-Historical with Christianity. — In the 
 Roman W orld, the union of the East and West had taken 
 place in the first instance by means of conquest : it took 
 place now inwardly, psychologically, also;— the Spirit of the 
 East spreading over the West. The worship of Isis and 
 that of Mithra had been extended through the whole Roman 
 World ; Spirit, lost in the outward and in limited aims, 
 yearned after an Infinite. But the West desired a deeper, 
 purely inward Universality — an Infinite possessed at the 
 same time of positive qualities. Again, it was in Egypt — in' 
 Alexandria, viz., the centre of communication between the 
 East and the West — that the problem of the age was pro- 
 posed for Thought ; and the solution now found was — Spirit. 
 There the two principles came into scientific contact, and 
 were scientifically worked out. It is especially remarkable 
 to observe there, learned Jews such as Philo, connecting ab- 
 stract forms of the concrete, which they derived from Plato 
 and Aristotle, with their conception of the Infinite, and re- 
 cognizing God according to the more concrete idea of Spirit, 
 under the definition of the Adyog. So, also, did the pro- 
 found thinkers of Alexandria comprehend the unity of the 
 Platonic and Aristotelian Philosophy ; and their speculative 
 thinking attained those abstract ideas which are likewise 
 the fundamental purport of the Christian religion. The 
 application, by way of postulate, to the pagan religion, of 
 ideas recognized as true, was a direction which philosophy 
 had already taken among the heathen. Plato had altogether 
 
SECT. III. ROME UNDER TUE EMPERORS— CHRISTIANITY. 343 
 
 repudiated the current mythology, and, with his followers, 
 was accused of Atheism. The Alexandrians, on the con- 
 trary, endeavoured to demonstrate a speculative truth in 
 the Greek conceptions of the gods : and the Emperor Ju- 
 lian the Apostate resumed the attempt, asserting that the 
 pagan ceremonials had a strict connection with rationality. 
 The heathen felt, as it were, obliged to give to their divini- 
 ties the semblance of something higher than sensuous con- 
 ceptions ; they therefore attempted to spiritualize them. 
 Thus much is also certain, that the Greek religion contains 
 a degree of Eeason ; for the substance of Spirit is Reason, 
 and its product must be something Rational. It makes a 
 difference, however, whether Reason is explicitly developed 
 in Religion, or merely adumbrated by it, as constituting its 
 hidden basis. And while the Greeks thus spiritualized 
 their sensuous divinities, the Christians also, on their side, 
 sought for a profounder sense in the historical part of their 
 religion. Just as Philo found a deeper import shadowed 
 forth in the Mosaic record, and idealized what he considered 
 the bare shell of the narrative, so also did the Christians 
 treat their records —partly with a polemic view, but still 
 more largely from a free and spontaneous interest in the 
 process. But the instrumentality of philosophy in introduc- 
 ing these dogmas into the Christian Religion, is no suffi- 
 cient ground for asserting that they were foreign to Chris- 
 tianity and had nothing to do with it. It is a matter of 
 perfect indifference where a thing originated ; the only 
 question is: " Is it true in and for itself?" Many think 
 that by pronouncing a doctrine to be Neo-Platonic, they 
 have ipso facto banished it from Christianity. "Whether a 
 Christian doctrine stands exactly thus or thus in the Bible, 
 — the point to which the exegetical scholars of modern 
 times devote all their attention — is not the only question. 
 The Letter kills, the Spirit makes alive : this they say them- 
 selves, yet pervert the sentiment by taking the Understand- 
 ing for the Spirit. It was the Church that recognized and 
 : established the doctrines in question — i. e. the Spirit of the 
 Church ; and it is itself an Article of Doctrine : " I believe 
 in a Holy Church;"* as Christ himself also said: "The 
 Spirit will guide you into all truth." In the Nicene Coun- 
 
 * Tn the Lutheran ritual, " a holy Catholic Church" is substituted for 
 " the Holy Catholic Church," in the Belief.— Tr. 
 
344 
 
 PAKT III. THE KOMAN WORLD. 
 
 eil (a d. 325), was ultimately established a fixed confession 
 of faith, to which we still adhere : this confession had nor 
 indeed, a speculative^?^, but the profoundly speculative is 
 most intimately inwoven with the manifestation of Christ 
 himself. Even in John (ir apxjf "h v ^oyog nai 6 \6yog H)v 7rpog 
 top Beuv, Kat Beog i\v 6 Xoyog) we see the commencement of a 
 profounder comprehension. The profoundest thought is 
 connected with the personality of Christ — with the historical 
 and external ; and it is the very grandeur of the Christian re- 
 ligion that, with all this profundity, it is easy of comprehen- 
 sion by our consciousness in its outward aspect, while, at the 
 same time, it summons us to penetrate deeper. It is thus 
 adapted to every grade of culture, and yet satisfies the highest 
 requirements. 
 
 Having spoken of the relation of the Christian commu- 
 nity to the Roman World on the one side, and to the truth 
 contained in its doctrines on the other side, we come to the 
 third point — in which both doctrine and the external world 
 are concerned — the Church. The Christian community is 
 the Kingdom of Christ — its influencing present Spirit being 
 Christ : for this kingdom has an actual existence, not a 
 merely future one. This spiritual actuality has, therefore, 
 also a phenomenal existence ; and that, not only as contrasted 
 with heathenism, but with secular existence generally. For 
 the Church, as presenting this outward existence, is not 
 merely a religion as opposed to another religion, but is at 
 the same time a particular form of secular existence, occu- 
 pying a place side by side with other secular existence. The 
 religious existence of the Church is governed by Christ ; the 
 secular side of its government is left to the free choice of 
 the members themselves. Into this kingdom of God an 
 organization must be introduced. In the first instance, all 
 the members know themselves filled with the Spirit ; the 
 whole community perceives the truth and gives expression 
 to it ; yet, together with this common participation of 
 spiritual influence, arises the necessity of a presidency of 
 guidance and teaching — a body distinct from the community 
 at large. Those are chosen as presidents who are distin- 
 guished for talents, character, fervour of piety, a holy life, 
 learning, and culture generally. The presidents, — those who 
 have a superior acquaintance with that substantial Life of 
 which all are partakers, and who are instructors in that Life — 
 
SECT. III. EOME UNDER THE EMPERORS — CHRISTIANITY. 3^5 
 
 those who establish what is truth, and those who dispense its 
 enjoyment, — are distinguished from the community at large, 
 as persons endowed with knowledge and governing power are 
 from the governed. To the intelligent presiding body, the 
 Spirit comes in a fully revealed and explicit form; in the mass 
 of the community that Spirit is only implicit. While, there- 
 fore, in the presiding body, the Spirit exists as self-appre- 
 ciating and self-cognizant, it becomes an authority in spi- 
 ritual as well as in secular matters — an authority for the 
 truth and for the relation of each individual to the truth, 
 determining how he should conduct himself so as to act in 
 accordance with the Truth. This distinction occasions the 
 rise of an Ecclesiastical Kingdom in the Kingdom of God. 
 Such a distinction is inevitable ; but the existence of an autho- 
 ritative government for the Spiritual, when closely examined, 
 shews that human subjectivity in its proper form has not yet 
 developed itself. In the heart, indeed, the evil will is sur- 
 rendered, but the will, as human, is not yet interpenetrated 
 by the Deity ; the human will is emancipated only ab- 
 stractly—not in its concrete reality — for the whole sequel ( f 
 History is occupied with the realization of this concrete 
 Freedom. Up to this point, finite Freedom has been only 
 annulled, to make way for infinite Freedom. The latter has 
 not yet penetrated secular existence with its rays. Subjective 
 Freedom has not yet attained validity as such : Insight [spe- 
 culative conviction] does not yet rest on a basis of its own, 
 but is content to inhere in the spirit of an extrinsic authority. 
 That Spiritual [geistig] kingdom has, therefore, assumed the 
 shape of an Ecclesiastical [geistlich] one, as the relation of 
 the substantial being and essence of Spirit to human Free- 
 dom. Besides the interior organization already mentioned, 
 we find the Christian community assuming also a definite 
 external position, and becoming the possessor of property 
 of its own. As property belonging to the spiritual world, 
 it is presumed to enjoy special protection ; and the immediate 
 inference from this is, that the Church has no dues to pay to 
 the state, and that ecclesiastical persons are not amenable to 
 the jurisdiction of the secular courts. This entails the govern- 
 ment by the Church itself of ecclesiastical property and 
 ecclesiastical persons. Thus there originates with the Church 
 the contrasted spectacle of a body consisting only of private 
 
346 
 
 PART III. THE ROMAN WORLD. 
 
 persons and the power of the Emperor on the secular side ; 
 on the other side, the perfect democracy of the spiritual co 
 munity, choosing its own president. Priestly consecratio 
 however, soon changes this democracy into aristocracy ; 
 though the farther development of the Church does no 
 belong to the period now under consideration, but must 
 referred to the world of a later date. 
 
 It was then through the Christian Religion that the Abs 
 lute Idea of God, in its true conception, attained consciou 
 ness. Here Man, too, finds himself comprehended in his tr 
 nature, given in the specific conception of " the Son 
 Man, finite when regarded for himself is yet at the sa 
 time the Image of God and a fountain of infinity 
 himself He is the object of his own existence — has 
 himself an infinite value, an eternal destiny. Con 
 quently he has his true home in a super-sensuous world — 
 infinite subjectivity, gained only by a rupture with me 
 Natural existence and volition, and by his labour to brea 
 their power within him. This is religious self-consciou 
 ness. But in order to enter the sphere and display the acti 
 vitality of that religious life, humanity must become capab 
 of it. This capability is the Ivvafiig for that evepyeia. Wh 
 therefore remains to be considered is, those conditions o 
 humanity which are the necessary corollary to the con- 
 sideration that Man is Absolute Self-consciousness — his 
 Spiritual nature being the starting-point and presupposition. 
 These conditions are themselves not yet of a concrete order, 
 but simply the first abstract principles, which are won by 
 the instrumentality of the Christian Religion for the secular 
 State. First, under Christianity Slavery is impossible ; for 
 man as man — in the abstract essence of his nature — is con- 
 templated in God ; each unit of mankind is an object of the 
 grace of God and of the Divine purpose : " God will have 
 all men to be saved." Utterly excluding all speciality, 
 therefore, man, in and for himself —in his simple quality of 
 man— has infinite value ; and this infinite value abolishes, ipso 
 facto, all particularity attaching to birth or country. The 
 other, the second principle, regards the subjectivity of man 
 in its bearing on the Fortuitous — on Chance. Humanity has 
 this sphere of free Spirituality in and for itself, and every- 
 thing else must proceed from it. The place appropriated to 
 
: SECT. HL ROME UNDER THE EMPERORS — CHRISTI ANIT Y . 3 17 
 
 I the abode and presence of the Divine Spirit — the sphere in 
 question — is Spiritual Subjectivity, and is constituted the 
 place to which all contingency is amenable. It follows 
 
 ' thenoe, that what we observed among the Greeks as a form 
 of Customary Morality, cannot maintain its position in the 
 Christian world. For that morality is spontaneous unre- 
 flected Wont ; while the Christian principle is independent 
 subjectivity — the soil on which grows the True. Now an 
 unreflected morality cannot continue to hold its ground 
 against the principle of Subjective Freedom. Greek Free- 
 dom was that of Hap and " Genius ;" it was still conditioned 
 by Slaves and Oracles ; but now the principle of absolute 
 
 \ Freedom in God makes its appearance. Man now no longer 
 sustains the relation of Dependence, but of Love — in the 
 consciousness that he is a partaker in the Divine existence. 
 In regard to particular aims [such as the Greeks referred to 
 oracular decision], man now forms his own determinations 
 and recognizes himself as plenipotentiary in regard to all 
 finite existence. All that is special retreats into the back- 
 ground before that Spiritual sphere of subjectivity, which 
 takes a secondary position only in presence of the Divine 
 
 I Spirit. The superstition of oracles and auspices is thereby 
 
 I entirely abrogated : Man is recognized as the absolute 
 
 I authority in crises of decision. 
 
 It is the two principles just treated of, that now attach 
 
 '> to Spirit in this its self-contained phase. The inner shrine 
 
 I of man is designed, on the one hand, to train the citizen of 
 
 i the religious life to bring himself into harmony with the 
 Spirit of God ; on the other hand, this is the point du 
 
 ! depart for determining secular relations, and its condition is 
 the theme of Christian History. The change which piety 
 effects must not remain concealed in the recesses of the 
 heart, but must become an actual, present world, complying 
 with the conditions prescribed by that Absolute Spirit. 
 Piety of heart does not, per se, involve the submission 
 of the subjective will, in its external relations, to that 
 piety. On the contrary we see all passions increasingly 
 rampant in the sphere of reality, because that sphere is 
 looked down upon with contempt, from the lofty position 
 attained by the world of mind, as one destitute of all claim 
 and value. The problem to be solved is therefore the im- 
 
348 
 
 Pakt hi. the roman world. 
 
 buing of the sphere of [ordinary] unreflected Spiritual 
 existence, with the Idea of Spirit. A general observation 
 here suggests itself. From time immemorial it has been 
 customary to assume an opposition between Reason and 
 Religion, as also between Religion and the World ; but on 
 investigation this turns out to be only a distinction. Reason 
 in general is the Positive Existence [Wesen] of Spirit, 
 divine as well as human. The distinction between Religion 
 and the World is only this — that Religion as such, is Reason 
 in the soul and heart — that it is a temple in which Truth 
 and Freedom in Grod are presented to the conceptive faculty : 
 the State, on the other hand, regulated by the selfsame 
 Reason, is a temple of Human Freedom concerned with the 
 perception and volition of a reality, whose purport may itself 
 be called divine. Thus Freedom in the State is preserved and 
 established by Religion, since moral rectitude in the State 
 is only the carrying out of that which constitutes the funda- 
 mental principle of Religion. The process displayed in 
 History is only the manifestation of Religion as Human 
 Reason — the production of the religious principle which 
 dwells in the heart of man, under the form of Secular Free- 
 dom. Thus the discord between the inner life of the heart 
 and the actual world is removed. To realize this is, how- 
 ever, the vocation of another people — or other peoples — viz., 
 the German. In ancient Rome itself, Christianity cannot 
 find a ground on which it may become actual, and develop an 
 empire. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE BYZANTINE EMPIRE. 
 
 With Constantine the Great the Christian religion 
 ascended the throne of the empire. He was followed by a 
 succession of Christian Emperors, interrupted only by Julian, 
 — who however, could do but little for the prostrate ancient 
 faith. The Roman Empire embraced the whole civilized 
 earth, from the Western Ocean to the Tigris, — from the 
 interior of Africa, to the Danube (Pannonia, Dacia.) Chris« 
 
SECT. III. UNDER THE EMPERORS — BYZANTINE PERIOD. 319 
 
 tianity soon spread through the length and breadth of this 
 enormous realm. Rome had long ceased to be the exclusive 
 residence of the Emperors. Many of Constantine's pre- 
 decessors had resided in Milan or other places ; and he him- 
 self established a second court in the ancient Byzantium, 
 which received the name of Constantinople. From the first 
 its population consisted chiefly of Christians, and Constan- 
 tino lavished every appliance to render this new abode equal 
 in splendour to the old. The empire still remained in its 
 integrity till Theodosius the Great made permanent a separa- 
 tion that had been only occasional, and divided it between 
 his two sons. The reign of Theodosius displayed the last 
 faint glimmer of that splendour which had glorified the 
 Roman world. Under him the pagan temples were shut, 
 the sacrifices and ceremonies abolished, and paganism itself 
 forbidden : gradually however it entirely vanished of itself. 
 The heathen orators of the time cannot sufficiently express 
 their wonder and astonishment at the monstrous contrast 
 between the days of their forefathers and their own. 
 " Our Temples have become Tombs. The places which 
 were formerly adorned with the holy statues of the Gods 
 are now covered with sacred bones (relics of the Martyrs) ; 
 men who have suffered a shameful death for their crimes, 
 whose bodies are covered with stripes, and whose heads have 
 been embalmed, are the object of veneration." All that 
 was contemned is exalted ; all that was formerly revered, is 
 trodden in the dust. The last of the pagans express this 
 enormous contrast with profound lamentation. 
 
 The Roman Empire was divided between the two sons of 
 Theodosius. The elder, Arcadius, received the Eastern 
 Empire : — Ancient Greece, with Thrace, Asia Minor, Syria, 
 Egypt ; the younger, Honorius, the Western : — Italy, 
 Africa, Spain, Gaul, Britain. Immediately after the death 
 of Theodosius, confusion entered, and the Roman provinces 
 were overwhelmed by alien peoples. Already, under the 
 Emperor Valens, the Visigoths, pressed by the Huns, had 
 solicited a domicile on the hither side of the Danube. 
 This was granted them, on the condition that they should 
 defend the border provinces of the empire. But maltreat- 
 ment roused them to revolt. Valens was beaten and fell 
 on the field. The later emperors paid court to the leader 
 
350 PART III. THE ROMAN WORLD. 
 
 of these Goths. Alaric, the bold Gothic Chief, turned his 
 arms against Italy. Stilicho, the general and minister of Ho- 
 norius, stayed his course a.d. 403, by the battle of Pollentia, 
 as at a later date he also routed Radagaisus, leader of the 
 Alans, Suevi, and others. Alaric now attacked Gaul and 
 Spain, and on the fall of Stilicho returned to Italy. 
 Rome was stormed and plundered by him A.n. 410. After- 
 wards Attila advanced on it with the terrible might of the 
 Huns, — one of those purely Oriental phenomena, which, 
 like a mere storm-torrent, rise to a furious height and bear 
 down everything in their course, but in a brief space are 
 so completely spent, that nothing is seen of them but the 
 traces they have left in the ruins which they have occasioned. 
 Attila pressed into Graul, where, a.D. 451, a vigorous resis- 
 tance was offered him by iEtius, near Chalons on the Marne. 
 Victory remained doubtful. Attila subsequently marched 
 upon Italy and died in the year 453. Soon afterwards how- 
 ever Rome was taken and plundered by the Vandals under 
 Genseric. Finally, the dignity of the "Western Emperors 
 became a farce, and their empty title was abolished by 
 Odoacer, King of the Heruli. 
 
 The Eastern Empire long survived, and in the "West a 
 new Christian population was formed from the invading bar- 
 barian hordes. Christianity had at first kept aloof from the 
 state, and the development which it experienced related to 
 doctrine, internal organization, discipline, &c. But now it 
 had become dominant : it was now a political power, a poli- 
 tical motive. We now see Christianity under two forms: 
 on the one side barbarian nations whose culture was yet to 
 begin, who have to acquire the very rudiments of science, 
 law, and polity ; on the other side civilized peoples in pos- 
 session of Greek science and a highly refined Oriental 
 culture. Municipal legislation among them was complete 
 — having reached the highest perfection through the labours 
 of the great Roman jurisconsults ; so that the corpus juris 
 compiled at the instance of the Emperor Justinian, still 
 excites the admiration of the world. Here the Christian 
 religion is placed in the midst of a developed civilization, 
 which did not proceed from it. There, on the contrary, the 
 process of culture has its very first step still to take, and 
 that within the sphere of Christianity. 
 
SECT. III. UNDER THE EMPEUOItS— BYZANTINE PERIOD. 351 
 
 These two empires, therefore, present a most remarkable 
 contrast, in which we have before our eyes a grand example 
 of the necessity of a people's having its culture developed in 
 the spirit of the Christian religion. The history of the highly 
 civilized Eastern Empire — where as we might suppose, the 
 Spirit of Christianity could be taken up in its truth and 
 purity — exhibits to us a millennial series of uninterrupted 
 crimes, weaknesses, basenesses and want of principle; a 
 most repulsive and consequently a most uninteresting pic- 
 ture. It is evident here, how Christianity may be abstract, 
 and how as such it is powerless, on account of its very purity 
 and intrinsic spirituality. It may even be entirely separated 
 from the World, as e. g. in Monasticism — which originated 
 in Egypt. It is a common notion and saying, in reference 
 to the power of Religion, abstractly considered, over the hearts 
 of men, that if Christian love were universal, private and 
 political life would both be perfect, and the state of mankind 
 would be thoroughly righteous and moral. Such representa- 
 tions may be a pious wish, but do not possess truth ; for 
 religion is something internal, having to do with conscience 
 alone. To it all the passions and desires are opposed, and 
 in order that heart, will, intelligence may become true, they 
 must be thoroughly educated ; Eight must become Custom — 
 Habit ; practical activity must be elevated to rational action ; 
 the State must have a rational organization, and then at 
 length does the will of individuals become a truly righteous 
 one. Light shining in darkness may perhaps give colour, 
 but not a picture animated by Spirit. The Byzantine 
 Empire is a grand example of how the Christian religion 
 may maintain an abstract character among a cultivated peo- 
 ple, if the whole organization of the State and ot the Laws is 
 not reconstructed in harmony with its principle. At Byzan- 
 tium Christianity had fallen into the hands of the dregs of 
 the population — the lawless mob. Popular licence on the 
 one side and courtly baseness on the other side, take refuge 
 under the sanction of religion, and degrade the latter to a 
 disgusting object. In regard to religion, two interests ob- 
 tained prominence : first, the settlement of doctrine ; and 
 secondly, the appointment to ecclesiastical offices. The 
 settlement of doctrine pertained to the Councils and Church 
 authorities ; but the principle of Christianity is Freedom — 
 
352 PART III. THE ROMAN WORLD. 
 
 subjective insight. These matters therefore, were special 
 subjects of contention for the populace ; violent civil wars 
 arose, and every where might be witnessed scenes of murder, 
 conflagration and pillage, perpetrated in the cause of Christian 
 dogmas. A famous schism e.g. occurred in reference to the 
 dogma of the Tpiaaywv. The words read : " Holy, Holy, 
 Holy, is the Lord God of Zebaoth." To this, one party, 
 in honour of Christ, added — u who was crucified for us." 
 Another party rejected the addition, and sanguinary strug- 
 gles ensued. In the contest on the question whether Christ 
 were ofioovatog or bfxoiovaiog— that is of the same or of similar 
 nature with God — the one letter t cost many thousands their 
 lives. Especially notorious are the contentions about 
 Images, in which it often happened, that the Emperor 
 declared for the images and the Patriarch against, or con- 
 versely. Streams of blood flowed as the result. Gregory 
 Nazianzen says somewhere : " This city (Constantinople,) 
 is full of handicraftsmen and slaves, who are all profound 
 theologians, and preach in their workshops and in the streets. 
 If you want a man to change a piece of silver, he instructs 
 you in what consists the distinction between the Father 
 and the Son : if you ask the price of a loaf of bread, you 
 receive for answer, — that the Son is inferior to the Eather ; 
 and if you ask, whether the bread is ready, the rejoinder is 
 that the genesis of the Son was from Nothing." The Idea of 
 Spirit contained in this doctrine was thus treated in an utterly 
 unspiritual manner. The appointment to the Patriarchate 
 at Constantinople, Antioch and Alexandria, and the jealousy 
 and ambition of the Patriarchs likewise occasioned many 
 intestine struggles. To all these religious contentions was 
 added the interest in the gladiators and their combats, and in 
 the parties of the blue and green colour, which likewise 
 occasioned the bloodiest encounters ; a sign of the most 
 fearful degradation, as proving that all feeling for what is 
 serious and elevated is lost, and that the delirium of religious 
 passion is quite consistent with an appetite for gross and 
 barbarous spectacles. 
 
 The chief points in the Christian religion were at last, 
 by degrees, established by the Councils. The Christians of 
 the Byzantine Empire remained sunk in the dream of 
 superstition — persisting in blind obedience to the Patriarchs 
 
SECT. III. UNDER THE EMPERORS —BYZANTINE PERIOD. 353 
 
 and the priesthood. I mage -"Worship, to which we alluded 
 above, occasioned the most violent struggles and storms. 
 The brave Emperor Leo the Isaurian in particular, persecuted 
 images with the greatest obstinacy, and in the year 754, 
 Im age- Worship was declared by a Council to be an invention 
 of the devil. Nevertheless, in the year 787 the Empress 
 Irene had it restored under the authority of a Nicene 
 Council, and the Empress Theodora definitively established it 
 — proceeding against its enemies with energetic rigour. 
 The iconoclastic Patriarch received two hundred blows, the 
 bishops trembled, the monks exulted, and the memory of 
 this orthodox proceeding was celebrated by an annual ec- 
 clesiastical festival. The West, on the contrary, repudiated 
 Image -Worship as late as the year 794, in the Council held 
 at Erankfort ; and, though retaining the images, blamed 
 most severely the superstition of the Greeks. Not till the 
 later Middle Ages did Image- Worship meet with universal 
 adoption as the result of quiet and slow advances. 
 
 The Byzantine Empire was thus distracted by passions of 
 all kinds within, and pressed by the barbarians — to whom 
 the Emperors could öfter but feeble resistance— ivithout. The 
 realm was in a condition of perpetual insecurity. Its general 
 aspect presents a disgusting picture of imbecility ; wretched, 
 nay, insane passions, stifle the growth of all that is noble in 
 thoughts, deeds, and persons. Rebellion on the part of 
 generals, depositions of the Emperors by their means or 
 through the intrigues of the courtiers, assassination or 
 poisoning of the Emperors by their own wives and sons, 
 women surrendering themselves to lusts and abominations 
 of all kinds — such are the scenes which History here brings 
 before ns ; till at last — about the middle of the 15th century 
 (a.d. 1453) — the rotten edifice of the Eastern Empire crum- 
 bled in pieces before the might of the vigorous Turks. 
 
354 PART IV. THE GERMAN WORLD. 
 
 PAET IT. 
 
 THE GERMAN WORLD. 
 
 The German Spirit is the Spirit of the new World. Its 
 aim is the realization of absolute Truth as the unlimited 
 self-determination of Freedom — that Freedom which has 
 its own absolute form itself as its purport.* The destiny of 
 the German peoples is, to be the bearers of the Christian 
 principle. The principle of Spiritual Freedom — of Eecon- 
 ciliation [of the Objective and Subjective], was introduced into 
 the still simple, unformed minds of those peoples; and the part 
 assigned them in the service of the World-Spirit was that of 
 not merely possessing the Idea of Freedom as the substratum 
 of their religious conceptions, but of produciug it in free and 
 spontaneous developments from their subjective self-con- 
 sciousness. 
 
 In entering on the task of dividing the German World 
 into its natural periods, we must remark that we have not, 
 as was the case in treating of the Greeks and Romans, a 
 double external relation — backwards to an earlier World- 
 Historical people, and forwards to a later one — to guide us. 
 History shews that the process of development among the 
 peoples now under consideration, was an altogether different 
 one. The Greeks and Eomans had reached maturity within, 
 ere they directed their energies outwards. The Germans, 
 on the contrary, began with self- diffusion — deluging the 
 world, and overpowering in their course the inwardly rotten, 
 hollow political fabrics of the civilized nations. Only then 
 did their development begin, kindled by a foreign culture, 
 a foreign religion, polity and legislation. The process of 
 culture they underwent consisted in taking up foreign 
 
 * That is : The Supreme Law of the Universe is recognized as 
 identical with the dictates of Conscience — becomes a " law of liberty." 
 Morality — that authority which has the incontestable right to determine 
 men's actions, which therefore is the only absolutely free and unlimited 
 power — is no longer a compulsory enactment, but the free choice of human 
 beings. The good man would make Law for himself if he found none made 
 for him.— Tb. 
 
PART IY. THE GERMAN WORLD. 
 
 355 
 
 elements and reductively amalgamating them with their 
 own national life. Thus their history presents an intro- 
 version — the attraction of alien forms of life and the 
 bringing these to bear upon their own. In the Crusades, 
 indeed, and in the discovery of America, the Western World 
 directed its energies outwards. But it was not thus 
 brought in contact with a World-Historical people that had 
 preceded it ; it did not dispossess a principle that had pre- 
 viously governed the world. The relation to an extraneous 
 principle here only accompanies, [does not constitute] the his- 
 tory — does not bring with it essential changes in the nature 
 of those conditions which characterize the peoples in question, 
 but rather wears the aspect of internal evolution.* — The re- 
 lation to other countries and periods is thus entirely different 
 from that sustained by the Greeks and Romans. For the 
 Christian world is the world of completion ; the grand prin- 
 ciple of being is realized, consequently the end of days is fully 
 come. The Idea can discover in Christianity no point in 
 the aspirations of Spirit that is not satisfied. For its indi- 
 vidual members, the Church is, it is true, a preparation for 
 an eternal state as something future ; since the units who 
 compose it, in their isolated and several capacity, occupy a 
 position of particularity : but the Church has also the Spirit 
 of God actually present in it, it forgives the sinner and is a 
 present kingdom of heaven. Thus the Christian World has 
 no absolute existence outside its sphere, but only a relative 
 one which is already implicitly vanquished, and in respect 
 to which its only concern is to make it apparent that thi3 
 conquest has taken place. Hence it follows that an external 
 reference ceases to be the characteristic element determining 
 the epochs of the modern world. We have therefore to look 
 for another principle of division. 
 
 The German World took up the Roman culture and reli- 
 
 • gion in their completed form. There was indeed a German 
 and Northern religion, but it had by no means taken deep 
 
 ! root in the soui ; Tacitus therefore calls the Germans : 
 " Securi ad versus Deos." The Christian Religion which 
 they adopted, had received from Councils and Fathers of 
 
 * The influence of the Crusades and of the discovery of America was 
 ßimply reflex. No other phase of humanity was thereby merged in 
 1 Christendom.— Tr. 
 
 2 a 2 
 
356 
 
 PAET IY. THE GEEMAN WOELD. 
 
 the Church, who possessed the whole culture, and in par- 
 ticular, the philosophy of the Greek and Roman World, a 
 perfected dogmatic system ; the Church, too, had a com- 
 pletely developed hierarchy. To the native tongue of the 
 Germans, the Church likewise opposed one perfectly de- 
 veloped — the Latin. In art and philosophy a similar alien 
 influence predominated. What of Alexandrian and of formal 
 Aristotelian philosophy was still preserved in the writiugs 
 of Boethius and elsewhere, became the fixed basis of specula- 
 tive thought in the West for many centuries. The same 
 principle holds in regard to the form of the secular sove- 
 reignty. Gothic and other chiefs gave themselves the name 
 of Roman Patricians, and at a later date the Roman Empire 
 was restored. Thus the German world appears, superficially, 
 to be only a continuation of the Roman. But there lived 
 in it an entirely new Spirit, through which the World was to 
 be regenerated — the free Spirit, viz. which reposes on itself 
 — the absolute self-determination [Eigensinn] of subjec- 
 tivity. To this self-involved subjectivity, the corresponding 
 objectivity [Inhalt] stands opposed as absolutely alien. 
 The distinction and antithesis which is evolved from these 
 principles, is that of Church and State. On the one side, 
 the Church develops itself, as the embodiment of absolute 
 Truth ; for it is the consciousness of this truth, and at the 
 same time the agency for rendering the Individual harmo- 
 nious with it. On the other side stands secular conscious- 
 ness, which, with its aims, occupies the world of Limitation 
 — the State, based on Heart [emotional and thence social 
 affections] or mutual confidence and subjectivity generally. 
 European history is the exhibition of the growth of each of 
 these principles severally, in Church and State ; then of an 
 antithesis on the part of both— not only of the one to the 
 other, but appearing within the sphere of each of these 
 bodies themselves (since each of them is itself a totality) ; 
 lastly, of the harmonizing of the antithesis. 
 
 The three periods of this world will have to be treated 
 accordingly. 
 
 The first begins with the appearance of the German 
 Nations in the Roman Empire — the incipient development 
 of these peoples, converts to Christianity, and now estab- 
 lished in the possession of the West. Their barbarous 
 
PART IV. THE GERMAN WORLD. 
 
 357 
 
 and simple character prevents this initial period from pos- 
 I sessing any great interest. The Christian world then pre- 
 | sents itself as " Christendom" — one mass, in which the 
 Spiritual and the Secular form only different aspects. This 
 epoch extends to Charlemagne. 
 
 The second period develops the two sides of the antithesis 
 to a logically consequential independence and opposition — 
 the Church for itself as a Theocracy, and the State for itself 
 as a Feudal Monarchy. Charlemagne had formed an alliance 
 with the Holy See against the Lombards and the factions of 
 j the nobles in Rome. A union thus arose between the 
 spiritual and the secular power, and a kingdom of heaven 
 on earth promised to follow in the wake of this conciliation. 
 But just at this time, instead of a spiritual kingdom of 
 ; heaven, the inwardness of the Christian principle wears 
 I the appearance of being altogether directed outwards and 
 leaving its proper sphere. Christian Freedom is perverted to 
 its very opposite, both in a religious and secular respect ; 
 on the one hand to the severest bondage, on the other hand 
 to the most immoral excess — a barbarous intensity of every 
 passion. In this period two aspects of society are to be 
 I especially noticed : the first is the formation of states — su- 
 perior and inferior suzerainties exhibiting a regulated sub- 
 ordination, so that every relation becomes a firmly-fixed 
 private right, excluding a sense of universality. This regu- 
 lated subordination appears in the Feudal System. The 
 I second aspect presents the antithesis of Church and State. 
 This antithesis exists solely because the Church, to whose 
 management the Spiritual was committed, itself sinks down 
 into every kind of worldliness — a worldliness which appears 
 only the more detestable, because all passions assume the 
 sanction of religion. 
 
 The time of Charles the Fifth's reign — i. e., the first half 
 of the sixteenth century — forms the end of the second, and 
 likewise the beginning of the third period. Secularity 
 appears now as gaining a consciousness of its intrinsic worth 
 — becomes aware of its having a value of its own in the 
 morality, rectitude, probity and activity of man. The con- 
 sciousness of independent validity is aroused through the 
 restoration of Christian freedom. The Christian principle 
 has now passed through the terrible discipline of culture, 
 
358 PART IT. THE GERMAN WORLD. 
 
 and it first attains truth and reality through the Reforma- 
 tion. This third period of the German World extends 
 from the Reformation to our own times. The principle of 
 Free Spirit is here made the banner of the "World, and from 
 this principle are evolved the universal axioms of Reason. 
 Formal Thought — the Understanding — had been already- 
 developed ; but Thought received its true material first with 
 the Reformation, through the reviviscent concrete con- 
 sciousness of Free Spirit. From that epoch Thought began 
 to gain a culture properly its own : principles were derived 
 from it which were to be the norm for the constitution of 
 the State. Political life was now to be consciously regulated 
 by Reason. Customary morality, traditional usage lost its 
 validity ; the various claims insisted upon, must prove their 
 legitimacy as based on rational principles. ~Not till this era 
 is the Freedom of Spirit realized. 
 
 We may distinguish these periods as Kingdoms of the 
 Father, the Son, and the Spirit.* The Kingdom of the 
 Father is the consolidated, undistinguished mass, presenting 
 a self-repeating cycle, mere change — like that sovereignty of 
 Chronos engulfing his offspring. The Kingdom of the Son 
 is the manifestation of God merely in a relation to secular 
 existence, — shining upon it as upon an alien object. The 
 Kingdom of the Spirit is the harmonizing of the antithesis. 
 
 These epochs may be also compared with the earlier 
 empires. In the German aeon, as the realm of Totality, 
 we see the distinct repetition of the earlier epochs. Charle- 
 magne's time may be compared with the Persian Empire ; 
 it is the period of substantial unity — this unity having its 
 
 * The conception of a mystical regnum Patris, regnwn Filii and reg- 
 ixum Spiritus Sancti is perfectly familiar to metaphysical theologians. 
 The first represents the period in which Deity is not yet manifested — re- 
 mains self-involved. The second is that of manifestation in an individual 
 being-, standing- apart from mankind generally — " the Son." Tne third is 
 that in which this barrier is broken down, and an intimate mystical com- 
 munion ensues between God in Christ and the Regenerated, when God is 
 "all in all." This remark may serve to prevent misconception as to the 
 tone of the remainder of the paragraph. The mention of the Greek myth 
 will appear pertinent in the view of those who admit what seems a very 
 reasonable explanation of it — viz , as an adumbration of the self -involved 
 character of the pre-historical period. — Tr. 
 
PART IV. THE GERMAN WORLD. 
 
 359 
 
 foundation in the inner man, the Heart, and both in the 
 Spiritual and the Secular still abiding in its simplicity. 
 
 To the Greek world and its merely ideal unity, the time 
 preceding Charles V. answers ; where real unity no longer 
 exists, because all phases of particularity have become fixed 
 in privileges and peculiar rights. As in the interior of the 
 realms themselves, the different estates of the realm, with 
 their several claims, are isolated, so do the various states 
 in their foreign aspects occupy a merely external relation to 
 each other. A diplomatic policy arises, which in the interest 
 of a European balance of power, unites them with and 
 against each other. It is the time in which the world 
 becomes clear and manifest to itself (Discovery of America). 
 So too does consciousness gain clearness in the supersensuous 
 world and respecting it. Substantial objective religion brings 
 itself to sensuous clearness in the sensuous element (Chris- 
 tian Art in the age of Pope Leo), and also becomes clear to 
 itself in the element of inmost truth. We may compare 
 this time with that of Pericles. The introversion of Spirit 
 begins (Socrates — Luther), though Pericles is wanting in 
 this epoch. Charles V. possesses enormous possibilities in 
 point of outward appliances, and appears absolute in his 
 power ; but the inner spirit of Pericles, and therefore the 
 absolute means of establishing a free sovereignty, is not in 
 him. This is the epoch when Spirit becomes clear to itself in 
 separations occurring in the realm of reality ; now the distinct 
 elements of the German world manifest their essential nature. 
 
 The third epoch maybe compared with the Rom an World. 
 The unity of a universal principle is here quite as decidedly 
 present, yet not as the unity of abstract universal sovereignty, 
 but as the Hegemony of self-cognizant Thought. The au- 
 thority of Rational Aim is acknowledged, and privileges and 
 particularities melt aw r ay before the common object of the 
 State. Peoples will the Right in and for itself ; regard is not 
 had exclusively to particular conventions between nations, 
 but principles enter into the considerations with which diplo- 
 macy is occupied. As little can Religion maintain itself apart 
 from Thought, but either advances to the comprehension of 
 the Idea, or, compelled by thought itself, becomes intensive 
 belief — or lastly, from despair of finding itself at home in 
 thought, flees back from it in pious horror, and becomes 
 Superstition. 
 
360 
 
 PART IT. THE GERMAN WORLD 
 
 SECTION I. 
 
 THE ELEMENTS OF THE CHRISTIAN GERMAN WORLD. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE BARBARIAN MIGRATIONS. 
 
 Respecting this first period, we have on the whole little ) 
 to say, for it affords us comparatively slight materials for re- ! 
 flection. We will not follow the Germans back into their 
 forests, nor investigate the origin of their migrations. Those 
 forests of theirs have always passed for the abodes of free 
 peoples, and Tacitus sketched his celebrated picture of Ger- i 
 many with a certain love and longing — contrasting it 
 with the corruption and artificiality of that world to which he j 
 himself belonged. But we must not on this account regard 
 such a state of barbarism as an exalted one, or fall into 
 some such error as Rousseau's, who represents the condi- 
 tion of the American savages as one in which man is in pos- 
 session of true freedom. Certainly there is an immense 
 amount of misfortune and sorrow of which the savage knows 
 nothing ; but this is a merely negative advantage, while 
 freedom is essentially positive. It is only the blessings con- ! 
 ferred by affirmative freedom that are regarded as such in 
 the highest grade of consciousness. 
 
 Our first acquaintance with the Grermans finds each indi- 
 vidual enjoying an independent freedom ; and yet there is a 
 certain community of feeling and interest, though not yet 
 matured to a political condition. Next we see them inun- 
 dating the Roman empire. It was partly the fertility of its 
 domains, partly the necessity of seeking other habitations, 
 that furnished the inciting cause. In spite of the wars in 
 which they engage with the Romans, individuals, and even 
 entire clans, enter their service as soldiers. Even so early 
 as the battle of Pharsalia we find German cavalry united 
 with the Roman forces of Caesar. In military service and 
 intercourse with civilized peoples, they became acquainted 
 with their advantages — advantages tending to the enjoyment 
 and convenience of life, but also, and principally, those of 
 
SECT. 1/ ELEMENTS OF TUE CHRISTIAN OERMA.N WOULD. 3G1 
 
 mental cultivation. In the later emigrations, many nations 
 — some entirely, others partially — remained behind in their 
 Paginal abodes. 
 
 Accordingly, a distinction must be made between the 
 German nations who remained in their ancient habitations 
 and those who spread themselves over the Roman empire, 
 and mingled with the conquered peoples. Since in their 
 migratory expeditions the Germans attached themselves 
 to their leaders of their own free choice, we find a pecu- 
 liar duplicate condition of the great Teutonic families 
 (Eastern and Western Goths; Goths in all parts of the 
 world and in their original country ; Scandinavians and 
 Normans in Norway, but also appearing as knightly adven- 
 turers in the wide world). However different might be the 
 fates of these peoples, they nevertheless had one aim in 
 common — to procure themselves possessions, and to develop 
 themselves in the direction of political organization. This 
 process of growth is equally characteristic of alL In the 
 West — in Spain and Portugal — the Suevi and Vandals are 
 the first settlers, but are subdued and dispossessed by the 
 Visigoths. A great Visigothic kingdom was established, to 
 which Spain, Portugal, and a part of Southern France be- 
 longed. The second kingdom is that of the Jra^s-aname 
 which, from the end of the second century, was given in com- 
 mon to thelstaevonian races between the Rhine and the Weser. 
 They established themselves between the Moselle and the 
 Scheldt, and under their leader, Clovis, pressed forward into 
 Gaul as far as the Loire. He afterwards reduced the Franks 
 on the Lower Rhine, and the Alemanni on the Upper Rhine ; 
 his sons subjugated the Thuringians and Burgundians. The 
 third kingdom is that of the Ostrogoths in Italy, founded by 
 Theodoric, and highly flourishing beneath his rule. The 
 learned Romans Cassiodorus and Boethius filled the highest 
 offices of state under Theodoric. But this Ostrogothic king- 
 dom did not last long : it was destroyed by the Byzantines 
 under Belisarius and Narses. In the second half (568) of 
 the sixth century, the Lombards invaded Italy and ruled for 
 two centuries, till this kingdom also was subjected to the 
 Prank sceptre by Charlemagne. At a later date, the Nor- 
 mans also established themselves in Lower Italy. Our at- 
 tention is next claimed by the Burgundians, who were sub- 
 
362 
 
 PAET IY. THE GERMAN WOELD. 
 
 jugated by the Franks, and whose kingdom forms a kind of 
 partition wall between France and Germany. The Angles 
 and Saxons entered Britain and reduced it under their sway. 
 Subsequently, the Normans make their appearance here 
 also. 
 
 These countries — previously a part of the Eoman empire 
 --thus experienced the fate of subjugation by the Barba- 
 rians. In the first instance, a great contrast presented itself 
 between the already civilized inhabitants of those countries 
 and the victors ; but this contrast terminated in the hybrid 
 character of the new nations that were now formed. The 
 whole mental and moral existence of such states exhibits a 
 divided aspect ; in their inmost being we have character- 
 istics that point to an alien origin. This distinction strikes 
 us even on the surface, in their language, which is an inter- 
 mixture of the ancient Eoman — already united with the 
 vernacular — and the German. We may class these nations 
 together as Bomanic — comprehending thereby Italy, Spain, 
 Portugal, and France. Contrasted with these stand three 
 others, more or less German-speaking nations, which have 
 maintained a consistent tone of uninterrupted fidelity to na- 
 tive character— Germany itself, Scandinavia, and England. 
 The last was, indeed, incorporated in the Eoman empire, but 
 was affected by Eoman culture little more than superficially 
 — like Germany itself — and was again Germanized by An- 
 gles and Saxons. Germany Proper kept itself pure from 
 any admixture : only the southern and western border — on 
 the Danube and the Ehine — had been subjugated by the 
 Eomans. The portion between the Ehine and the Elbe 
 remained thoroughly national. This part of Germany was 
 inhabited by several tribes. Besides the Eipuarian Franks 
 and those established by Clovis in the districts of the Maine, 
 four leading tribes— the Alemanni, the Boioarians, the Thu- 
 ringians, and the Saxoms — must be mentioned. The Scan- 
 dinavians retained in their fatherland a similar purity from 
 intermixture ; and also made themselves celebrated by their 
 expeditions, under the name of Normans. They extended 
 their chivalric enterprises over almost all parts of Europe. 
 Part of them went to Eussia, and there became the founders 
 of the Eussian Empire ; part settled in Northern France 
 and Britain ; another established principalities in Lower 
 
SECT. I. ELEMENTS OF TUE CIIRTSTIAN GERMAN WORLD. 363 
 
 Italy and Sicily. Thus a part of the Scandinavians founded 
 states in foreign lands, another maintained its nationality 
 by the ancestral hearth. 
 
 We find, moreover, in the East of Europe, the great 
 Sclavonic nation, whose settlements extended west of thg 
 Elbe to the Danube. The Magyars (Hungarians) settled 
 in between them. In Moldavia, Wallachia and northern 
 Greece appear the Bulgarians, Servians, and Albanians, 
 likewise of Asiatic origin — left behind as broken barbarian 
 remains in the shocks and counter-shocks of the advancing 
 hordes. These people did, indeed, found kingdoms and sus- 
 tain spirited conflicts with the various nations that came 
 across their path. Sometimes, as an advanced guard — an 
 intermediate nationality — they took part in the strug- 
 gle between Christian Europe and unchristian Asia. The 
 Poles even liberated beleaguered Vienna from the Turks ; 
 and the Sclaves have to some extent been drawn within the 
 sphere of Occidental Reason. Yet this entire body of peoples 
 remains excluded from our consideration, because hitherto it 
 has not appeared as an independent element in the series of 
 phases that Reason has assumed in the World. Whether it 
 will do so hereafter, is a question that does not concern us 
 here ; for in History we have to do with the Past. 
 
 The German Nation was characterised by the sense of 
 Natural Totality — an idiosyncrasy which we may call Heart 
 [Gemiith].* "Heart" isthat undeveloped, indeterminate 
 totality of Spirit, in reference to the Will, in which satisfac- 
 tion of soul is attained in a correspondingly general and in- 
 determinate way. Character is a particular form of w r ill and 
 interest asserting itself ; but the quality in question 
 [Gemüthlichkeit] has no particular aim — riches, honour, or 
 the like ; in fact does not concern itself with any objective 
 condition [a " position in the world " in virtue of wealth, dig- 
 nity, &c] but with the entire condition of the soul - a 
 general sense of enjoyment. Will in the case of such an 
 
 * The word " Gemuth" has no exactly corresponding term in English. 
 It is used further on synonymously with " Herz," and the openness to 
 various emotions and impressions which it implies, may perhaps be ap- 
 proximately rendered by " Heart." Yet it is but an awkward substitute. 
 — Tr. 
 
364 
 
 PART IV. THE GERMAN WORLD. 
 
 idiosyncrasyis exclusively formal Will* — its purely subjectiv 
 Freedom exhibits itself as self-will. To the disposition thus 
 designated, every particular object of attraction seems impor 
 tant, for " Heart surrenders itself entirely to each ; but as 
 on the other hand, it is not interested in the quality of such 
 aim in the abstract, it does not become exclusively absorbe 
 in that aim, so as to pursue it with violent and evil passion 
 — does not go the length of abstract vice. In the idiosyn 
 crasy we term " Heart," no such absorption of interest pre 
 sents itself ; it wears, on the whole, the appearance of " well 
 meaning." Character is its direct opposite. t 
 
 This is the abstract principle innate in the German pe 
 pies, and that subjective side which they present to the ob 
 jective in Christianity. "Heart" has no particular object 
 in Christianity we have the Absolute Object, [i.e. it is con 
 cerned with the entire range of Truth] — all that can engag 
 
 * Formal Will or Subjective Freedom is inclination ur mere casn 
 liking-, and is opposed to Substantial or Objective Will — also called Ob 
 jective Freedom — which denotes the principles that form the basis 
 society, and that have been spontaneously adopted by particular natio 
 or by mankind generally. The latter as well as the former may lay clai 
 to being 1 a manifestation of Human Will. For however rig-id the restrain 
 which those principles impose on individuals, they are the result of no exti 
 neous compulsion brought to bear on the community at large, and are I 
 cognized as rightfully authoritative even by the individuals whose physic 
 comfort or relative affections they most painfully contravene. Unquestion 
 ing homage to unreasonable despotism, and the severe rubrics of religio 
 penance, can be traced to no natural necessity or stimulus ab extra. T 
 principles in which these originate, may rather be called the settled ai 
 supreme determination of the community that recognizes them. The tei 
 " Objective Will" seems therefore not unfitly used to describe the psych 
 logical phenomena in question. The term" Substantial Will," (asoppos 
 to Formal Will") denoting the same phenomena, needs no defen 
 or explanation. The third term, " Objective Freedom," used syn 
 nymously with the two preceding, is justified on the ground of the u 
 limited dominion exercised by such principles as those mentioned abov 
 " Deus solus liber." (See remarks to this effect on page 35 of the Intr 
 duction, and elsewhere.) — Tr. 
 
 t An incapacity for conspiracy has been remarked as a characterise 
 feature of the Teutonic portion of the inhabitants of the British Isles, 
 compared with their Celtic countrymen. If such a difference can besu 
 stantiated, we seem to have an important illustration and confirmation 
 Hegel's view. — Tr. 
 
SECT. I. ELEMENTS OF TUE CHRISTIAN GERMAN "WORLD . 365 
 
 : and occupy human subjectivity. Now it is the desire of 
 I satisfaction without further definition or restriction, that is 
 I involved in " Heart ;" audit is exactly that for which we 
 ! found an appropriate application in the principle of Chris- 
 ! tianity. The Indefinite as Substance, in objectivity, is the 
 I purely Universal — God; while the reception of the indivi- 
 dual will to a participation in His favour, is the comple- 
 mentary element in the Christian concrete Unity. The 
 absolutely Universal is that which contains in it all deter- 
 minations, and in virtue of this is itself indeterminate. 
 Subject [individual personality] u the absolutely determinate; 
 and these two are identical.* This was exhibited above as 
 ! the material content [Inhalt] in Christianity ; here we find 
 it subjectively as " Heart." Subject [Personality] must then 
 also gain an objective form, that is, be expanded to an object. 
 It is necessary that for the indefinite susceptibility which we 
 designate " Heart," the Absolute also should assume the 
 form of an Object, in order that man on his part may attain 
 a consciousness of his unity with that object. But this re- 
 cognition of the Absolute [in Christ] requires the purification 
 of man's subjectivity — requires it to become a real, concrete 
 self, a sharer in general interests as a denizen of the world 
 at large, and that it should act in accordance with large and 
 liberal aims, recognize Law, and find satisfaction in it. — Thus 
 we find here two principles corresponding the one with the 
 other, and recognize the adaptation of the German peoples 
 1 to be, as we stated above, the bearers of the higher principle 
 ; of Spirit. 
 
 We advance then to the consideration of the German 
 
 * Pure Self— pure subjectivity or personality — not only excludes all 
 that is manifestly objective, all that is evidently Not-Self, but also ab- 
 ' stracts from any peculiar conditions that may temporarily adhere to it, 
 e.g. youth or age, riches or poverty, a present or a future state. Thus 
 though it seems, prima facie, a fixed point or atom, it is absolutely 
 unlimited. By loss or degradation of bodily and mental faculties, it is 
 possible to conceive one's self degraded to a position which it would be 
 impossible to distinguish from that which we attribute to the brutes, or 
 by increase and improvement of those faculties, indefinitely elevated in the 
 scale of being, while yet self — personal identity — is retained. On the 
 other hand, Absolute Being in the Christian concrete view, is an Infinite 
 Self. The Absolutely Limited is thus shewn to be identical with the 
 Absolutely Unlimited. — Tr. 
 
3GG 
 
 PART IT. THE GERMAN WORLD. 
 
 principle in its primary phase of existence, i.e. the earliest 
 historical condition of the German nations. Their quality 
 of " Heart'' is in its first appearance quite abstract, undeve- 
 loped and destitute of any particular object ; for substantial 
 aims are not involved in " Heart'' itself. Where this sus- 
 ceptibility stands alone, it appears as a want of character- 
 mere inanity. " Heart" as purely abstract, is dulness ; thus 
 we see in the original condition of the Germans a barbarian 
 dulness, mental confusion and vagueness. Of the Religion 
 of the Germans we know little. — TheDruids belonged to Gaul 
 and were extirpated by the Romans. There was indeed, a 
 peculiar northern mythology ; but how slight a hold the 
 religion of the Germans had upon their hearts, has been 
 already remarked, and it is also evident from the fact that the 
 Germans were easily converted to Christianity. The Saxons, 
 it is true, offered considerable resistance to Charlemagne ; 
 but this was directed, not so much against the religion he 
 brought with him, as against oppression itself. Their religion 
 had no profundity ; and the same may be said of their ideas of 
 law. Murder was not regarded and punished as a crime : it 
 was expiated by a pecuniary fine. This indicates a deficiency 
 in depth of sentiment — that absence of a power of abstraction 
 and discrimination that marks their peculiar temperament 
 [Nichtentzweitseyn des Gemüthes] — a temperament which 
 leads them to regard it only as an injury to the community 
 when one of its members is killed, and nothing further. 
 The blood-revenge of the Arabs is based on the feeling that 
 the honour of the Family is injured. Among the Germans 
 the community had no dominion over the individual, for the 
 element of freedom is the first consideration in their union 
 in a social relationship. The ancient Germans were 
 famed for their love of freedom ; the Romans formed a cor- 
 rect idea of them in this particular from the first. Freedom 
 has been the watchword in Germany down to the most re- 
 cent times, and even the league of princes under Frederick 
 II. had its origin in the love of liberty. This element of 
 freedom, in passing over to a social relationship, can esta- 
 blish only popular communities ; so that these communities 
 constitute the whole state, and every member of the com- 
 munity, as such, is a free man. Homicide could be expiated 
 by a pecuniary mulct, because the individuality of the free 
 
SECT. I. ELEMENTS OF THE CHRISTIAN GERMAN WORLD. 3ü7 
 
 man was regarded as sacred — permanently and inviolably, — 
 whatever he might have done. The community or its pre- 
 siding power, with the assistance of members of the commu- 
 nity, delivered judgment in affairs of private right, with a 
 view to the protection of person and property. For affairs 
 affecting the body politic at large — for wars and similar 
 contingencies — the whole community had to be consulted. 
 The second point to be observed is, that social nuclei were 
 formed by free confederation, and by voluntary attachment 
 to military leaders and princes. The connection in this case 
 was that of Fidelity ; for Fidelity is the second watch-word 
 of the Germans, as Freedom was the first. Individuals at- 
 tach themselves with free choice to an individual, and with- 
 out external prompting make this relation an inviolable one. 
 This we find neither among the Greeks nor the Romans. 
 The relation of Agamemnon and the princes who accompanied 
 him was not that of feudal suit and service : it was a free 
 association merely for a particular purpose — a Hegemony. 
 But the German confederations have their being not in a 
 relation to a mere external aim or cause, but in a relation to 
 the spiritual self — the subjective inmost personality. Heart, 
 disposition, the concrete subjectivity in its integrity, which 
 does not attach itself to any abstract bearing of an object, 
 but regards the whole of it as a condition of attachment — 
 making itself dependent on the person and the cause — renders 
 this relation a compound of fidelity to a person and obedience 
 to a principle. 
 
 The union of the two relations — of individual freedom in 
 the community, and of the bond implied in association — is 
 the main point in the formation of the State. In this, 
 duties and rights are no longer left to arbitrary choice, but 
 are determined as fixed relations involving, moreover, the 
 1 condition that the State be the soul of the entire body, and 
 remain its sovereign, — that from it should be derived par- 
 ticular aims and the authorization both of political acts and 
 political agents, — the generic character and interests of the 
 community constituting the permanent basis of the whole. 
 But here we have the peculiarity of the German states, that 
 contrary to the view thus presented, social relations do not 
 assume the character of general definitions and laws, but are 
 entirely split up into private rights and private obligations. 
 
368 . PAKT IV. TUE GEEilAK WORLD. 
 
 They perhaps exhibit a social or communal mould or stamp, 
 but nothing universal ; the laws are absolutely particular, 
 and the Eights are Privileges. Thus the state was a patch- 
 work of private rights, and a rational political life was the 
 tardy issue of wearisome struggles and convulsions. 
 
 We have said, that the Germans were predestined to be 
 the bearers of the Christian principle, and to carry out the 
 Idea as the absolutely Rational aim. In the first instance we 
 have only vague volition, in the back ground of which lies 
 the True and Infinite. The True is present only as an un- 
 solved problem, for their Soul is not yet purified. A long 
 process is required to complete this purification so as to 
 realize concrete Spirit. Religion comes forward with a chal- 
 lenge to the violence of the passions, and rouses them to mad- 
 ness. The excess of passions is aggravated by evil conscience, 
 and heightened to an insane rage ; which perhaps would not 
 have been the case, had that opposition been absent. We 
 behold the terrible spectacle of the most fearful extravagance 
 of passion in all the royal houses of that period. Clovis, the 
 founder of the Frank Monarchy, is stained with the blackest 
 crimes. Barbarous harshness and cruelty characterize all 
 the succeeding Merovingians ; the same spectacle is repeated 
 in the Thuringian and other royal houses. The Christian 
 principle is certainly the problem implicit in their souls ; but 
 these are primarily still crude. The Will — potentially true — 
 mistakes itself, and separates itself from the true and proper 
 aim by particular, limited aims. Yet it is in this struggle 
 with itself and contrariety to its bias, that it realizes its wishes ; 
 it contends against the object which it really desires, and 
 thus accomplishes it ; for implicitly potentially , it is reconciled. 
 The Spirit of God lives in the Church ; it is the inward im- 
 pelling Spirit. But it is in the World that Spirit is to be 
 realized — in a material not yet brought into harmony with it. 
 Now this material is the Subjective Will, which thus has a 
 contradiction in itself. On the religious side, we often ob- 
 serve a change of this kind : a man who has all his life been 
 fighting and hewing his way — who with all vehemence of cha- 
 racter and passion, has struggled and revelled in secular occu- 
 pations — on a sudden repudiates it all, to betake himself to reli- 
 gious seclusion. But in the World, secular business cannot be 
 thus repudiated ; it demands accomplishment, and ultimately 
 
SECT I. ELEMENTS OF THE CHRISTIAN O K ILM AN WORLD. 369 
 
 the discovery is made, that Spirit finds the goal of its struggle, 
 and its harmonization, in that very sphere which it made the 
 object of its resistance, — it finds that secular pursuits are a 
 spiritual occupation. 
 
 We thus observe, that individuals and peoples regard that 
 which is their misfortune, as their greatest happiness, and 
 conversely, struggle against their happiness as their greatest 
 misery. La vcrite, en la repoussant, on Vembrasse. Europe 
 comes to the truth while, and to the degree in which, she has 
 repulsed it. It is in the agitation thus occasioned, that 
 Providence especially exercises its sovereignty ; realizing its 
 absolute aim — its honour — as the result of unhappiness, sor- 
 row, private aims and the unconscious will of the nations of 
 the earth. 
 
 "While, therefore, in the West this long process in the 
 world's history — necessary to that purification by which 
 Spirit in the concrete is realized — is commencing, the purifi- 
 cation requisite for developing Spirit in the abstract which 
 we observe carried on contemporaneously in the East, is 
 more quickly accomplished. The latter does not need a long- 
 process, and we see it produced rapidly, even suddenly, iu 
 the first half of the seventh century, in Mahometanism. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 MAHOMETANISM. 
 
 On the one hand we see the European world forming it- 
 self anew, — the nations taking firm root there, to produce a 
 world of free reality expanded and developed in every direc- 
 tion. We behold them beginning their work by bringing 
 all social relations under the form of particularity — with 
 dull and narrow intelligence splitting that which in its na- 
 ture is generic and normal, into a multitude of chance con- 
 tingencies ; rendering that which ought to be simple prin- 
 ciple and law, a tangled web of convention. In short, while 
 the West began to shelter itself in a political edifice of chance, 
 entanglement and particularity, the very opposite direction 
 necessarily made its appearance in the world, to produce the 
 balance of the totality of spiritual manifestation. This took 
 
 2 B 
 
370 PART IV. THE GERMAN "WORLD. 
 
 place in the Revolution of the East, which destroyed all par- 
 ticularity and dependence, and perfectly cleared up and 
 purified the soul and disposition ; making the abstract 
 One the absolute object of attention and devotion, and to 
 the same extent, pure subjective consciousness — the Know- 
 ledge of this One alone — the only aim of reality ; —making 
 the Unconditioned [das Verhältnisslose] the condition 
 [Verhältniss] of existence. 
 
 We have already become acquainted with the nature of the , 
 Oriental principle, and seen that its Highest Being is only 
 negative \ — that with it the positive imports an abandonment 
 to mere nature — the enslavement of Spirit to the world of 
 realities. Only among the Jews have we observed the prin- 
 ciple of pure Unity elevated to a thought ; for only among 
 them was adoration paid to the One, as an object of thought. 
 This unity then remained, when the purification of the 
 mind to the conception of abstract Spirit had been accom- 
 plished ; but it was freed from the particularity by which 
 the worship of Jehovah had been hampered. Jehovah was 
 only the God of that one people — the God of Abraham, of ■ 
 Isaac and Jacob : only with the Jews had this God made a 
 covenant ; only to this people had he revealed himself. That 
 speciality of relation was done away with in Mahometanism. 
 Tn this spiritual universality, in this unlimited and indefinite 
 purity and simplicity of conception, human personality has no 
 other aim than the realization of this universality and sim- 
 plicity. Allah has not the affirmative, limited aim of the , 
 Judaic God. The worship of the One is the only final aim 
 of Mahometanism, and subjectivity has this worship for the 
 sole occupation of its activity, combined with the design to 
 subjugate secular existence to the One. This One has in- 
 deed, the quality of Spirit ; yet because subjectivity suffers 
 itself to be absorbed in the object, this One is deprived of 
 every concrete predicate ; so that neither does subjectiv ity 
 become on its part spiritually free, nor on the other hand is 
 the object of its veneration concrete. But Mahometanism is 
 not the Hindoo, not the Monastic immersion in the Absolute. 
 Subjectivity is here living and unlimited — an energy which 
 enters into secular life with a purely negative purpose, and 
 busies itself and interferes with the world, only in such a 
 way as shall promote the pure adoration of the One. The 
 
MAHOMETAN! SM. 
 
 371 
 
 object of Mahometan worship is purely intellectual ; no ima *e, 
 no representation of Allah is tolerated. Mahomet is a prophet 
 but still man,— not elevated above human weaknesses. The 
 leading features of Mahometanism involve this — that in ac- 
 tual existence nothing can become fixed, but that everything 
 is destined to expand itself in activity and life in the boundless 
 amplitude of the world, so that the worship of the One remains 
 the only bond by which the whole is capable of uniting. In 
 this expansion, this active energy, all limits, all national and 
 caste distinctions vanish ; no particular race, no political 
 claim of birth or possession is regarded — only man as a be- 
 liever. To adore the One, to believe in him, to fast — to 
 remove the sense of speciality and consequent separation from 
 the Infinite, arising from corporeal limitation — and to give 
 alms — that is, to get rid of particular private possession, — 
 , these are the essence of Mahometan injunctions ; but the 
 highest merit is to die for the Faith. He who perishes for 
 it in battle, is sure of Paradise. 
 
 The Mahometan religion originated among the Arabs. 
 Here Spirit exists in its simplest form, and the sense of the 
 Formless has its especial abode ; for in their deserts nothing 
 i can be brought into a firm consistent shape. The flight 
 , of Mahomet from Mecca in the year 622 is the Moslem era. 
 Even during his life, and under his own leadership, but espe- 
 cially by following up his designs after his death under the 
 guidance of his successors, the Arabs achieved their vast con- 
 quests. They first came down upon Syria and conquered its 
 , capital Damascus in the year 634. They then passed the 
 Euphrates and Tigris and turned their arms against Persia, 
 which soon submitted to them. In the West they conquered 
 1 Egypt, Northern Africa and Spain, and pressed into Southern 
 France as far as the Loire, where they were defeated by 
 ' Charles Martel near Tours, A.n. 732. Thus the dominion 
 ! of the Arabs extended itself in the West. In the East they 
 reduced successively Persia, as already stated, Samarkand, 
 and the South-western part of Asia Minor. These con- 
 • quests, as also the spread of their religion, took place with 
 extraordinary rapidity. Whoever became a convert to 
 Islam, gained a perfect equality of rights with all Mussulmen. 
 Those who rejected it, were, during the earliest period, 
 slaughtered. Subsequently, however, the Arabs behaved 
 
 2 b 2 
 
372 
 
 PART IV. THE GERMAN WORLD. 
 
 more leniently to the conquered; so that if they were ud wil- 
 ing to go over to Islam, they were only required to pay an 
 annual poll-tax. The towns that immediately submitted, 
 were obliged to pay the victor a tithe of all their possessions ; 
 those which had to be captured, a fifth. 
 
 Abstraction swayed the minds of the Mahometans. 
 Their object was, to establish an abstract worship, and they 
 struggled for its accomplishment with the greatest enthu- 
 siasm. This enthusiasm was Fanaticism, that is, an enthu- 
 siasm for something abstract — for an abstract thought which 
 sustains a negative position towards the established order of 
 things. It is the essence of fanaticism to bear only a desolating 
 destructive relation to the concrete; but that of Mahometanism 
 was, at the same time, capable of the greatest elevation — an 
 elevation free from all petty interests, and united with all 
 the virtues that appertain to magnanimity and valour. La 
 religion et la terreur was the principle in this case, as with 
 Robespierre, la liberie et la terreur. But real life is never- 
 theless concrete, and introduces particular aims ; conquest : 
 leads to sovereignty and wealth, to the conferring of pre- 
 rogatives on a dynastic family, and to a union of individuals. 
 But all this is only contingent and built on sand ; it is to- 
 day, and to-morrow is not. "With all the passionate interest 
 he shews, the Mahometan is really indifferent to this social j 
 fabric, and rushes on in the ceaseless whirl of fortune. In its 
 spread Mahometanism founded many kingdoms and dynasties. 
 On this boundless sea there is a continual onward movement ; 
 nothing abides firm. Whatever curls up into a form remains 
 all the while transparent, and in that very instant glides 
 away. Those dynasties were destitute of the bond of an 
 organic firmness : the kingdoms, therefore, did nothing but 
 degenerate ; the individuals that composed them simply van« 
 ished. Where, however, a noble soul makes itself prominent 
 — like a billow in the surging of the sea — it manifests it- 
 self in a majesty of freedom, such that nothing more noble, 
 more generous, more valiant, more devoted was ever witnes- 
 sed. The particular determinate object which the individual 
 embraces is grasped by him entirely — with the whole soul. 
 While Europeans are involved in a multitude of relations, and 
 form, so to speak, " a bundle" of them— in Mahometanism the 
 individual is one passion and that alone ; he is superlatively 
 cruel, cunning, bold, or generous. Where the sentiment of 
 
MAHOMETANISM. 
 
 373 
 
 love exists, there is an equal abandon — love the most fervid. 
 The ruler who loves the slave, glorifies the object of his love 
 by laying at his feet all his magnificence, power and honour, 
 — forgetting sceptre and throne for him ; but on the other 
 hand he will sacrifice him just as recklessly. This reckless 
 fervour shews itself also in the glowing warmth of the Arab 
 and Saracen poetry. That glow is the perfect freedom of 
 fancy from every fetter,— an absorption in the life of its object 
 and the sentiment it inspires, so that selfishness and egotism 
 are utterly banished. 
 
 Never has enthusiasm, as such, performed greater deeds. 
 Individuals may be enthusiastic for what is noble and exal- 
 ted in various particular forms. The enthusiasm of a people 
 for its independence, has also a definite aim. But abstract 
 and therefore all-comprehensive enthusiasm — restrained by 
 nothing, finding its limits nowhere, and absolutely indifferent 
 to all beside — is that of the Mahometan East. 
 
 Proportioned to the rapidity of the Arab conquests, was 
 the speed with which the arts and sciences attained among 
 them their highest bloom. At first we see the con- 
 querors destroying everything connected with art and science. 
 Omar is said to have caused the destruction of the noble Alex- 
 andrian library. " These books," said he, " either contain 
 what is in the Koran, or something else : in either case they 
 are superfluous." But soon afterwards the Arabs became 
 zealous in promoting the arts and spreading them every- 
 where. Their empire reached the summit of its glory under 
 the Caliphs Al-Mansor and Haroun Al-Raschid. Large cities 
 arose in all parts of the empire, where commerce and manu- 
 factures flourished, splendid palaces were built, and schools 
 created. The learned men of the empire assembled at the 
 Caliph's court, which not merely shone outwardly with the 
 pomp of the costliest jewels, furniture and palaces, but was 
 resplendent with the glory of poetry and ali the sciences. 
 At first the Caliphs still maintained entire that simplicity 
 and plainness which characterized the Arabs of the desert, 
 (the Caliph Abubeker is particularly famous in this respect,) 
 and which acknowledged no distinction of station and cul- 
 ture. The meanest Saracen, the most insignificant old 
 woman approached the Caliph as his equals. Unreflecting 
 
374 
 
 PART IT. THE GERMAN "WORLD. 
 
 naivete does not stand in need of culture ; and in virt 
 of the freedom of his Spirit, each one sustains a relation 
 equality to the ruler. 
 
 The great empire of the Caliphs did not last long : for on 
 the basis presented by Universality nothing is firm. The 
 great Arabian empire fell about the same time as that of the 
 Pranks : thrones were demolished by slaves and by fresh 
 invading hordes — the Seljuks and Mongols — and new king- 
 doms founded, new dynasties raised to the throne. The 
 Osman race at last succeeded in establishing a firm dominion, 
 by forming for themselves a firm centre in the Janizaries. 
 Fanaticism having cooled down, no moral principle remained 
 in men's souls. In the struggle with the Saracens, Euro- 
 pean valour had idealized itself to a fair and noble chivalry. 
 Science and knowledge, especially that of philosophy, came 
 from the Arabs into the West. A noble poetry and free 
 imagination was kindled among the G-ermans by the East — a 
 fact which directed Groethe's attention to the Orient and 
 occasioned the composition of a string of lyric pearls, in his 
 " Divan," which in warmth and felicity of fancy cannot be 
 surpassed. But the East itself, when by degrees enthusiasm 
 had vanished, sank into the grossest vice. The most hideous 
 passions became dominant, and as sensual enjoyment was 
 sanctioned in the first form which Mahometan doctrine as- 
 sumed, and was exhibited as a reward of the faithful in 
 Paradise, it took the place of fanaticism. At present, driven 
 back into its Asiatic and African quarters, and tolerated only 
 in one corner of Europe through the jealousy of Christian 
 Powers, Islam has long vanished from the stage of history 
 at large, and has retreated into Oriental ease and repose. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 THE EMPIRE OF CHARLEMAGNE. 
 
 The empire of the Pranks, as already stated, was founded 
 by Clovis. After his death, it was divided among his sons. 
 
EMPIRE OF CHAÜLEMAGNE. 
 
 375 
 
 Subsequently, after many struggles and the employment of 
 treachery, assassination and violence, it was again united, and 
 once more divided. Internally the power of the kings was very 
 much increased, by their having become princes in conquered 
 lands. These were indeed parcelled out among the Frank 
 freemen ; but very considerable permanent revenues accrued 
 to the king, together with what had belonged to the em- 
 perors, and the spoils of confiscation. These therefore the 
 king bestowed as personal, i e. not heritable, beneficia, on his 
 warriors, who in receiving them entered into a personal ob- 
 ligation to him — became his vassals and formed his feudal 
 array. The very opulent Bishops were united with them 
 in constituting the King's Council, which however did not 
 circumscribe the royal authority. At the head of the feu- 
 dal array was the Major JDomus. These Majores Domus soon 
 assumed the entire power and threw the royal authority into 
 the shade, while the kings sank into a torpid condition and 
 became mere puppets. Prom the former spr ing the dynasty 
 of the Carlovingians. Pepin le Bref, the son of Charles 
 Martel, was in the year 752 raised to the dignity of King of 
 the Franks. Pope Zachary released the Franks from their 
 oath of allegiance to the still living Childeric III — the last 
 of the Merovingians — who received the tonsure, e. became 
 a monk, and was thus deprived of the royal distinction of 
 long hair. The last of the Merovingians were utter weak- 
 lings, who contented themselves with the name of royalty, 
 and gave themselves up almost entirely to luxury, — a phe- 
 nomenon that is quite common in the dynasties of the East, 
 and is also met with again among the last of the Carlovin- 
 gians. The Majores Domus, on the contrary, were in the 
 very vigour of ascendant fortunes, and were in such close 
 alliance with the feudal nobility, that it became easy for 
 them ultimately to secure the throne. 
 
 The Popes were most severely pressed by the Lombard 
 kings and sought protection from the Franks. Out of grati- 
 tude Pepin undertook to defend Stephen II. He led an army 
 twice across the Alps, and twice defeated the Lombards. 
 His victories gave splendour to his newly established throne, 
 and entailed a considerable heritage on the Chair of St. 
 Peter. In a. d. 800 the son of Pepin — Charlemagne — was 
 
376 
 
 PART IV. THE GERMAN WOULD. 
 
 crowned Emperor by the Pope, and hence originated the firm 
 union of the Carlovingians with the Papal See. For the 
 Roman Empire continued to enjoy among the barbarians 
 the prestige of a great power, and was ever regarded by them 
 as the centre from which civil dignities, religion, laws and 
 all branches of knowledge — beginning with written charac- 
 ters themselves — flowed to them. Charles Martel, after he 
 had delivered Europe from Saracen domination, was — him- 
 self and his successors — dignitied with the title of " Patrician" 
 by the people and senate of Rome ; but Charlemagne was 
 crowned Emperor, and that by the Pope himself. 
 
 There w r ere now, therefore, two Empires, and in them the 
 Christian confession was gradually divided into two Churches, 
 the Greek and the Roman. The Roman Emperor was the 
 born defender of the Roman Church, and this position of the 
 Emperor towards the Pope seemed to declare that the 
 Frank sovereignty was only a continuation of the Roman 
 Empire. 
 
 The Empire of Charlemagne had a very considerable ex- 
 tent. Franconia Proper stretched from the Rhine to the 
 Loire. Aquitania, south of the Loire, was in 768 — the year 
 of Pepin's death — entirely subjugated. The Frank Empire 
 also included Burgundy, Alemannia (southern Germany 
 between the Lech, the Maine and the Rhine), Thuringia, 
 which extended to the Saale, and Bavaria. Charlemagne 
 likewise conquered the Saxons, who dwelt 'between the 
 Rhine and the Weser, and put an end to the Lombard do- 
 minion, so that he became master of Upper and Central 
 
 Ita1 ^. 
 
 This great empire Charlemagne formed into a systemati- 
 cally organized State, and gave the Frank dominion settled 
 institutions adapted to impart to it strength and consistency. 
 This must however not be understood, as if he first intro- 
 duced the Constitution of his empire in its whole extent, but 
 as implying that institutions partly already in existence, were 
 developed under his guidance, and attained a more decided 
 and unobstructed efficiency. The King stood at the head of 
 the officers of the empire, and the principle of hereditary mon- 
 archy was already recognized. The King was likewise mas- 
 ter of the armed force, as also the largest landed proprietor, 
 
EMPIRE OE CUAELEMA.GNE. 
 
 377 
 
 while the supreme judicial power was equally in bis hands. 
 The military constitution was based on the " Arrier-ban." 
 Every freeman was bound to arm for the defence of the 
 realm, and had to provide for his support in the field for a 
 certain time. This militia (as it would now be called) was under 
 the command of Counts and Margraves, w T hich latter pre- 
 sided over large districts on the borders of the empire, 
 — the "Marches." According to the general partition of the 
 country, it was divided into provinces [or counties] over each 
 of which a Count presided. Over them again, under the 
 later Carlovingians, were Dukes, whose seats were large 
 cities, such as Cologne, Ratisbon, and the like. Their office 
 gave occasion to the division of the country into Duchies : 
 thus there was a Duchy of Alsatia, Lorraine, Frisia, 
 Thuringia, Ehsetia. These Dukes were appointed by the 
 Emperor. Peoples that had retained their hereditary 
 princes after their subjugation, lost this privilege and re- 
 ceived Dukes, when they revolted; this was the case witn 
 Alemannia, Thuringia, Bavaria, and Saxony. But there was 
 , also a kind of standing army for readier use. The vassals of 
 i the emperor, namely, had the enjoyment of estates on the con- 
 dition of performing military service, whenever commanded. 
 And with a view to maintain these arrangements, commis- 
 sioners (Missi) were sent out by the emperor, to observe and 
 report concerning the affairs of the Empire, and to inquire 
 into the state of judicial administration and inspect the 
 royal estates. 
 
 Not less remarkable is the management of the revenues of 
 the state. There were no direct taxes, and few tolls on rivers 
 and roads, of which several were farmed out to the higher 
 officers of the empire. Into the treasury flowed on the one 
 hand judicial fines, on the other hand the pecuniary satis- 
 factions made for not serving in the army at the emperor's 
 summons. Those who enjoyed beneficia, lost them on neg- 
 lecting this duty. The chief revenue was derived from the 
 crown-lands, of which the emperor had a great number, 
 on which royal palaces [Pfalzen] were erected. It had been 
 long the custom for the kings to make progresses through 
 the chief provinces, and to remain for a time in each palati- 
 nate ; the due preparations for the maintenance of the 
 
378 
 
 PAKT IV. THE GERMAN WORLD. 
 
 court having been already made by Marshals, Chamberlain? 
 &c. 
 
 As regards the administration of justice, criminal cause 
 and those which concern real property were tried before th 
 communal assemblies under the presidency of a Count 
 Those of less importance were decided by at least seven fre 
 men — an elective bench of magistrates — under the presidency 
 of the Centgraves. The supreme jurisdiction belonged to th 
 royal tribunals, over which the king presided in his palace 
 to these the feudatories, spiritual and temporal, were ame 
 nable. The royal commissioners mentioned above gave es 
 pecial attention in their inquisitorial visits to the judicia 
 administration, heard all complaints, and punished injusth 
 A spiritual and a temporal envoy had to go their circui 
 four times a year. 
 
 In Charlemagne's time the ecclesiastical body had alread 
 acquired great weight. The bishops presided over greE 
 cathedral establishments, with which were also connecte 
 seminaries and scholastic institutions. For Charlemagi 
 endeavoured to restore science, theu almost extinct, by pre 
 moting the foundation of schools in towns and villages 
 Pious souls believed that they were doing a good work ai 
 earning salvation by making presents to the church ; in thi 
 way the most savage and barbarous monarchs sought to atoi 
 for their crimes. Private persons most commonly made 
 their offerings in the form of a bequest of their entire estate 
 to religious houses, stipulating for the enjoyment of the usu- 
 fruct only for life or for a specified time. But it often hap- 
 pened that on the death of a bishop or abbot, the temporal 
 mag^/i^s and their retainers invaded the possessions of the 
 clergy, "and fed and feasted there till all was consumed ; for 
 religion had not yet such an authority over men's minds as to 
 be able to bridle the rapacity of the powerful. The clergy 
 were obliged to appoint stewards and bailiffs to manage 
 their estates ; besides this, guardians had charge of all their 
 secular concerns, led their men at arms into the field, and 
 gradually obtained from the king territorial jurisdiction, 
 when the ecclesiastics had secured the privilege of being 
 amenable only to their own tribunals, and enjoyed immunity 
 from the authority of the royal officers of justice (the Counts). 
 
EMTIRE OF CHARLEMAGNE, 
 
 379 
 
 This involved an important step in the change of political 
 relations, inasmuch as the ecclesiastical domains assumed 
 more and more the aspect of independent provinces enjoying 
 a freedom surpassing any thing to which those of secular 
 princes had yet made pretensions. Moreover the clergy 
 contrived subsequently to free themselves from the burdens 
 of the state, and opened the churches and monasteries as 
 asylums, — that is, inviolable sanctuaries for all offenders. 
 This institution was on the one hand very beneficial as a 
 protection in cases of violence and oppression ; but it was 
 perverted on the other hand into a means of impunity for 
 the grossest crimes. In Charlemagne's time, the law could 
 still demand from conventual authorities the surrender of 
 offenders. The bishops were tried by a judicial bench con- 
 sisting of bishops ; as vassals they were properly subject to 
 the royal tribunal. Afterwards the monastic establishments 
 sought to free themselves from episcopal jurisdiction also : 
 and thus they made themselves independent even of the 
 church. The bishops were chosen by the clergy and the re- 
 ligious communities at large ; but as they were also vassals of 
 the sovereign, their feudal dignity had to be conferred by 
 him. The contingency of a contest was avoided by the obli- 
 gation to choose a person approved of by the king. 
 
 The imperial tribunals were held in the palace where the 
 emperor resided. The sovereign himself presided in them, 
 and the magnates of the imperial court constituted with him 
 the supreme judicial body. The deliberations of the impe- 
 rial council on the affairs of the empire did not take place at 
 appointed times, but as occasions offered — at military reviews 
 in the spring, at ecclesiastical councils and on court-days. It 
 was especially these court-days, to which the feudal nobles 
 were invited, — when the king held his court in a particular 
 province, generally on the Rhine, the centre of the Frank 
 empire, — that gave occasion to the deliberations in question. 
 Custom required the sovereign to assemble twice a year a 
 select body of the higher temporal and ecclesiastical func- 
 tionaries, but here also the king had decisive power. These 
 conventions are therefore of a different character from the 
 Imperial Diets of later times, in which the nobles assume a 
 more independent position. 
 
380 
 
 PA.RT IT. THE GERMAN "WORLD. 
 
 Such was the state of the Frank Empire, — that first con- 
 solidation of Christianity into a political form proceeding 
 from itself, the Roman empire having been swallowed 
 up by Christianity. The constitution just described looks 
 excellent ; it introduced a firm military organization and 
 provided for the administration of justice within the empire. 
 Yet after Charlemagne's death it proved itself utterly power- 
 less, — externally defenceless against the invasions of the Nor- 
 mans, Hungarians, and Arabs, and internally inefficient in 
 resisting lawlessness, spoliation, and oppression of every kind. 
 Thus we see, side by side with an excellent constitution, the 
 most deplorable condition of things, and therefore confusion 
 in all directions. Such political edifices need, for the very 
 reason that they originate suddenly, the additional strength 
 ening afforded by negativity evolved within themselves : they 
 need reactions in every form, such as manifest themselves in 
 the following period. 
 
 SECTION II. 
 
 THE MIDDLE AGES. 
 
 "While the first period of the Grerman World ends bril 
 liantly with a mighty empire, the second is commenced b 
 the reaction resulting from the antithesis occasioned by tha 
 infinite falsehood which rules the destinies of the Middle Age 
 and constitutes their life and spirit . This reaction is first 
 that of the particular nationalities against the universal so 
 vereignty of the Erank empire, — manifesting itself in the 
 splitting up of that great empire. The second reaction is tha 
 of individuals against legal authority and the executive power, 
 — against subordination, and the military and judicial ar 
 rangements of the constitution. This produced the isolatio 
 and therefore defencelessness of individuals. The universalit 
 of the power of the state disappeared through this reaction 
 individuals sought protection with the powerful, and th 
 latter became oppressors. Thus was gradually introduced 
 condition of universal dependence, and this protecting r 
 
SECT. II. TUE MIDDLE AGES. 381 
 
 lation is then systematized into the Feudal System. The 
 third reaction is that of the church — the reaction of the 
 spiritual element against the existing order of things. Se- 
 cular extravagances of passion were repressed and kept in 
 check by the Church, hut the latter was itself secularized in 
 the process, and abandoned its proper position. From that 
 moment begins the introversion of the secular principle. 
 These relations and reactions all go to constitute the history 
 of the Middle Ages, and the culminating point of this period 
 is the Crusades ; for with them arises a universal instability, 
 but one through which the states of Christendom first attain 
 internal and external independence. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE FEUDALITY AND THE HIERARCHY. 
 
 The First Reaction is that of particular nationality 
 against the universal sovereignty of the Franks. It appears 
 indeed, at first sight, as if the Frank empire was divided by 
 the mere choice of its sovereigns ; but another consideration 
 deserves attention, viz. that this division was popular, and 
 was accordingly maintained by the peoples. It was, there- 
 fore, not a mere dynastic act,— which might appear unwise, 
 since the princes thereby weakened their own power, — but 
 a restoration of those distinct nationalities which had been 
 held together by a connecting bond of irresistible might and 
 the genius of a great man. Louis the Pious [le Debonnaire,] 
 son of Charlemagne, divided the empire among his three sons. 
 But subsequently, by a second marriage, another son was 
 born to him — Charles the Bald. As he wished to give him 
 also an inheritance, wars and contentions arose between Louis 
 and his other sons, whose already received portion would 
 have to be diminished by such an arrangement. In the first 
 instance, therefore, a private interest was involved in the con- 
 test ; but that of the nations which composed the empire made 
 the issue not indifferent to them. The western Franks had 
 
3S2 
 
 PAET IT. THE GEEMAN WOELD. 
 
 already identified themselves with the Gauls, and with them 
 originated a reaction against the German Franks, as also at 
 a later epoch one on the part of Italy against the Germans. 
 By the treaty of Verdun, a. d. 843, a division of the empire 
 among Charlemagne's descendants took place ; the whole 
 Prank empire, some provinces excepted, was for a moment 
 again united under Charles the Gross. It was, however, 
 only for a short time that this weak prince was able to hoi 
 the vast empire together ; it was broken up into many 
 smaller sovereignties, which developed and maintained an in 
 dependent position. These were the Kingdom of Italy 
 which was itself divided, the two Burgundian sovereignties 
 Upper Burgundy, of which the chief centres were Genev 
 and the convent of St. Maurice in Valaise, and Lower Bur 
 gundy between the Jura, the Mediterranean and the Ehone 
 — Lorraine, between the Ehine and the Meuse, Normandy 
 and Brittany. Prance Proper was shut in between thes 
 sovereignties ; and thus limited did Hugh Capet find it whe~ 
 he ascended the throne. Eastern Franconia, Saxony, Thu 
 ringia, Bavaria, Swabia, remained parts of the German Em 
 pire. Thus did the unity of the Frank monarchy fall t 
 pieces. The internal arrangements of the Frank empire als 
 suffered a gradual but total decay ; and the first to disap 
 pear was the military organization. Soon after Charlemagn 
 we see the Norsemen from various quarters making inroad 
 into England, France and Germany. In England seve~ 
 dynasties of Anglo-Saxon Kings were originally established 
 but in the year 827 Egbert united these sovereignties int 
 a single kingdom. In the reign of his successor the Danes 
 made very frequent invasions and pillaged the country. In 
 Alfred the Great's time they met with vigorous resistance, but 
 subsequently the Danish King Canute conquered all England. 
 The inroads of the Normans into France were contempora- 
 neous with these events. They sailed up the Seine and the 
 Loire in light boats, plundered the towns, pillaged the con- 
 vents, and went off with their booty. They beleaguered Paris 
 itself, and the Carlovingian Kings were reduced to the base 
 necessity of purchasing a peace. In the same way they de- 
 vastated the towns lying on the Elbe ; and from the Rhine 
 plundered Aix-la-Chapelle and Cologne, and made Lorraine 
 
SECT. II. THE MIDDLE AGES. 
 
 3S3 
 
 tributary to them. The Diet of Worms, in 882, did indeed 
 issue a general proclamation, summoning all subjects to rise 
 in arms, but they were compelled to put up with a disgraceful 
 composition. These storms came from the north and the 
 west. The Eastern side of the empire suffered from the 
 inroads of the Magyars. These barbarian peoples traversed 
 the country in waggons, and laid waste the whole of Southern 
 Germany. Through Bavaria, Swabia, and Switzerland they 
 penetrated into the interior of France and reached Italy. The 
 Saracens pressed forward from the South. Sicily had been 
 long in their hands : they thence obtained a firm footing 
 in Italy, menaced Rome, — which diverted their attack by a 
 composition, — and were the terror of Piedmont and Pro- 
 vence. 
 
 Thus these three peoples invaded the empire from all sides 
 in great masses, and in their desolating marches almost came 
 into contact with each other. Prance was devastated by the 
 Normans as far as the Jura ; the Hungarians reached Swit- 
 zerland, and the Saracens Valaise. Calling to mind that 
 organization of the " Arrier-ban," and considering it in 
 juxta-position with this miserable state of things, we cannot 
 fail to be struck with the inefficiency of all those far-famed 
 institutions, which at such a juncture ou ^ht to have shewn 
 themselves most effective. We might be inclined to regard 
 the picture of the noble and rational constitution of the 
 Frank monarchy under Charlemagne, — exhibiting itself as 
 strong, comprehensive, and well ordered, internally and ex- 
 ternally, — as a baseless figment. Tet it actually existed ; 
 the entire political system being held together only by the 
 power, the greatness, the regal soul of this one man, — not 
 based on the spirit of the people, — not having become a vital 
 element in it. It was superficially induced — an a priori 
 constitution like that which Napoleon gave to Spain, and 
 which disappeared with the physical power that sustained 
 it. That, on the contrary, which renders a constitution real, 
 is that it exists as Objective Freedom — the Substantial form 
 of volition — as duty and obligation acknowledged by the 
 subjects themselves. But obligation was not yet recognized 
 by the German Spirit, which hitherto shewed itself only as 
 "Heart" and subjective choice ; for it there was as yet no 
 
384 
 
 PART IV. THE GERMAN "WORLD. 
 
 subjectivity involving unity, but only a subjectivity condi- 
 tioned by a careless superficial self-seeking. Thus that con- 
 stitution was destitute of any firm bond ; it bad no objective 
 support in subjectivity ; for in fact no constitution was as 
 yet possible. 
 
 This leads us to the Second Reaction— that of individuals 
 against the authority of law. The capacity of appreciating legal 
 order and the common weal is altogether absent, lias no vital 
 existence in the peoples themselves. The duties of every free 
 citizen, the authority of the judge to give judicial decisions, 
 that of the count of a province to hold his court, and interest 
 in the laws as such, are no longer regarded as valid now that 
 the strong hand from above ceases to hold the reins of sove- 
 reignty. The brilliant administration of Charlemagne had van- 
 ished without leaving a trace, and the immediate consequence 
 was the general defencelessness of individuals. The need of 
 protection is sure to be felt in some degree in every well-orga- 
 nized state : each citizen knows his rights and also knows that 
 for the security of possession the social state is absolutely ne- 
 cessary. Barbarians have not yet attained this sense of need 
 — the want of protection from others. They look upon it as a 
 limitation of their freedom if their rights must be guaranteed 
 them by others. Thus, therefore, the impulse towards a firm 
 organization did not exist : men must first be placed in a 
 defenceless condition, before they were sensible of the neces- 
 sity of the organization of a State. The political edifice had 
 to be reconstructed from the very foundations. The com- 
 monwealth as then organized had no vitality or firmness at 
 all either in itself or in the minds of the people ; and its 
 weakness manifested itself in the fact that it was unable to 
 give protection to its individual members. As observed 
 above, the idea of duty was not present in the Spirit of the 
 Germans ; it had to be restored. In the first instance volition 
 could ouly be arrested in its wayward career in reference to 
 the merely external point of possession ; and to make it feel 
 the importance of the protection of the State, it had to be vio- 
 lently islodged from its obtuseness and impelled by necessity 
 to seek union and a social condition. Individuals were 
 therefore obliged to consult for themselves by taking re- 
 fuge with Individuals, and submitted to the authority of cer- 
 
SECT. II. THE MIDDLE AGES. 
 
 385 
 
 tain powerful persons, who constituted a private possession 
 and personal sovereignty out of that authority which for- 
 merly belonged to the Commonwealth. As officers of the 
 State, the counts did not meet with obedience from those 
 committed to their charge, and they were as little desirous of 
 it. Only for themselves did they covet it. They assumed to 
 themselves the power of the State, and made the authority 
 with which they had been entrusted as a beneficium, an he- 
 ritable possession. As in earlier times the King or other 
 magnates conferred fiefs on their vassals by way of rewards, 
 now, conversely, the weaker and poorer surrendered their 
 possessions to the strong, for the sake of gaining efficient 
 protection. They committed their estates to a Lord, a Con- 
 vent, an Abbot, a Bishop (feudmn oblatvm), and received 
 them back, encumbered with feudal obligations to these su- 
 periors. Instead of freemen they became vassals — feudal 
 dependants — and their possession a beneficium. This is the 
 constitution of the Feudal System. " Feiidam" is connected 
 
 • with "fides" ; the fidelity implied in this case is a bond es- 
 tablished on unjust principles, a relation that does indeed con- 
 
 ! template a legitimate object, but whose import is not a whit the 
 
 ■ less injustice ; for the fidelity of vassals is not an obligation 
 to the Commonwealth, but a private one — ipso facto therefore 
 subject to the sway of chance, caprice, and violence. Univer- 
 sal injustice, universal lawlessness is reduced to a system of 
 dependence on and obligation to individuals, so that the 
 mere formal side of the matter, the mere fact of compact con- 
 stitutes its sole connection with the principle of Right — 
 Since every man had to protect himself, the martial spirit, 
 which in point of external defence seemed to have most 
 ignominiously vanished, was re-awakened ; for torpidity 
 was roused to action partly by extreme ill-usage, partly 
 
 ' by the greed and ambition of individuals. The valour that 
 now manifested itself, w r as displayed not on behalf of the 
 State, but of private interests. In every district arose cas- 
 tles ; fortresses were erected, and that for the defence of 
 private property, and with a view to plunder and tyranny* 
 In the way just mentioned, the political totality was 
 ignored at those points where individual authority was es- 
 tablished, among which the seats of bishops and arch- 
 
 /2c 
 
3SG PABT IV. THE GERMAN WORLD. 
 
 bishops deserve especial mention. The bishoprics had been 
 freed from the jurisdiction of the judicial tribunals, and from 
 the operations of the executive generally. The bishops had 
 stewards on whom at their request the Emperors conferred 
 the jurisdiction which the Counts had formerly exercised. 
 Thus there were detached ecclesiastical domains — ecclesias- 
 tical districts which belonged to a saint (Germ. "Weichbilder). 
 Similar suzerainties of a secular kind were subsequently con- 
 stituted. Both occupied the position of the previous Pro- 
 vinces[Gaue]or Counties [Grafschaften.] Only in a few towns 
 where communities of freemen were independently strong 
 enough to secure protection and safety, did relics of the an- ; 
 cient free constitution remain. With these exceptions the 
 free communities entirely disappeared, and became subject to 1 
 the prelates or to the Counts and Dukes, thenceforth known I 
 as seigneurs and princes. The imperial power was extolled 
 in general terms, as something very great and exalted : I 
 the Emperor passed for the secular head of entire Chris- , 
 tendom : but the more exalted the ideal dignity of the 
 emperors, the more limited was it in reality. France derived 
 extraordinary advantage from the fact that it entirely repu- 
 diated this baseless assumption, while in Germany the ad- 
 vance of political development was hindered by that pretence ■ 
 of power. The kings and emperors were no longer chiefs of 
 the state, but of the princes, who were indeed their vassals, 
 but possessed sovereignty and territorial lordships of their 
 own. The whole social condition therefore, being founded on -j 
 individual sovereignty, it might be supposed that the advance 
 to a State would be possible only through the return of those 
 individual sovereignties to an official relationship. But to 
 accomplish this, a superior power would have been required, 
 such as was not in existence ; for the feudal lords them- 
 selves determined how far they were still dependent on the 
 general constitution of the state. No authority of Law and 
 Right is valid any longer ; nothing but chance power, — the 
 crude caprice of particular as opposed to universally valid 
 Eight; and this struggles against equality of Eights and Laws. 
 Inequality of political privileges — the allotment being the 
 work of the purest hap- hazard — is the predominant feature. 
 It is impossible that a Monarchy can arise from such a social 
 
SECT. II. THE MIDDLE AGES. 
 
 3S7 
 
 condition through the subjugation of the several minor 
 powers under the Chief of the State, as such. Reversely, 
 the former were gradually transformed into Principalities, 
 [Furstenthiimer,] and became united w T ith the Principality 
 of the Chief; thus enabling the authority of the king and 
 of the state to assert itself. While, therefore, the bond of 
 political unity was still wanting, the several seigneuries 
 attained their development independently. 
 
 In Prance the dynasty of Charlemagne, like that of Clovis, 
 became extinct through the weakness of the sovereigns who 
 represented it. Their dominion was finally limited to the 
 petty sovereignty of Laon ; and the last of the Carlovingians, 
 Duke Charles of Lorraine, who laid claim to the crown after 
 the death of Louis V., was defeated and taken prisoner. 
 The powerful Hugh Capet, Duke of Prance, was proclaimed 
 king. The title of King, however, gave him no real power ; 
 his authority was based on his territorial possessions alone. 
 At a later date, through purchase, marriage, and the dying 
 out of families, the kings became possessed of many feudal 
 domains ; and their authority was frequently invoked as a 
 protection against the oppressions of the nobles. The royal 
 authority in Prance became heritable at an early date, be- 
 cause the fiefs were heritable ; though at first the kings took 
 the precaution to have their sons crowned during their life- 
 time. Prance was divided into many sovereignties : the 
 Duchy of Guienne, the Earldom of Planders, the Duchy of 
 Gasconv, the Earldom of Toulouse, the Duchy of Burgundy, 
 the Earldom of Vermandois ; Lorraine too had belonged to 
 Prance for some time. Normandy had been ceded to the 
 Normans by the kings of Prance, in order to secure a tem- 
 porary repose from their incursions. Prom Normandy Duke 
 William passed over into England and conquered it in the 
 year 106Ö. Here he introduced a fully developed feudal 
 constitution, — a network which, to a great extent, encom- 
 passes England even at the present day. And thus the 
 Dukes of Normandy confronted the comparatively feeble 
 Kings of France with a power of no inconsiderable preten- 
 sions. — Germany was composed of the great duchies of Sax- 
 ony, Swabia, Bavaria, Carinthia, Lorraine and Burgundy, the 
 Margraviate of Thuringia, &c, with several bishoprics and 
 
 2 c 2 
 
388 PART IV. THE GERMAN WORLD. 
 
 archbishoprics. Each of those duchies again was divided 
 into several fiefs, enjoying more or less independence. The 
 emperor seems often to have united several duchies under 
 his immediate sovereignty. The Emperor Henry III. was, 
 when he ascended the throne, lord of many large dukedoms ; 
 but he weakened his own power by enfeoffing them to 
 others. Germany was radically a free nation, and had not, 
 as France had, any dominant family as a central authority ; it 
 continued an elective empire. Its princes refused to sur- 
 render the privilege of choosing their sovereign for them- 
 selves ; and at every new election they introduced new re- 
 strictive conditions, so that the imperial power was degraded 
 to an empty shadow. — In Italy we find the same political 
 condition. The German Emperors had pretensions to it : 
 but their authority was valid only so far as they could sup- 
 port it by direct force of arms, and as the Italian cities and 
 nobles deemed their own advantage to be promoted by sub- 
 mission. Italy was, like Germany, divided into many larger 
 and smaller dukedoms, earldoms, bishoprics and seigneuries. 
 The Pope had very little power, either in the North or in 
 the South ; which latter was long divided between the 
 Lombards and the Greeks, until both were overcome by the 
 Normans. — Spain maintained a contest with the Saracens, 
 either defensive or victorious, through the whole mediaeval 
 period, till the latter finally succumbed to the more matured 
 power of Christian civilization. 
 
 Thus all Bight vanished before individual Might ; for 
 equality of Eights and rational legislation, where the interests 
 of the political Totality, of the State, are kept in view, had 
 no existence. 
 
 The Third Reaction, noticed above, was that of the ele- 
 ment of Universality against the Keal World as split up into 
 particularity. This reaction proceeded from below upwards 
 — from that condition of isolated possession itself ; and was 
 then promoted chiefly by the church. A sense of the 
 nothingness of its condition seized on the world as it were 
 universally. In that condition of utter isolation, where only 
 the unsanctioned might of individuals had any validity [where 
 the State was non-existent,] men could find no repose, and 
 Christendom was,so to speak, agitated by the tremor of an evil 
 
SECT. II. THE MIDDLE AGES. 
 
 389 
 
 conscience. In the eleventh century, the fear of the ap- 
 proaching final judgment and the belief in the speedy disso- 
 lution of the world, spread through all Europe. This dis- 
 ' may of soul impelled men to the most irrational proceedings-. 
 Some bestowed the whole of their possessions on the Church, 
 and passed their lives in continual penance ; the majority 
 dissipated their worldly all in riotous debauchery. The 
 Church alone increased its riches by the hallucination,through 
 donations and bequests. — About the same time too, terrible 
 famines swept away their victims: human flesh was sold 
 in open market. During this state of things, lawlessness, 
 brutal lust, the most barbarous caprice, deceit and cunning, 
 I were the prevailing moral features. Italy, the centre of 
 Christendom, presented the most revolting aspect. Every 
 virtue was alien to the times in question ; consequently virtus 
 had lost its proper meaning : in common use it denoted only 
 violence and oppression, sometimes even libidinous outrage. 
 This corrupt state of things affected the clergy equally 
 ■ with the laity. Their own advowees had made themselves 
 j masters of the ecclesiastical estates entrusted to their 
 1 keeping, and lived on them quite at their own pleasure, 
 i restricting the monks and clergy to a scanty pittance, 
 i Monasteries that refused to accept advowees were compelled 
 I to do so ; the neighbouring lords taking the office upon 
 themselves or giving it to their sons. Only bishops and 
 abbots maintained themselves in possession, being able to 
 protect themselves partly by their own power, partly by 
 means of their retainers ; since they were, for the most part, 
 of noble families. 
 
 The bishoprics being secular fiefs, their occupants were 
 bound to the performance of imperial and feudal service. The 
 investiture of the bishops belonged to the sovereigns, and it 
 was their interest that these ecclesiastics should be attached 
 to them. Whoever desired a bishopric, therefore, had to 
 make application to the king ; and thus a regular trade was 
 carried on in bishoprics and abbacies. Usurers who had 
 lent money to the sovereign, received compensation by the 
 bestowal of the dignities in question ; the worst of men thus 
 came into possession of spiritual offices. There could be no 
 question that the clergy ought to have been chosen by the 
 religious community, and there were always influential pjr- 
 
390 PART IV. THE GERMAN "WORLD. 
 
 sons who had the right of electing them ; but the king com- 
 pelled them to yield to his orders. Nor did the Papal dig- 
 nity fare any better. Through a long course of years the 
 Counts of Tusculum near Rome conferred it on members of 
 their own family, or on persons to whom they had sold it for 
 large sums of money. The state of things became at last so 
 intolerable, that laymen as well as ecclesiastics of energetic 
 character opposed its continuance. The Emperor Henry III. 
 put an end to the strife of factions, by nominating the Popes 
 himself, and supporting them by his authority in defiance of 
 the opposition of the Eoman nobility. Pope Nicholas II. 
 decided that the Popes should be chosen by the Cardinals; 
 but as the latter partly belonged to dominant families, simi- 
 lar contests of factions continued to accompany their election. 
 Gregory VII. (already famous as Cardinal Hildebrand) 
 sought to secure the independence of the church in this 
 frightful condition of things, by two measures especially. 
 First, he enforced the celibacy of the clergy. From the ear- 
 liest times, it must be observed, the opinion had prevailed 
 that it was commendable and desirable for the clergy to re- 
 main unmarried. Yet the annalists and chroniclers inform 
 us that this requirement was but indifferently complied with. 
 Nicholas II. had indeed pronounced the married clergy to be 
 a new sect ; but Gregory VII. proceeded to enforce the re- 
 striction with extraordinary energy, excommunicating all the 
 married clergy and all laymen who should hear mass when 
 they officiated. In this way the ecclesiastical body was shut 
 up within itself and excluded from the morality of the State. 
 — His second measure was directed against simony, i.e. the 
 sale of or arbitrary appointment to bishoprics and to 'the 
 Papal See itself. Ecclesiastical offices were thenceforth to 
 be filled by the clergy, who were capable of administering 
 them ; an arrangement which necessarily brought the eccle- 
 siastical body into violent collision with secular seigneurs. 
 
 These were the two grand measures by which Gregory 
 purposed to emancipate the Church from its condition of de- 
 pendence and exposure to secular violence. But Gregory 
 made still further demands on the secular power. The 
 transference of benefices to a new incumbent was to receive 
 validity simply in virtue of his ordination by his ecclesiasti- 
 cal superior, and the Pope was to have exclusive control over 
 
SECT. II. THE MIDDLE AGES. 
 
 391 
 
 the vast property of the ecclesiastical community. The 
 Church as a divinely constituted power, laid claim to supre- 
 macy over secular authority, — founding that claim on the 
 abstract principle that the Divine is superior to the Secular. 
 The Emperor at his coronation — a ceremony which only the 
 Pope could perform — was obliged to promise upon oath that 
 he would always be obedient to the Pope and the Church. 
 "Whole countries and states, such as Naples, Portugal, Eng- 
 land and Ireland came into a formal relation of vassalage to 
 the Papal chair. 
 
 Thus the Church attained an independent position : the 
 Bishops convoked synods in the various countries, and in 
 these convocations the clergy found a permanent centre of 
 unity and support. In this way the Church attained the 
 most influential position in secular affairs. It arrogated to 
 itself the award of princely crowns, and assumed the part of 
 mediator between sovereign powers in war and peace. The 
 contingencies which particularly favoured such interventions 
 on the part of the Church were the marriages of princes. It 
 frequently happened that princes wished to be divorced from 
 their wives ; but for such a step they needed the permission 
 of the Church. The latter did not let slip the opportunity 
 of insisting upon the fulfilment of demands that might have 
 been otherwise urged in vain, and thence advanced till it had 
 obtained universal influence. In the chaotic state of 
 the community generally, the intervention of the authority 
 of the Church was felt as a necessity. By the introduction 
 of the " Truce of God," feuds and private revenge were sus- 
 pended for at least certain days in the week, or even for en- 
 tire weeks ; and the Church maintained this armistice by 
 the use of all its ghostly appliances of excommunication, 
 interdict and other threats and penalties. The secular pos- 
 sessions of the Church brought it however into a relation to 
 other secular princes and lords, which was alien to its 
 proper nature ; it constituted a formidable secular power in 
 contraposition to them, and thus formed in the first instance 
 a centre of opposition against violence and arbitrary wrong. 
 It withstood especially the attacks upon the ecclesiastical 
 foundations — the secular lordships of the Bishops ; and on 
 occasion of opposition on the part of vassals to the violence 
 
302 
 
 PART IY. THE GERMAN WORLD. 
 
 and caprice of princes, the former bad the support of the Pope 
 But in these proceedings the Church brought to bear agains 
 opponents only a lorce and arbitrary resolve of the sam 
 kind as their own, and mixed up its secular interest with it 
 interest as an ecclesiastical, i.e. a divinely substantial power 
 Sovereigns and peoples were by no means incapable of di 
 criminating between the two, or of recognizing the worldl 
 aims that were apt to intrude as motives for ecclesiastic 
 intervention. They therefore stood by the Church as ü 
 as they deemed it their interest to do so ; otherwise the 
 shewed no great dread of excommunication or other ghostl 
 terrors. Italy was the country where the authority of th 
 Popes was least respected ; and the worst usage they experi 
 enced was from the Komans themselves. Thus what th 
 Popes acquired in point of land and wealth and direc 
 sovereignty, they lost in influence and consideration. 
 
 We have then to probe to its depths the spiritual element i 
 the Church,— the form of its power. The essence of th 
 Christian principle has already been unfolded ; it is the prin 
 ciple of Mediation. Man realizes his Spiritual essence onl 
 when he conquers the Natural that attaches to him. Thi 
 conquest is possible only on the supposition that the huma 
 and the divine nature are essentially one, and that Man, s 
 far as he is Spirit, also possesses the essentiality and substan 
 tiality that belongs to the idea of Deity. The condition of th 
 mediation in question is the consciousness of this unity ; an 
 the intuition of this unity was given to man in Christ. Th 
 object to be attained is therefore, that man should lay hold o~ 
 this consciousness, and that it should be continually excite 
 in him. This was the design of the Mass: in the Most Christ i 
 set forth as actually present : the piece of bread consecrate 
 by the priest is the present God, subjected to human con 
 templation and ever and anon offered up. One feature of thi 
 representation is correct, inasmuch as the sacrifice of Christ i 
 here regarded as an actual and eternal transaction, Chris 
 being not a mere sensuous and single, but a completely uni 
 versal, i.e. divine Individuum ; but on the other hand it in 
 volves the error of isolating the sensuous phase ; for th 
 Host is adored even apart from its being partaken of by th 
 faithful, and the presence of Christ is not exclusively limite 
 
SECT. II. THE MIDDLE AGES. 
 
 393 
 
 mental vision and Spirit. Justly therefore did the Lutheran 
 Keformation make this dogma an especial object of attack. 
 Luther proclaimed the great doctrine that the Host had 
 spiritual value and Christ was received only on the condition 
 of faith in him ; apart from this, the Host, he affirmed, was 
 a mere external thing, possessed of no greater value than 
 any other thing. But the Catholic falls down before the 
 Host ; and thus the merely outward has sanctity ascribed to 
 it. The Holy as a mere thing has the character of exter- 
 nality ; thus it is capable of being taken possession of by 
 another to my exclusion : it may come into an alien hand, 
 since the process of appropriating it is not one that takes 
 place in Spirit, but is conditioned by its quality as an ex- 
 ternal object [Dingheit]. The highest of human blessings 
 is in the hands of others. Here arises ipso facto a separa- 
 tion between those who possess this blessing and those who 
 have to receive it from others —between the Clergy and the 
 Laity. The laity as such are alien to the Divine. This is 
 the absolute schism in which the Church in the Middle 
 Ages was involved: it arose from the recognition of the 
 Holy as something external. The clergy imposed certain 
 conditions, to which the laity must conform if they would be 
 partakers of the Holy. The entire development of doctrine, 
 spiritual insight and the knowledge of divine things, belonged 
 exclusively to the Church : it has to ordain, and the laity have 
 simply to believe : obedience is their duty — the obedience of 
 faith, without insight on their part. This position of things 
 rendered faith a matter of external legislation, and resulted 
 in compulsion and the stake. 
 
 The generality of men are thus cut off from the Church ; 
 and on the same principle they are severed from the Holy 
 in every form. For on the same principle as that by which 
 the clergy are the medium between man on the one hand and 
 God and Christ on the other hand, the layman cannot directly 
 apply to the Divine Being in his prayers, but only through 
 mediators — human beings who conciliate Grod for him, the 
 Dead, the Perfect — Saint*. Thus originated the adoration 
 of the Saints, and with it that conglomerate of fables and 
 falsities with which the Saints and their biographies have 
 been invested. In the East the worship of images had early 
 
394 
 
 PAKT IT. THE GERMAN WOHLD. 
 
 become popular, and after a lengthened struggle had triumph 
 antly established itself : — an image, a picture, though sen 
 suous, still appeals rather to the imagination ; but the coarse 
 natures of the West desired something more immediate as th 
 object of their contemplation, and thus arose the worship o 
 relics. The consequence was a formal resurrection of the dea 
 in the mediaeval period ; every pious Christian wished to be i 
 possession of such sacred earthly remains. Among the Saint 
 the chief object of adoration was the Virgin Mary. She i 
 certainly the beautiful concept of pure love — a mother's love 
 but Spirit and Thought stand higher than even this ; and i 
 the worship of this conception that of God in Spirit was lost, 
 and Christ himself was set aside. The element of media- 
 tion between God and man was thus apprehended and held 
 as something external. Thus through the perversion of 
 the principle of Freedom, absolute Slavery became the es- 
 tablished law. The other aspects and relations of the 
 spiritual life of Europe during this period flow from this 
 principle. Knowledge, comprehension of religious doctrine, 
 is something of which Spirit is judged incapable ; it is the 
 exclusive possession of a class, which has to determine the 
 True. For man may not presume to stand in a direct rela- 
 tion to God ; so that, as we said before, if he would apply 
 to Him, he needs a mediator — a Saint. This view imports 
 the denial of the essential unity of the Divine and Human ; 
 since man, as such, is declared incapable of recognizing the 
 Divine and of approaching thereto. And while humanity ia 
 thus separated from the Supreme Good, no change of heart, 
 as such, is insisted upon, — for this would suppose that the 
 unity of the Divine and the Human is to be found in man 
 himself, —but the terrors of Hell are exhibited to man in the 
 most terrible colours, to induce him to escape from them, not 
 by moral amendment, but in virtue of something external 
 — the " means of grace" These, however, are an arcanum 
 to the laity; another — the 'Confessor,' must furnish him with 
 them. The individual has to confess — is bound to expose all 
 the particulars of his life and conduct to the view of the 
 Confessor — and then is informed what course he has to pursue 
 to attain spiritual safety. Thus the Church took the place 
 of Conscience : it put men in leading strings like children, 
 
SECT. II. THE MIDDLE AGES. 
 
 305 
 
 and told them that man could not be freed from the torments 
 which his sins had merited, by any amendment of his own 
 moral condition, but by outward actions, opera operata — 
 actions which were not the promptings of his own good-will, 
 but performed by command of the ministers of the church ; 
 e.g. hearing mass, doing penance, going through a certain 
 number of prayers, undertaking pilgrimages, — actions which 
 are unspiritual, stupefy the soul, and which are not only mere 
 external ceremonies, but are such as can be even vicariously 
 performed. The supererogatory works ascribed to the saints, 
 could be purchased, and the spiritual advantage which they 
 merited, secured to the purchaser. Thus was produced an 
 utter derangement of all that is recognized as good and 
 moral in the Christian Church : only external requirements 
 are insisted upon, and these can be complied with in a 
 merely external way. A condition the very reverse of Free- 
 dom is intruded into the principle of Freedom itself. 
 
 With this perversion is connected the absolute separation 
 of the spiritual from the secular principle generally. There 
 are two Divine Kingdoms, — the intellectual in the heart and 
 cognitive faculty, and the socially ethical whose element 
 and sphere is secular existence. It is science alone that can 
 comprehend the kingdom of God and the socially Moral 
 world as one Idea, and that recognizes the fact that the 
 course of Time has witnessed a process ever tending to the 
 realization of this unity. But Piety [or Religious Feeling] 
 as such, has nothing to do with the Secular : it may make 
 its appearance in that sphere on a mission of mercy, but 
 this stops short of a strict socially ethical connection with 
 it — does not come up to the idea of Freedom. Religious 
 Feeling is extraneous to History, and has no History ; for 
 History is rather the Empire of Spirit recognizing itself in 
 its Subjective Freedom, as the economy of social morality 
 [sittliches Eeich] in the State. In the Middle Ages that 
 embodying of the Divine in actual life was wanting; the an- 
 tithesis w 7 as not harmonized. Social morality was repre- 
 sented as worthless, and that in its three most essential 
 particulars. 
 
 One phase of social morality is that connected with Love 
 — with the emotions called forth in the marriage relation. 
 
396 
 
 PART IY. THE GEBMAN WORLD. 
 
 Tt is not proper to say that Celibacy is contrary to Nature 
 but that it is adverse to Social Morality [Sittlichkeit.] 
 Marriage was indeed reckoned by the Church among the 
 Sacraments ; but notwithstanding the position thus assigned 
 it, it was degraded, inasmuch as celibacy was reckoned as the 
 more holy state. A second point of social morality is pre 
 sented in Activity — the work man has to perform for his sub- 
 sistence. His dignity consists in his depending entirely on 
 his diligence, conduct, and intelligence, for the supply of his 
 wants. In direct contravention of this principle, Pauperism 
 laziness, inactivity, was regarded as nobler : and the Immoral 
 thus received the stamp of consecration. A third point o 
 morality is, that obedience be rendered to the Moral and 
 Rational, as an obedience to laws which I recognize as 
 just ; that it be not that blind and unconditional compliance 
 which does not know what it is doing, and whose course of 
 action is a mere groping about without clear consciousness 
 or intelligence. But it was exactly this latter kind of obe- 
 dience that passed for the most pleasing to God ; a doctrine 
 that exalts the obedience of Slavery, imposed by the arbitrary 
 will of the Church, above the true obedience of Freedom. 
 
 In this way the three vows of Chastity, Poverty, and 
 Obedience turned out the very opposite of what they assumed 
 to be, and in them all social morality was degraded. The 
 Church was no longer a spiritual power, but an ecclesiastical 
 one ; and the relation which the secular world sustained to 
 it was unspiritual, automatic, and destitute of independent 
 insight and conviction. As the consequence of this, we see 
 everywhere vice, utter absence of respect for conscience, 
 shamelessness, and a distracted state of things, of which the 
 entire history of the period is the picture in detail. 
 
 According to the above, the Church of the Middle Ages 
 exhibits itself as a manifold Self-contradiction. For Subjec- 
 tive Spirit, although testifying of the Absolute, is at the same 
 time limited and definitely existing Spirit, as Intelligence 
 and Will. Its limitation begins in its taking up this dis- 
 tinctive position, and here consentaneously begins its contra- 
 dictory and self-alienated phase ; for that intelligence and 
 will are not imbued with the Truth, which appears in rela- 
 tion to them as something given [posited ab extra~\. This 
 
SECT. II. THE MIDDLE AGES. 
 
 307 
 
 externality of the Absolute Object of comprehension affects 
 the consciousness thus : — that the Absolute Object presents 
 itself as a merely sensuous, external thing — common out- 
 ward existence — and yet claims to be Absolute: in the 
 mediaeval view of things this absolute demand is made upou 
 Spirit. The second form of the contradiction in question 
 has to do with the relation which the Church itself sustains. 
 The true Spirit exists in man — is his Spirit; and the indi- 
 vidual gives himself the certainty of this identity with the 
 Absolute, in worship,— the Church sustaining merely the 
 relation of a teacher and directress of this worship. But 
 here, on the contrary, we have an ecclesiastical body, like 
 the Brahmins in India, in possession of the Truth, — not 
 indeed by birth, but in virtue of knowledge, teaching and 
 training, — yet with the proviso that this alone is not suffi- 
 cient, an external form, an unspiritual title being judged 
 essential to actual possession. This outward form is Ordi- 
 nation, whose nature is such that the consecration imparted 
 inheres essentially like a sensuous quality in the individual, 
 whatever be the character of his soul — be he irreligious, im- 
 moral, or absolutely ignorant. The third kind of contradic- 
 tion is the Church itself, in its acquisition as an outward 
 existence, of possessions and an enormous property — a state 
 of things which, since that Church despises or professes to 
 despise riches, is none other than a Lie. 
 
 And we found the State, during the mediaeval period, 
 similarly involved in contradictions. We spoke above of 
 an imperial rule, recognized as standing by the side of the 
 Church and constituting its secular arm. But the power 
 thus acknowledged is invalidated by the fact that the impe- 
 rial dignity in question is an empty title, not regarded by 
 the Emperor himself or by those who wish to make him the 
 instrument of their ambitious views, as conferring solid au- 
 thority on its possessor ; for passion and physical force as- 
 sume an independent position, and own no subjection to that 
 merely abstract conception. But secondly, the bond of union 
 which holds the Mediaeval State together, and which we call 
 Fidelity, is left to the arbitrary choice of men's disposition 
 [Gemüth] which recognizes no objective duties. Conse- 
 quently, this Fidelity is the most unfaithful thing possible. 
 
3D8 PAET IV. THE GERMAN WOBLD. 
 
 G-erman Honour in the Middle Ages has become a proverb : 
 but examined more closely as History exhibits it we find it 
 a veritable Punica fides or Orceca fides ; for the princes and 
 vassals of the Emperor are true and honourable only to their 
 selfish aims, individual advantage and passions, but utterly 
 untrue to the Empire and the Emperor ; because in " Fide- 
 lity' ' in the abstract, their subjective caprice receives a 
 sanction, and the State is not organized as a moral totality. 
 A third contradiction presents itself in the character of in- 
 dividuals, exhibiting, as they do on the one hand, piety — 
 religious devotion, the most beautiful in outward aspect, 
 and springing from the very depths of sincerity — and on the 
 other hand a barbarous deficiency in point of intelligence 
 and will. We find an acquaintance with abstract Truth, 
 and yet the most uncultured, the rudest ideas of the Secu- 
 lar and the, Spiritual : a truculent delirium of passion 
 and yet a Christian sanctity which renounces all that is 
 worldly, and devotes itself entirely to holiness. So self- 
 contradictory, so deceptive is this mediaeval period ; and the 
 polemical zeal with which its excellence is contended for, is 
 one of the absurdities of our times. Primitive barbarism, 
 rudeness of manners, and childish fancy are not revolting ; 
 they simply excite our pity. But the highest purity of soul 
 defiled by the most horrible barbarity; the Truth, of which 
 a knowledge has been acquired, degraded to a mere tool by 
 falsehood and self-seeking ; that which is most irrational, 
 coarse and vile, established and strengthened by the religious 
 sentiment, — this is the most disgusting and revolting spec- 
 tacle that was ever witnessed, and which only Philosophy 
 can comprehend and so justify. For such an antithesis 
 must arise in man's consciousness of the Holy while this 
 consciousness still remains primitive and immediate ; and the 
 profounder the truth to which Spirit comes into an implicit 
 relation, — while it has not yet become aware of its own 
 presence in that profound truth, — so much the more alien is 
 it to itself in this its unknown form : but only as the result 
 of this alienation does it attain its true harmonization. 
 
 We have then contemplated the Church as the reaction of 
 the Spiritual against the secular life of the time ; but this re- 
 action is so conditioned, that it only subjects to itself that 
 
SECT. II. THE MIDDLE AGES. 
 
 300 
 
 against which it reacts, — does not reform it. While the 
 Spiritual, repudiating its proper sphere of action, has been 
 acquiring secular power, a secular sovereignty has also con- 
 solidated itself and attained a systematic development — the 
 Feudal System. As through their isolation, men are reduced 
 to a dependence on their individual power and might, every 
 point in the world on which a human being can maintain his 
 ground becomes an energetic one. "While the Individual still 
 remains destitute of the defence of laws and is protected 
 only by his own exertion, life, activity and excitement every- 
 where manifest themselves. As men are certain of eternal 
 salvation through the instrumentality of the Church, and to 
 this end are bound to obey it only in its spiritual require- 
 ments, their ardour in the pursuit of worldly enjoyment 
 increases, on the other hand, in inverse proportion to their 
 fear of its producing any detriment to their spiritual weal ; 
 for the Church bestows indulgence's, when required, for op- 
 pressive, violent and vicious actions of all kinds. 
 
 The period from the eleventh to the thirteenth century 
 witnessed the rise of an impulse which developed itself in 
 various forms. The inhabitants of various districts be- 
 gan to build enormous churches — Cathedrals, erected to 
 contain the whole community. Architecture is always the 
 first art, forming the inorganic phase, the domiciliation of 
 the divinity ; not till this is accomplished does Art attempt 
 to exhibit to the worshippers the divinity himself — the 
 Objective. Maritime commerce was carried on with vigour 
 by the cities on the Italian, Spanish, and Flemish coasts, and 
 this stimulated the productive industry of their citizens at 
 home. The Sciences began in some degree to revive : the 
 Scholastic Philosophy was in its glory. Schools for the 
 study of law were founded at Bologna and other places, as 
 also for that of medicine. It is on the rise and growing im- 
 portance of the Towns, that all these creations depend as 
 their main condition ; a favourite subject of historical treat- 
 ment in modern times. And the rise of such communities was 
 greatly desiderated. For the Towns, like the Church, present 
 themselves as reactions against feudal violence — as the ear- 
 liest legally and regularly constituted power. Mention has 
 already been made of the fact that the possessors of power 
 compelled others to put themselves under their protection. 
 
400 
 
 PART IV. THE GERMAN WOULD. 
 
 Sucli centres of safety were castles [Burgen], churches an 
 monasteries, round which were collected those who neede 
 protection. These now became burghers [Burger], an 
 entered into a cliental relation to the lords of such castles o 
 to monastic bodies. Thus a firmly established communit 
 was formed in many places. Many cities and fortified place 
 [Castelle] still existed in Italy, in the South of France, an 
 in Germany on the Rhine, which dated their existence fro 
 the ancient Roman times, and which originally posses.se 
 municipal rights, but subsequently lost them under the rule 
 of feudal governors [Vögte], The citizens like their rural 
 neighbours had been reduced to vassalage. 
 
 The principle of free possession however began to develop 
 itself from the protective relation of feudal protection ; i.e. 
 freedom originated in its direct contrary. The feudal lords 
 or great barons enjoyed, properly speaking, no free or ab- 
 solute possession, any more than their dependents ; they 
 had unlimited power over the latter, but at the same time 
 they also were vassals of princes higher and mightier than 
 themselves, and to whom they were under engagements — 
 which, it must be confessed, they did not fulfil except under 
 compulsion. The ancient Germans had known of none 
 other than free possession ; but this principle had been 
 perverted into its complete opposite, and now for the 
 first time we behold the few feeble commencements of 
 a reviving sense of freedom. Individuals brought into closer 
 relation by the soil which they cultivated, formed among 
 themselves a kind of union, confederation, or conjuratio. 
 They agreed to be and to perform on their own behalf that 
 which they had previously been and performed in the service 
 of their feudal lord alone. Their first united undertaking 
 was the erection of a tower in which a bell was sus- 
 pended : the ringing of the bell was a signal for a general 
 rendezvous, and the object of the union thus appointed 
 was the formation of a kind of militia. This is followed 
 by the institution of a municipal government, consisting 
 of magistrates, jurors, consuls, and the establishment of a 
 common treasury, the imposition of taxes, tolls, &c. 
 Trenches are dug and walls built for the common de- 
 fence, and the citizens are forbidden to erect fortresses 
 for themselves individually. In such a community, handi- 
 
SECT. II. THE MIDDLE A (i KS. 
 
 •101 
 
 crafts, as distinguished from agriculture, find their proper 
 home. Artizans necessarily soon attained a superior po- 
 sition to that of the tillers of the ground, for the latter 
 were forcibly driven to work ; the former displayed activity 
 really their own, and a corresponding diligence and in- 
 terest in the results of their labours. Formerly artizans 
 had been obliged to get permission from their liege lords 
 to sell their work, and thus earn something for themselves : 
 they were obliged to pay them a certain sum for this 
 privilege of market, besides contributing a portion of their 
 gains to the baronial exchequer. Those who had houses 
 of their own were obliged to pay a considerable quit- 
 rent for them ; on all that was imported and exported, 
 the nobility imposed large tolls, and for the security 
 afforded to travellers they exacted safe-conduct money. 
 When at a later date these communities became stronger, 
 all such feudal rights were purchased from the nobles, 
 or the cession of them compulsorily extorted : by degrees 
 the towns secured an independent jurisdiction and like- 
 wise freed themselves from all taxes, tolls and rents. The 
 burden which continued the longest was the obligation 
 the towns were under to make provision for the Emperor 
 and his whole retinue during his stay within their pre- 
 cincts, as also for seigneurs of inferior rank under the 
 same circumstances. The trading class subsequently di- 
 vided itself into guilds, to each of which were attached par- 
 ticular rights and obligations. The factions to which 
 episcopal elections and other contingencies gave rise, very 
 often promoted the attainment by the towns of the rights 
 above-mentioned. As it would not unfrequently happen 
 that two rival bishops were elected to the same see, each 
 one sought to draw the citizens into his own interest, 
 by granting them privileges and freeing them from bur- 
 dens. Subsequently arose many feuds with the clergy, 
 the bishops and abbots. In some towns they maintained 
 their position as lords of the municipality ; in others the 
 citizens got the upper hand, and obtained their freedom. 
 Thus, e.g. Cologne threw off the yoke of its bishop ; May- 
 fence on the other hand remained subject. By degrees cities 
 grew to be independent republics : first and foremost in 
 
 2 D 
 
402 
 
 PAKT IV. THE GERMAN WORLD. 
 
 Italy, then in the Netherlands, Germany, and Franc 
 They soon come to occupy a peculiar position with re 
 spect to the nobility. The latter united itself with th 
 corporations of the towns, and constituted as e.g. in Bernf 
 a particular guild. It soon assumed special powers ii 
 the corporations of the towns and attained a dominan 
 position ; but the citizens resisted the usurpation am 
 secured the government to themselves. The rich citizen 
 (populus crassus) now excluded the nobility from powei 
 But in the same way as the party of the nobility was divi 
 ded into factions — especially those of Ghibellines and Griielf: 
 of which the former favoured the Emperor, the latter th 
 Pope — that of the citizens also was rent in sunder by in 
 testine strife. The victorious faction was accustomed 
 exclude its vanquished opponents from power. Th 
 patrician nobility which supplanted the feudal aristocrac; 
 deprived the common people of all share in the conduct j 
 the state, and thus proved itself no less oppressive ths 
 the original noblesse. The history of the cities presen 
 us with a continual change of constitutions, according i 
 one party among the citizens or the other — this faction < 
 that, got the upper hand. Originally a select body of citizei 
 chose the magistrates ; but as in such elections the victoriou 
 faction always had the greatest influence, no other means of 
 securing impartial functionaries was left, but the election of 
 foreigners to the office of judge and podesta. It also fre- 
 quently happened that the cities chose foreign princes as 
 supreme seigneurs, and entrusted them with the signoria. 
 But all these arrangements were only of short continuance ; 
 the princes soon misused their sovereignty to promote 
 their own ambitious designs and to gratify their passions, 
 and in a few years were once more deprived of their su- 
 premacy. — Thus the history of these cities presents on 
 the one hand, in individual characters marked by the most 
 terrible or the most admirable features, an astonisbingjB 
 interesting picture ; on the other hand it repels us by 
 assuming, as it unavoidably does, the aspect of mere chro- 
 nicles. In contemplating the restless and ever- varying im- 
 pulses that agitate the very heart of these cities and the 
 continual struggles of factions, we are astonished to see 
 
SECT. II. THE MIPDLE .Wins. 
 
 tos 
 
 on the other side industry— commerce by land and sea — 
 in the highest degree prosperous. It is the same principle 
 i of lively vigour, which, nourished by the internal excitement 
 I in question, produces this phenomenon. 
 
 We have contemplated the Church, which extended its 
 power over all the sovereignties of the time, and the Cities, 
 where a social organization on a basis of Right was first re- 
 ; suscitated, as powers reacting against the authority of princes 
 j and feudal lords. Against these two rising powers, there 
 followed a reactionary movement of princely authority ; the 
 Emperor now enters on a struggle with the Pope and the 
 cities. The Emperor is recognized as the apex of Christian, 
 . i.e. secular power, the Pope on the other hand as that of 
 : Ecclesiastical power, which had now however become as de- 
 ' cidedly a secular dominion. In theory, it was not disputed 
 that the Roman Emperor was the Head of Christendom, — 
 that he possessed the dominium mundi, — that since all Chris- 
 tian states belonged to the Roman Empire, their princes 
 I owed him allegiance in all reasonable and equitable require- 
 | ments. However satisfied the emperors themselves might be 
 of the validity of this claim, they had too much good sense to 
 attempt seriously to enforce it : but the empty title of Roman 
 Emperor was a sufficient inducement to them to exert 
 themselves to the utmost to acquire and maintain it in Italy, 
 i The Oth os especially cherished the idea of the continuation 
 of the old Roman empire, and were ever and anon summoning 
 the German princes to join them in an expedition to Rome 
 with a view to coronation there ; — an undertaking in which 
 they were often deserted by them and had to undergo the 
 i shame of a retreat. Equal disappointment was experienced 
 by those Italians who hoped for deliverance at the hands of 
 the Emperor from the ochlocracy that domineered over the 
 cities, or from the violence of the feudal nobility in the 
 country at large. The Italian princes who had invoked the 
 presence of the Emperor and had promised him aid in assert- 
 ing his claims, drew back and left him in the lurch ; and 
 those who had previously expected salvation for their coun- 
 try, then broke out into bitter complaints that their beau- 
 tiful country was devastated by barbarians, their superior 
 civilization trodden under foot, and that right and liberty, 
 deserted by the Emperor, must also perish. Especially 
 
 2 d 2 
 
404 
 
 PART IV. THE GERMAN WORLD. 
 
 touching and deep are the lamentations and reproaches which 
 Dante addresses to the Emperors. 
 
 The second complication with Italy was that struggle which 
 contemporaneously with the former was sustained chiefly by 
 the great Swabians — the house of Hohenstaufen — and whose 
 object was to bring back the secular power of the Church, 
 which had become independent, to its original dependence 
 on the state. The Papal See was also a secular power and 
 sovereignty, and the Emperor asserted the superior preroga- 
 tive of choosing the Pope and investing him with his secular 
 sovereignty. It was these rights of the State for which the 
 Emperors contended. But to that secular power which they 
 withstood, they were at the same time subject, in virtue of 
 its spiritual pretensions : thus the contest was an intermin- 
 able contradiction. Contradictory as the varying phases of 
 the contest, in which reconciliation was ever alternating with 
 renewed hostilities, was also the instrumentality employed 
 in the struggle. For the power with which the Emperors 
 made head against their enemy— the princes, their servants 
 and subjects, were divided in their own minds, inasmuch as 
 they were bound by the strongest ties of allegiance to the 
 Emperor and to his enemy at one and the same time. The 
 chief interest of the princes lay in that very assumption of 
 independence in reference to the State, against which on 
 the part of the Papal See the Emperor was contending ; so 
 that they were willing to stand by the Emperor in cases where 
 the empty dignity of the imperial crown was impugned, or on 
 some particular occasions, — e.g. in a contest with the cities, 
 — but abandoned him when he aimed at seriously asserting 
 his authority against the secular power of the clergy, or 
 against other princes. 
 
 As, on the one hand, the Grerman emperors sought to 
 realize their title in Italy, so, on the other hand, Italy had its 
 political centre in Germany. The interest of the two coun- 
 tries were thus linked together, and neither could gain poli- 
 tical consolidation within itself. In the brilliant period of 
 the Hohenstaufen dynasty, individuals of commanding cha- 
 racter sustained the dignity of the throne ; — sovereigns like 
 Frederick Barbarossa, in whom the imperial power mani- 
 fested itself in its greatest majesty, and who by his personal 
 qualities succeeded in attaching the subject princes to his 
 
SECT. II. THE MIDDLE AGES. — TIIE CRUSADES. 405 
 
 I interests. Yet brilliant as the history of the Hohenstaufen 
 I dynasty may appear, and stirring as might have been the 
 [ contest with the Church, the former presents on the whole 
 nothing more than the tragedy of this house itself, and the 
 latter had no important result in the sphere of Spirit. The 
 cities were indeed compelled to acknowledge the imperial 
 authority, and their deputies swore to observe the decisions 
 [j of the Eoncalian Diet ; but they kept their word no longer 
 than they were compelled to do so. Their sense of obliga- 
 tion depended exclusively on the direct consciousness of a 
 superior power ready to enforce it. It is said that when the 
 Emperor Frederick I. asked the deputies of the cities whether 
 they had not sworn to the conditions of peace, they answer- 
 ed : " Yes, but not that we would observe them." The re- 
 sult was that Frederick I. at the Peace of Constance (11 83) 
 was obliged to concede to them a virtual independence ; al- 
 though he appended the stipulation, that in this concession 
 their feudal obligations to the German Empire were under- 
 stood to be reserved. The contest between the Emperors 
 and the Popes regarding investitures was settled at the close 
 of 1122 by Henry V. and Pope Calixtus II. on these terms : 
 the Emperor was to invest with the sceptre ; the Pope with 
 the ring and crosier ; the chapter were to elect the Bishops 
 in the presence of the Emperor or of imperial commissioners ; 
 then the Emperor was to invest the Bishop as a secular feu- 
 datory with the temporalia, while the ecclesiastical investiture 
 was reserved for the Pope. Thus the protracted contest 
 between the secular and spiritual powers was at length set 
 at rest. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE CRUSADES. 
 
 The Church gained the victory in the struggle referred to 
 in the previous chapter ; and in this way secured as decided 
 a supremacy in Germany, as she did in the other states of 
 Europe by a calmer process. She made herself mistress of 
 all the relations of life, and of science and art ; and she was 
 
406 
 
 PART IT. 
 
 THE GERMAN WORLD. 
 
 the permanent repository of spiritual treasures. Tet no 
 withstanding this full and complete development of ecclesia 
 tieal life, we find a deficiency and consequent craving mam 
 festing itself in Christendom, and which drove it out of itsel 
 To understand this want, we must revert to the nature 
 the Christian religion itself, and particularly to that aspe 
 of it by which it has a footing in the Present in the con 
 sciousness of its votaries. 
 
 The objective doctrines of Christianity had been already 
 firmly settled by the Councils of the Church, that neith 
 the mediaeval nor any other philosophy could develope the 
 further, except in the way of exalting them intellectually, 
 that they might be satisfactory as presenting the form 
 Thought. And one essential point in this doctrine was t 
 recognition of the Divine Nature as not in any sense a 
 other-world existence [ein Jenseits], but as in unity wit 
 Human Nature in the Present and Actual. But this Presen 
 is at the same time exclusively Spiritual Presence. Chri 
 as a particular human personality has left the world ; h 
 temporal existence is only a past one — i.e., it exists only 
 mental conception. And since the Divine existence on eart 
 is essentially of a spiritual character, it cannot appear in th 
 form of a Dalai-Lama. The Pope, however high his positio 
 as Head of Christendom and Vicar of Christ, calls himse 
 only the Servant of Servants. How then did the Churc 
 realize Christ as & definite and present existence? The pri 
 cipal form of this realization was, as remarked above, th 
 Holy Supper, in the form it presented as the Mass : in th 
 the Life, Suffering, and Death of the actual Christ w 
 verily present, as an eternal and daily repeated sacrific 
 Christ appears as a definite and present existence in 
 sensuous form as the Host, consecrated by the Priest ; 
 far all is satisfactory : that is to say, it is the Church, th 
 Spirit of Christ, that attains in this ordinance direct and fu 
 assurance. But the most prominent feature in this sacra- 
 ment is, that the process by which Deity is manifested, is 
 conditioned by the limitations of particularity — that the 
 Host, this Tiling, is set up to be adored as God. The 
 Church then might have been able to content itself with this 
 sensuous presence of Deity ; but when it is once granted 
 that God exists in external phenomenal presence, this ex- 
 
SECT. II. THE MIDDLE AGES. — THE CRUSADES. 407 
 
 ternal manifestation immediately becomes infinitely varied ; 
 for the need of this presence is infinite. Thus innumerable 
 instances will occur in the experience of the Church, in 
 which Christ has appeared to one and another, in various 
 places ; and still more frequently his divine Mother, who as 
 standing nearer to humanity, is a second mediator between 
 the Mediator and man (the miracle-working images of the 
 Virgin are in their way Hosts, since they supply a benign 
 and gracious presence of God). In all places, therefore, 
 there will occur manifestations of the Heavenly, in specially 
 gracious appearances, the stigmata of Christ's Passion, &c. ; 
 and the Divine will be realized in miracles as detached and 
 isolated phenomena. In the period in question the Church 
 presents the aspect of a world of miracle ; to the community 
 of devout and pious persons natural existence has utterly 
 lost its stability and certainty: rather, absolute certainty 
 has turned against it, and the Divine is not conceived of 
 by Christendom under conditions of universality as the law 
 and nature of Spirit, but reveals itself in isolated and de- 
 tached phenomena, in which the rational form of existence 
 is utterly perverted. 
 
 In this complete development of the Church, ive may find 
 a deficiency : but what can be felt as a want by it ? AVhat 
 compels it, in this state of perfect satisfaction and enjoy- 
 ment, to wish for something else within the limits of its own 
 principles —without apostatizing from itself ? Those mira- 
 culous images, places, and times, are only isolated points, 
 momentary appearances, — are not an embodiment of Deity, 
 not of the highest and absolute kind. The Host, the supreme 
 manifestation, is to be found indeed in innumerable churches; 
 Christ is therein transubstantiated to a present and parti- 
 cular existence : but this itself is of a vague and general 
 character ; it is not his actual and very presence as particu- 
 larized in Space. That presence has passed away, as regards 
 time ; but as spatial and as concrete in space it has a mundane 
 permanence in this particular spot, this particular village, &c. 
 It is then this mundane existence [in Palestine] which 
 Christendom desiderates, which it is resolved on attaining. 
 Pilgrims in crowds had indeed been able to enjoy it ; but 
 the approach to the hallowed localities is in the hands of the 
 Infidels, and it is a reproach to Christendom that the Holy 
 
40S 
 
 PAKT IV. THE GERMAN WORLD. 
 
 Places and the Sepulchre of Christ in particular are not in 
 possession of the Church. In this feeling Christendom was 
 united ; consequently the Crusades were undertaken, whose 
 object was not the furtherance of any special interests on 
 the part of the several states that engaged in them, but 
 simply and solely the conquest of the Holy Land. 
 
 The West once more sallied forth in hostile array against 
 the East. As in the expedition of the Greeks against Troy, 
 bo here, the invading hosts were entirely composed of inde- 
 pendent feudal lords and knights ; though they were not 
 united under a real individuality, as were the Greeks under 
 Agamemnon or Alexander. Christendom, on the contrary, 
 was engaged in an undertaking whose object was the securing 
 of the definite and present existence [of Deity] — the real 
 culmination of Individuality. This object impelled the West 
 against the East, and this is the essential interest of the 
 Crusades. 
 
 The first and immediate commencement of the Crusades 
 was made in the West itself. Many thousands of Jews were 
 massacred, and their property seized ; and after this terrible 
 prelude Christendom began its march. The monk, Peter 
 the Hermit of Amiens, led the way with an immense troop 
 of rabble. This host passed in the greatest disorder through 
 Hungary, and robbed and plundered as they went ; but their 
 numbers dwindled away,and onlyafewreached Constantinople. 
 
 rational considerations were out of the question ; the mass 
 of them believed that God would be their immediate guide and 
 protector. The most striking proof that enthusiasm almost 
 robbed the nations of Europe of their senses, is supplied by 
 the fact that at a later time troops of children ran away from 
 their parents, and went to Marseilles, there to take ship for 
 the Holy Land. Few reached it ; the rest were sold by the 
 merchants to the Saracens as slaves. 
 
 At last, with much trouble and immense loss, more regular 
 armies attained the desired object ; they beheld themselves 
 in possession of all the Holy Places of note — Bethlehem, 
 Gethsemane, Golgotha, and even the Holy Sepulchre. In 
 the whole expedition, — in all the acts of the Christians, — 
 appeared that enormous contrast (a feature characteristic of 
 the age)— the transition on the part of the Crusading host 
 from the greatest excesses and outrages to the profoundest 
 
SECT. II. TIIE MIDDLE AGES. — THE CRUSADES. 409 
 
 contrition and humiliation. Still dripping with the blood of 
 the slaughtered inhabitants of Jerusalem, the Christians fell 
 down on their faces at the tomb of the Eedeemer, and di- 
 rected their fervent supplications to him. 
 
 Thus did Christendom come into the possession of its 
 highest good. Jerusalem was made a kingdom, and the 
 entire feudal system was introduced there — a constitution 
 which, in presence of the Saracens, was certainly the worst 
 that could be adopted. Another crusade in the year 1204 
 resulted in the conquest of Constantinople and the estab- 
 lishment of a Latin Empire there. Christendom, therefore, 
 had appeased its religious craving ; it could now veritably 
 walk unobstructed in the footsteps of the Saviour. "Whole 
 shiploads of earth were brought from the Holy Land to 
 Europe. Of Christ himself no corporeal relics could be 
 obtained, for he was arisen : the Sacred Handkerchief, the 
 Cross, and lastly the Sepulchre, were the most venerated 
 memorials. But in the Grave is found the real point of 
 retroversion ; it is in the grave that all the vanity of the 
 Sensuous perishes. At the Holy Sepulchre the vanity of 
 [the cherished] opinion passes away [the fancies by which 
 the substance of truth has been obscured disappear] ; there 
 all is seriousness. In the negation of that definite and pre- 
 sent embodiment — i.e. of the Sensuous — it is that the turning- 
 point in question is found, and those words have an ap- 
 plication : " Thou wouldst not suffer thy Holy One to see 
 corruption." Christendom was not to find its ultimatum 
 of truth in the grave. At this sepulchre the Christian 
 world received a second time the response given to the 
 disciples when they sought the body of the Lord there : 
 " Why seek ye the liviny among the dead ? He is not here, 
 hut is risenT You must not look for the principle of your 
 religion in the Sensuous, in the grave among the dead, but 
 in the living Spirit in yourselves. We have seen how the 
 vast idea of the union of the Einite with the Infinite was 
 perverted to such a degree as that men looked for a definite 
 embodiment of the Infinite in a mere isolated outward object 
 [the Host]. Christendom found the empty Sepulchre, but 
 not the union of the Secular and the Eternal; and so it lost 
 the Holy Land. It was practically undeceived ; and the 
 result which it brought back with it was of a negative kind : 
 
410 
 
 PART IV. THE GERMAN WOULD. 
 
 viz., that the definite embodiment which it was seeking, was 
 to be looked for in Subjective Consciousness alone, and in no 
 external object; that the definite form in question, presenting 
 the union of the Secular with the Eternal, is the Spiritual 
 self-cognizant independence of the individual. Thus the 
 world attains the conviction that man must look within him- 
 self for that definite embodiment of being which is of a divine 
 nature : subjectivity thereby receives absolute authorization, 
 and claims to determine for itself the relation [of all that 
 exists] to the Divine.* This then was the absolute result of 
 the Crusades, and from them we may date the commencement 
 of self-reliance and spontaneous activity. The West bade 
 an eternal farewell to the East at the Holy Sepulchre, and 
 gained a comprehension of its own principle of subjective 
 infinite Ereedom. Christendom never appeared again on 
 the scene of history as one body. 
 
 Crusades of another kind, bearing somewhat the character 
 of wars with a view to mere secular conquest, but which 
 imvolved a religious interest also, were the contests waged 
 by Spain against the Saracens in the peninsula itself. The 
 Christians had been shut up in a corner by the Arabs ; but 
 they gained upon their adversaries in strength, because the 
 Saracens in Spain and Africa were engaged in war in 
 various directions, and were divided among themselves. The 
 Spaniards, united with Erank knights, undertook frequent 
 expeditions against the Saracens ; and in this collision of the 
 Christians with the chivalry of the East — with its freedom 
 and perfect independence of soul — the former became also 
 partakers in this freedom. Spain gives us the fairest pic- 
 ture of the knighthood of the Middle Ages, and its hero is 
 the Cid. Several Crusades, the records of which excite our 
 unmixed loathing and detestation, were undertaken against 
 the South of Erance also. There an aesthetic culture had de- 
 veloped itself: the Troubadours had introduced a freedom of 
 manners similar to that which prevailed under the Hohen- 
 staufen Emperors in Germany ; but with this difference, that 
 the former had in it something affected, while the latter was of 
 a more genuine kind. But as in Upper Italy, so also in the 
 
 * All human actions, projects, institutions, &c. begin to be brought to 
 the bar of " principle " — the sanctum of subjectivity — for absolute decision 
 on their merits, instead of being- referred to an extraneous authority. — Tr. 
 
SECT- II. THE MIDDLE AGES. — THE CRUSADES. 411 
 
 South of France fanatical ideas of purity had been intro- 
 duced ; * a Crusade was therefore preached against tliat 
 country by Papal authority. St. Dominic entered it with 
 a vast host of invaders, who, in the most barbarous manner, 
 pillaged and murdered the innocent and the guilty indis- 
 criminately, and utterly laid waste the fair region which they 
 inhabited. 
 
 Through the Crusades the Church reached the completion 
 of its authority : it had achieved the perversion of religion 
 and of the divine Spirit ; it had distorted the principle of 
 Christian Freedom to a wrongful and immoral slavery of 
 men's souls ; and in so doing, far from abolishing lawless 
 caprice and violence and supplanting them by a virtuous 
 rule of its own, it had even enlisted them in the service 
 of ecclesiastical authority. In the Crusades the Pope stood 
 at the head of the secular power : the Emperor appeared 
 only in a subordinate position, like the other princes, and 
 was obliged to commit both the initiative and the executive 
 to the Pope, as the manifest generalissimo of the expedition. 
 We have already seen the noble house of Hohenstaufen 
 presenting the aspect of chivalrous, dignified and cultivated 
 opponents of the Papal power, when Spirit [the moral and 
 intellectual element in Christendom] had given up the 
 contest. "We have seen how they were ultimately obliged 
 to yield to the Church ; which, elastic enough to sustain any 
 attack, bore down all opposition and would not move a step 
 towards conciliation. The fall of the Church was not to be 
 effected by open violence ; it was from within, — by the power 
 of Spirit and by an influence that wrought its way upwards, — 
 that ruin threatened it, Eespect for the Papacy could not 
 but be weakened by the very fact that the lofty aim of the 
 Crusades — the satisfaction expected from the enjoyment of 
 the sensuous Presence — was not attained. A.s little did the 
 Popes succeed in keeping possession of the Holy Land. 
 Zeal for the holy cause was exhausted among the princes of 
 Europe. Grieved to the heart by the defeat of the Chris- 
 tians, the Popes again and again urged them to advance to 
 the rescue ; but lamentations and entreaties were vain, and 
 
 * The term " Cathari " (icaSapoi) Purists, was one of the most general 
 designations of the dissident sects in question. The German word 
 Ketzer '^heretic is hy some derived from it. — Tr. 
 
412 
 
 FART IV. THE GERMAN WORLD. 
 
 they could effect nothing. Spirit, disappointed with regard 
 to its craving for the highest form of the sensuous presence 
 of Deity, fell back upon itself. A rupture, the first of its 
 kind and profound as it was novel, took place. From this 
 time forward we witness religious and intellectual move- 
 ments in which Spirit, — transcending the repulsive and irra- 
 tional existence by which it is surrounded, — either finds its 
 sphere of exercise within itself, and draws upon its own re- 
 sources for satisfaction, or throws its energies into an actual 
 world of general and morally justified aims, which are 
 therefore aims consonant with Freedom. The efforts thus 
 originated are now to be described : they were the means by 
 which Spirit was to be prepared to comprehend the grand 
 purpose of its Freedom in a form of greater purity and moral 
 elevation. 
 
 To this class of movements belongs in the first place the 
 establishment of monastic and chhalric orders, designed to 
 carry out those rules of life which the Church had distinctly 
 enjoined upon its members. That renunciation of property 
 riches, pleasures, and free will, which the Church had desig- 
 nated as the highest of spiritual attainments, was to be a 
 reality — not a mere profession. The existing monastic and 
 other institutions that had adopted this vow of renunciation 
 had been entirely sunk in the corruption of worldliness. But 
 now Spirit sought to realize in the sphere of the principle o 
 negativity — purely in itself — what the Church had demanded 
 The more immediate occasion of this movement was the rise 
 of numerous heresies in the South of France and Italy, whose 
 tendency was in the direction of enthusiasm ; and the un 
 belief which was now gaining ground, but which the Church 
 justly deemed not so dangerous as those heresies. To counter- 
 act these evils, new monastic orders were founded, the chi 
 of which was that of the Franciscans, or Mendicant Friat> 
 whose founder, St. Francis of Assisi, — a man possessed by 
 an enthusiasm and extatic passion that passed all bounds, — 
 spent his life in continually striving for the loftiest purity. 
 He gave an impulse of the same kind to his order ; the great- 
 est fervour of devotion, the saciifice of all pleasures in con- 
 travention of the prevailing worldliness of the Church, con- 
 tinual penances, the severest poverty (the Franciscans lived 
 on daily alms) — were therefore peculiarly characteristic of it. 
 
SECT. IT. THE MIDDLE AGES. — THE CRUSADES. 413 
 
 Contemporaneously with it arose the Dominican order, 
 founded by St. Dominic ; its special business was preaching. 
 The mendicant friars were diffused through Christendom to 
 an incredible extent ; they were, on the one hand, the stand- 
 ing apostolic army of the Pope, while, on the other hand, they 
 strongly protested against his worldliness. The Franciscans 
 were powerful allies of Louis of Bavaria in his resistance of 
 the Papal assumptions, and they are said to have been the 
 authors of the position, that a General Council was higher 
 authority than the Pope ; but subsequently they too sank 
 down into a torpid and unintelligent condition. In the same 
 way the ecclesiastical Orders of Knighthood contemplated 
 the attainment of purity of Spirit. We have already called 
 attention to the peculiar chivalric spirit which had been 
 developed in Spain through the struggle with the Saracens : 
 the same spirit was diffused as the result of the Crusades 
 through the whole of Europe. The ferocity and savage 
 valour that characterized the predatory life of the barbarians 
 — pacified and brought to a settled state by possession, and 
 restrained by the presence of equals — was elevated by reli- 
 gion and then kindled to a noble enthusiasm through con- 
 templating the boundless magnanimity of Oriental prowess. 
 For Christianity also contains the element of boundless ab- 
 straction and freedom ; the Oriental chivalric spirit found 
 therefore in Occidental hearts a response, which paved the 
 way for their attaining a nobler virtue than they had pre- 
 viously known. Ecclesiastical orders of knighthood were in- 
 stituted on a basis resembling that of the monastic fraterni- 
 ties. The same conventual vow of renunciation was imposed 
 on their members — the giving up of all that was worldly. But 
 at the same time they undertook the defence of the pilgrims: 
 their first duty therefore was knightly bravery ; ultimately, 
 they were also pledged to the sustenance and care of the 
 poor and the sick. The Orders of Knighthood were divided 
 into three : that of St. John, that of the Temple, and the 
 Teutonic Order. These associations are essentially distin- 
 guished from the self-seeking principle of feudalism. Their 
 members sacrificed themselves with almost suicidal bravery 
 for a common interest. Thus these Orders transcended 
 the circle of their immediate environment, and formed a 
 network of fraternal coalition over the whole of Europe. 
 
4 14 PART IV. THE GERMAN" "WORLD. 
 
 But their members sank down to the level of vulgar interests, 
 and the Orders became in the sequel a provisional institute 
 for the nobility generally, rather than anything else. The 
 Order of the Temple was even accused of forming a religion 
 of its own, and of having renounced Christ in the creed which, 
 under the influence of the Oriental Spirit, it had adopted. 
 
 A second impulsion, having a similar origin, was that in 
 the direction of Science. The development of Thought — the 
 abstractly Universal — now had its commencement. Those 
 fraternal associations themselves, having a common object, 
 in whose service their members were enlisted, point to the 
 fact that a general principle was beginning to be recognized, 
 and which gradually became conscious of its power. Thought 
 was first directed to Theology, which now became Philosophy 
 under the name of Scholastic Divinity. For philosophy and 
 theology have the Divine as their common object ; and 
 although the theology of the Church was a stereotyped 
 dogma, the impulse now arose to justify this body of doc- 
 trine in the view of Thought. " When we have arrived at 
 Faith," says the celebrated scholastic, Anselm, "it is a piece 
 of negligence to stop short of convincing ourselves, by the 
 aid of Thought, of that to which we have given credence." 
 But thus conditioned Thought was not free, for its material 
 was already posited ab extra : it was to the proof of this ma- 
 terial that philosophy devoted its energies. But Thought sug- 
 gested a variety of questions, the complete answer to which 
 was not given directly in the symbols of the Church ; and 
 since the Church had not decided respecting them, they 
 were legitimate subjects of controversy. Philosophy was 
 indeed called an ancillafidei, for it was in subjection to that 
 material of the Church's creed, which had been already 
 definitely settled ; but yet it was impossible for the oppo- 
 sition between Thought and Belief not to manifest itself. 
 As Europe presented the spectacle of chivalric contests 
 generally — passages of arms and tournaments — it was now 
 the theatre for intellectual jousting also. It is incredible to 
 what an extent the abstract forms of Thought were developed, 
 and what dexterity was acquired in the use of them. This 
 intellectual tourneying for the sake of exhibiting skill, and 
 as a diversion (for it was not the doctrines themselves, but 
 only the forms in which they were couched that made the 
 
SECT. II. MIDDLE AGES. — TRANSITION TO MONARCHY. 415 
 
 subject of debate), was chiefly prosecuted and brought to 
 perfection in France. France, in fact, began at that time to 
 be regarded as the centre of Christendom: there the scheme 
 of the first Crusades originated, and French armies carried 
 it out : there the Popes took refuge in their struggles with 
 the German emperors and with the Norman princes of 
 Naples and Sicily, and there for a time they made a con- 
 tinuous sojourn. — We also observe in the period subsequent 
 to the Crusades, commencements of Art — of Painting, viz. : 
 even during their continuance a peculiar kind of poetry had 
 made its appearance. Spirit, unable to satisfy its cravings, 
 created for itself by imagination fairer forms and in a calmer 
 and freer manner than the actual world could offer. 
 
 CHAPTEE III. 
 
 THE TRANSITION FROM FEUDALISM TO MONARCHY. 
 
 The moral phenomena above mentioned, tending in the 
 direction of a general principle, were partly of a subjective, 
 partly of a speculative order. But we must now give par- 
 ticular attention to the practical political movements of the 
 period. The advance which that period witnessed, presents 
 a negative aspect in so far as it involves the termination of 
 the sway of individual caprice and of the isolation of power. 
 Its affirmative aspect is the rise of a supreme authority 
 whose dominion embraces all — a political power properly 
 so called, whose subjects enjoy an equality of rights, and 
 in which the will of the individual is subordinated to 
 that common interest which underlies the whole. This is 
 the advance from Feudalism to Monarchy. The principle of 
 feudal sovereignty is the outward force of individuals — 
 princes, liege lords ; it is a force destitute of intrinsic right. 
 The subjects of such a Constitution are vassals of a superior 
 prince or seigneur, to whom they have stipulated duties to 
 perform : but whether they perform these duties or not, 
 depends upon the seigneur's being able to induce them so to 
 do, by force of character or by grant of favours : — con- 
 versely, the recognition of those feudal claims themselves was 
 extorted by violence in the first instance ; and the fulfilment 
 
416 
 
 PART IT. TUE GERMAN WORLD. 
 
 of the corresponding duties could be secured only by the 
 constant exercise of the power which was the sole basis of 
 the claims in question. The monarchical principle also im- 
 plies a supreme authority, but it is an authority over persons 
 possessing no independent power to support their individual 
 caprice; where we have no longer caprice opposed to caprice ; 
 for the supremacy implied in monarchy is essentially a power 
 emanating from a political body, and is pledged to the fur- 
 therance of that equitable purpose on which the constitution 
 of a state is based. Feudal sovereignty is a polyarchy : we 
 see nothing but Lords and Serfs ; in Monarchy, on the con- 
 trary, there is one Lord and no Serf, for servitude is abro- 
 gated by it, and in it Eight and Law are recognized ; it is 
 the source of real freedom. Thus in monarchy the caprice 
 of individuals is kept under, and a common gubernatorial 
 interest established. In the suppression of those isolated 
 powers, as also in the resistance made to that suppression, 
 it seems doubtful whether the desire for a lawful and 
 equitable state of things, or the wish to indulge individual 
 caprice, is the impelling motive. Resistance to kingly 
 authority is entitled Liberty, and is lauded as legitimate and 
 noble when the idea of arbitrary will is associated with that 
 authority. But by the arbitrary will of an individual exert- 
 ing itself so as to subjugate a whole body of men, a com- 
 munity is formed ; and comparing this state of things with 
 that in which every point is a centre of capricious violence, 
 we find a much smaller number of points exposed to such 
 violence. The great extent of such a sovereignty necessi- 
 tates general arrangements for the purposes ol organization, 
 and those who govern in accordance with those arrange- 
 ments are at the same time, in virtue of their office itself, 
 obedient to the state : Yassals become Officers of State, 
 whose duty it is to execute the laws by which the state is 
 regulated. But since this monarchy is developed from feu- 
 dalism, it bears in the first instance the stamp of the system 
 from which it sprang. Individuals quit their isolated capa- 
 city and become members of Estates [or Orders of the 
 Realm] and Corporations ; the vassals are powerful only by 
 combination as an Order ; in contraposition to them the cities 
 constitute Powers in virtue of their communal existence. 
 Thus the authority of the sovereign inevitably ceases to be 
 
SECT. II. MIDDLE AGES?. — TRANSITION TO MONARCHY. 417 
 
 mere arbitrary sway. The consent of the Estates and Cor- 
 porations is essential to its maintenance; and if the prince 
 wishes to have that consent, he must will what is just and 
 reasonable. 
 
 We now see a Constitution embracing various Orders, 
 while Feudal rule knows no such Orders. We observe the 
 transition from feudalism to monarchy taking plaee in three 
 ways : 
 
 1. Sometimes the lord paramount gains a mastery over 
 his independent vassals, by subjugating their individual 
 power, — thus making himself sole ruler. 
 
 2. Sometimes the princes free themselves from the feudal 
 relation altogether, and become the territorial lords of 
 certain states ; or lastly 
 
 3. The lord paramount unites the particular lordships 
 that own him as their superior, with his own particular 
 suzerainty, in a more peaceful way, and thus becomes master 
 of the whole. 
 
 These processes do not indeed present themselves in 
 history in that pure and abstract form in which they are 
 exhibited here : often we find more modes than one appear- 
 ing contemporaneously ; but one or the other always pre- 
 dominates. The cardinal consideration is that the basis and 
 essential condition of such a political formation is to be 
 looked for in the 'particular nationalities in which it had 
 its birth. Europe presents particular nations, constituting 
 a unity in their very nature, and having the absolute ten- 
 dency to form a state. All did not succeed in attaining 
 this political unity : we have now to consider them severally 
 in relation to the change thus introduced. 
 
 First, as regards the Roman empire, the connection 
 between Germany and Italy naturally results from the idea 
 ' of that empire : the secular dominion united with the 
 spiritual was to constitute one whole; but this state of 
 things was rather the object of constant struggle than one 
 •actually attained. In Germany and Italy the transition from 
 the feudal condition to monarchy involved the entire abro- 
 gation of the former : the vassals became independent 
 monarchs. 
 
 Germany had always embraced a great variety of stocks : — 
 Swabians, Bavarians, Franks, Thuringians, Saxons, Burgun- 
 
 2 E 
 
41S 
 
 PART IV. THE GERMAN WORLD. 
 
 dians : to these must be added the Sclaves of Bohemia, Ger- 
 manized Sclaves in Mecklenburg, in Brandenburg, and in a 
 part of Saxony and Austria ; so that no such combination as 
 took place in France was possible. Italy presented a similar 
 state of things. The Lombards had established themselves 
 there, while the Greeks still possessed the Exarchate and 
 Lower Italy : the Normans too established a kingdom of 
 their own in Lower Italy, and the Saracens maintained their 
 ground for a time in Sicily. When the rule of the house of 
 Hohenstaufen was terminated, barbarism got the upper 
 hand throughout Germany ; the country being broken up 
 into several sovereignties, in which a forceful despotism pre- 
 vailed. It was the maxim of the electoral princes to raise 
 only weak princes to the imperial throne ; they even sold 
 the imperial dignity to foreigners. Thus the unity of the 
 state was virtually annulled. A number of centres of power 
 were formed, each of which was a predatory state : the legal 
 constitution recognized by feudalism was dissolved, and gave 
 place to undisguised violence and plunder; and powerful 
 princes made themselves lords of the country. After the 
 interregnum the Count of Hapsburg was elected Emperor, 
 and the House of Hapsburg continued to fill the imperial 
 throne with but little interruption. These emperors were 
 obliged to create a force of their own, as the princes would 
 not grant them an adequate power attached to the empire. 
 But that state of absolute anarchy was at last put an end to 
 by associations having general aims in view. In the cities 
 themselves we see associations of a minor order ; but now 
 confederations of cities were formed with a common interest 
 in the suppression of predatory violence. Of this kind was 
 the Hanseatic League in the North, the Rhenish League 
 consisting of cities lying along the Rhine, and the Swabian 
 League. The aim of all these confederations was resistance 
 to the feudal lords ; and even princes united with the cities, 
 with a view to the subversion of the feudal condition and 
 the restoration of a peaceful state of things throughout the 
 country. What the state of society was under feudal sove- 
 reignty is evident from the notorious association formed for 
 executing criminal justice : it was a private tribunal, which, 
 under the name of the Vehmgericht, held secret sittings ; its 
 chief seat was the north-west of Germany. A peculiar 
 
SECT. II. MIDDLE AGES. — TRANSITION TO MONARCHY. 419 
 
 peasant association was also formed. In Germany the 
 peasants were bondmen ; many of them took refuge in the 
 towns, or settled down as freemen in the neighbourhood of 
 the towns (Pfahlbürger) ; but in Switzerland a peasanl 
 fraternity was established. The peasants of Uri, Schwyz, 
 and Unterwaiden were under imperial governors ; for the 
 Swiss governments were not the property of private pos- 
 sessors, but were official appointments of the Empire. These 
 the sovereigns of the Hapsburg line wished to secure to their 
 own house. The peasants, with club and iron-studded mace 
 [Morgenstern], returned victorious from a contest with the 
 haughty steel-clad nobles, armed with spear and sword, and 
 practised in the chivalric encounters of the tournament. 
 Another invention also tended to deprive the nobility of the 
 ascendancy which they owed to their accoutrements, — that of 
 gunpowder. Humanity needed it, and it made its appear- 
 ance forthwith. It was one of the chief instruments in freeing 
 the world from the dominion of physical force, and placing 
 the various orders of society on a level. "With the distinc- 
 tion between the weapons they used, vanished also that 
 between lords and serfs. And before gunpowderfortifiedplaces 
 were no longer impregnable, so that strongholds and castles 
 now lose their importance. "We may indeed be led to lament 
 the decay or the depreciation of the practical value of per- 
 sonal valour — the bravest, the noblest may be shot down 
 by a cowardly wretch at safe distance in an obscure lurking 
 place ; but, on the other haud, gunpowder has made a 
 rational, considerate bravery — Spiritual valour — the essential 
 to martial success. Only through this instrumentality 
 could that superior order of valour be called forth — that 
 valour in which the heat of personal feeling has no share ; 
 for the discharge of fire-arms is directed against a body of 
 men — an abstract enemy, not individual combatants. The 
 warrior goes to meet deadly peril calmly, sacrificing himself 
 for the common weal ; and the valour of cultivated nations is 
 characterized by the very fact, that it does not rely on the 
 strong arm alone, but places its confidence essentially in the 
 intelligence, the generalship, the character of its commanders; 
 and, as was the case among the ancients, in a firm com- 
 bination and unity of spirit on the part of the forces they 
 command. 
 
 2 e 2 
 
-120 
 
 PAKT IY. TUE GERMAN WORLD. 
 
 In Italy, as already noticed, we behold the same spectacle 
 as in Germany — the attainment of an independent position 
 by isolated centres of power. In that country, warfare in 
 the hands of the Condottieri became a regular business. 
 The towns were obliged to attend to their trading concerns, 
 and therefore employed mercenary troops, whose lenders 
 often became feudal lords ; Francis Sforza even made himself 
 Duke of Milan. In Florence, the Medici, a family of mer- 
 chants, rose to power. On the other hand, the larger cities 
 of Italy reduced under their sway several smaller ones and 
 many feudal chiefs. A Papal territory was likewise formed. 
 There, also, a very large number of feudal lords had made 
 themselves independent ; by degrees they all became sub- 
 ject to the one sovereignty of the Pope. How thoroughly 
 equitable in the view of social morality such a subjuga- 
 tion was, is evident from Machiavelli's celebrated work 
 "The Prince." This book has often been thrown aside in 
 disgust, as replete with the maxims of the most revolting 
 tyranny ; but nothing worse can be urged against it than 
 that the writer, having the profound consciousness of the 
 necessity for the formation of a State, has here exhibited the 
 principles on which alone states could be founded in the cir- 
 cumstances of the times. The chiefs who asserted an isolated 
 independence, and the power they arrogated, must be entirely 
 subdued ; and though we cannot reconcile with our idea of 
 Freedom ,the means which he proposes as the only efficient on es, 
 and regards as perfectly justifiable — inasmuch as they involve 
 the most reckless violence, all kinds of deception, assassina- 
 tion, and so forth — we must nevertheless confess that the 
 feudal nobility, whose power was to be subdued, were assail- 
 able in no other way, since an indomitable contempt for 
 principle, and an utter depravity of morals, were thoroughly 
 engrained in them. 
 
 In France we find the converse of that which occurred in 
 Germany and Italy. For many centuries the Kings of 
 France possessed only a very small domain, so that many of 
 their vassals were more powerful than themselves : but it 
 was a great advantage to the royal dignity in France, that 
 the principle of hereditary monarchy was firmly established 
 there. The consideration it enjoyed was increased by the 
 circumstance that the corporations and cities had their rights 
 
SLCT. II. MIDDLE AGES. — TRANSITION TO MONARCHY. 121 
 
 and privileges confirmed by the king, and that the appeals to 
 the supreme feudal tribunal — the Court of Peers, consisting of 
 twelve members enjoying that dignity — became increasingly 
 frequent. The king's influence was extended by Iiis afford- 
 ing that protection which only the throne could give. But 
 that which essentially secured respect for royalty, even 
 among the powerful vassals, was the increasing personal 
 power of the sovereign. In various ways, by inheritance, 
 by marriage, by force of arms, &c, the Kings had come into 
 possession of many Earldoms [Grafschaften] and several 
 Duchies. The Dukes of Normandy had, however, become 
 Kings of England; and thus a formidable power confronted 
 France, whose interior lay open to it by way of Normandy. 
 Besides this there were powerful Duchies still remaining ; 
 nevertheless, the King was not a mere feudal suzerain 
 [Lehnsherr] like the German Emperors, but had become a 
 territorial possessor [Landesherr] : he had a number of 
 barons and cities under him, who were subject to his imme- 
 diate jurisdiction ; and Louis IX. succeeded in reudering 
 appeals to the royal tribunal common throughout his king- 
 dom. The towns attained a position of greater importance 
 in the state. For when the king needed money, and all his 
 usual resources — such as taxes and forced contributions of all 
 kinds — were exhausted, he made application to the towns and 
 entered into separate negociations with them. It was Phi- 
 lip the Fair who, in the year 1302, first convoked the depu- 
 ties of the towns as a Third Estate in conjunction with the 
 clergy and the barons. All indeed that they were in the 
 first instance concerned with was the authority of the sove- 
 reign as the power that had convoked them, and the raising 
 of taxes as the object of their convocation ; but the States 
 nevertheless secured an importance and weight in the king- 
 dom, and as the natural result, an influence on legislation 
 also. A fact which is particularly remarkable is the pro- 
 clamation issued by the kings of France, giving permission 
 to the bondsmen on the crow r n lands to purchase their free- 
 dom at a moderate price. In the way we have indicated the 
 kings of France very soon attained great power; Avhile the 
 flourishing state of the poetic art in the hands of the Trouba- 
 dours, and the growth of the scholastic theology, whose es- 
 pecial centre was Paris, gave France a culture superior to 
 
422 
 
 PART IV. THE GERMAN WORLD. 
 
 that of tlie other European states, and which secured th 
 
 respect of foreign nations. 
 
 England, as we have already had occasion to mention, was 
 subjugated by William the Conqueror, Duke of Normandy 
 William introduced the feudal system into it, and divided 
 the kingdom into fiefs, which he granted almost exclusively 
 to his Norman followers. He himself retained considerable 
 crown possessions ; the vassals were under obligation to 
 perform service in the field, and to aid in administering jus 
 tice : the King was the guardian of all vassals under age 
 they could not marry without his consent. Only by degree 
 did the barons and the towns attain a position of importance 
 It was especially in the disputes and struggles for the throne 
 that they acquired considerable weight. When the oppres 
 sive rule and fiscal exactions of the Kings became intolerable 
 contentions and even war ensued : the barons compelle 
 King John to swear to Magna Charta, the basis of Englis 
 liberty, i. e. more particularly of the privileges of the no 
 bility. Among the liberties thus secured, that which con 
 cern3 the administration of justice was the chief : no Eng 
 lishman was to be deprived of personal freedom, property 
 or life without the judicial verdict of his peers. Every one 
 moreover, was to be entitled to the free disposition of hi 
 property. Further, the King was to impose no taxes with 
 out the consent of the archbishops, bishops, earls, an 
 barons. The towns, also, favoured by the Kings in opposi 
 tion to the barons, soon elevated themselves into a Third 
 Estate and to representation in the Commons' House o 
 Parliament. Yet the King was always very powerful, if he 
 possessed strength of character : his crown estates procured 
 for him due consideration ; in later times, however, these 
 were gradually alienated — given away — so that the King w as 
 reduced to apply for subsidies to the parliament. 
 
 We shall not pursue the minute and specifically historic 
 details that concern the incorporation of principalities with 
 states, or the dissensions and contests that accompanied such 
 incorporations. We have only to add that the kings, when 
 by weakening the feudal constitution, they had attained a 
 higher degree of power, began to use that power against 
 each other in the undisguised interest of their own dominion. 
 Thus France and England carried on wars with each other 
 
SECT. II. MIDDLE AG KS. — TRANSITION TO MONARCHY. 423 
 
 for a century. The kings were always endeavouring to make 
 foreign conquests ; the towns, which had the largest share of 
 the burdens and expenses of such wars, were opposed to 
 them, and in order to placate them the kings granted them 
 important privileges. 
 
 The Popes endeavoured to make the disturbed state of 
 society to which each of these changes gave rise, an occasion 
 for the intervention of their authority ; but the interest of 
 the growth of states was too firmly established to allow them 
 to make their own interest of absolute authority valid 
 against it. Princes and peoples were indifferent to papal 
 clamour urging them to new crusades. The Emperor Louis 
 set to work to deduce from Aristotle, the Bible, and the 
 Roman Law a refutation of the assumptions of the Papal 
 See ; and the electors declared at the Diet held at Rense in 
 1338, and afterwards still more decidedly at the Imperial 
 Diet held at Prankfort, that they would defend the liberties 
 and hereditary rights of the Empire, and that to make the 
 choice of a Roman Emperor or King valid, no papal confir- 
 mation was needed. So, at an earlier date, 1302, on occasion 
 of a contest between Pope Boniface and Philip the Fair, 
 the Assembly of the States convoked by the latter had 
 offered opposition to the Pope. Por states and communities 
 had arrived at the consciousness of independent moral 
 worth. — Various causes had united to weaken the papal 
 authority: the Great Schism of the Church, w r hich led 
 men to doubt the Pope's infallibility, gave occasion to 
 the decisions of the Councils of Constance and Basle, 
 which assumed an authority superior to that of the Pope, 
 and therefore deposed and appointed Popes. The numerous 
 attempts directed against the ecclesiastical system confirmed 
 the necessity of a reformation. Arnold of Brescia, Wick- 
 liffe, and Huss met with sympathy in contending against 
 the dogma of the papal vicegerency of Christ, and the 
 gross abuses that disgraced the hierarchy. These attempts 
 were, however, only partial in their scope. On the one hand 
 the time was not yet ripe for a more comprehensive on- 
 slaught ; on the other hand the assailants in question did 
 not strike at the heart of the matter, but (especially the two 
 latter) attacked the teaching of the Church chiefly with the 
 weapons of erudition, and consequently failed to excite a 
 deep interest among the people at large. 
 
424 
 
 PART IY. THE GERMAN WORLD. 
 
 But the ecclesiastical principle had a more dangerous foe in 
 the incipient formation of political organizations, than in the 
 antagonists above referred to. A common object, an aim 
 intrinsically possessed of perfect moral validity,* presented 
 itself to secularity in the formation of states; and to this 
 aim of community the will, the desire, the caprice of the 
 individual submitted itself. The hardness characteristic of 
 the self-seeking quality of " Heart," maintaining its position 
 of isolation — the knotty heart of oak underlying the na- 
 tional temperament of the Germans — was broken down and 
 mellowed by the terrible discipline of the Middle Ages. 
 The two iron rods which were the instruments of this 
 discipline were the Church and serfdom. The Church drove 
 the " Heart " [Gemüth] to desperation — made Spirit pass 
 through the severest bondage, so that the soul was no longer 
 its own ; but it did not degrade it to Hindoo torpor, for 
 Christianity is an intrinsically spiritual principle and, as 
 such, has a boundless elasticity. In the same way serfdom, 
 which made a man's body not his own, but the property of 
 another, dragged humanity through all the barbarism of 
 slavery and unbridled desire, and the latter was destroyed 
 by its own violence. It was not so much from slavery as 
 through slavery that humanity was emancipated. For bar- 
 barism, lust, injustice constitute evil : man, bound fast in 
 its fetters, is unfit for morality and religiousness ; and 
 it is from this intemperate and ungovernable state of 
 volition that the discipline in question emancipated him. 
 The Church fought the battle with the violence of rude 
 sensuality in a temper equally wild and terroristic with that of 
 its antagonist : it prostrated the latter by dint of the terrors 
 of hell, and held it in perpetual subjection, in order to break 
 down the spirit of barbarism and to tame it into repose. 
 Theology declares that every man has this struggle to pass 
 through, since he is by nature evil, and only by passing 
 through a state of mental laceration arrives at the certainty 
 of Reconciliation. But granting this, it must on the other 
 hand be maintained, that the form of the contest is very 
 much altered when the conditions of its commencement are 
 different, and when that reconciliation has had an actual reali- 
 
 * That is, not a personal aim, whose self-seeking character is its con- 
 demnation, but a general and liberal, consequently a moral aim. — Tu. 
 
SECT. II. MIDDLE AGES. — INFLUENCE OF ART, ETC. 425 
 
 zation. The path of torturous discipline is in that case dis- 
 pensed with (it does indeed make its appearance at a later 
 date, but in a quite different form), for the waking up of con- 
 sciousness finds man surrounded by the element of a moral 
 state of society. The phase of negation is indeed, a neces- 
 sary element in human development, but it has now assumed 
 the* tranquil form of education, so that all the terrible charac- 
 teristics of that inward struggle vanish. 
 
 Humanity has now attained the consciousness of a real 
 internal harmonization of Spirit, and a good conscience in 
 regard to actuality — to secular existence. The Human Spirit 
 has come to stand on its own basis. In the self-conscious- 
 ness to which man has thus advanced, there is no revolt 
 against the Divine, but a manifestation of that better sub- 
 jectivity, which recognizes the Divine in its own being ; 
 which is imbued with the Good and True, and which directs 
 its activities to general and liberal objects bearing the stamp 
 of rationality and beauty. 
 
 ART AND SCIENCE AS PUTTING A PERIOD TO THE 
 MIDDLE AGES. 
 
 Humanity beholds its spiritual firmament restored to 
 serenity. "With that tranquil settling down of the world 
 into political order which we have been contemplating, was 
 conjoined an exaltation of Spirit to a nobler grade of 
 humanity in a sphere involving more comprehensive and 
 concrete interests than that with which political existence 
 is concerned. The Sepulchre — that caput rnortuum of Spirit — 
 and the Ultramundane cease to absorb human attention. 
 The principle of a specific and definite embodiment of the 
 Infinite — that desideratum which urged the world to the 
 Crusades, now developed itself in a quite different direc- 
 tion, viz. in secular existence asserting an independent 
 ground : Spirit made its embodiment an outward one and 
 found a congenial sphere in the secular life thus originated. 
 The Church, however, maintained its former position, and 
 retained the principle in question in its original form. Yet 
 even in this case, that principle ceased to be limited to a 
 bare outward existence [a sacred thing, the Host, e. g.~\ : it 
 
426 
 
 PART IV. THE GERMAN WORLD. 
 
 was transformed and elevated by Art. Art spiritualizes, — 
 animates the mere outward and material object of adoration 
 with a form which expresses soul, sentiment, Spirit ; so that 
 piety has not a bare sensuous embodiment of the Infinite to 
 contemplate, and does not lavish its devotion on a mere 
 Thing, but on the higher element with which the material 
 object is imbued — that expressive form with which Spirit 
 has invested it. — It is one thing for the mind to have before 
 it a mere Thing — such as the Hostler se, a piece of stone or 
 wood, or a wretched daub ; — quite another thing for it to 
 contemplate a painting, rich in thought and sentiment, 
 or a beautiful work of sculpture, in looking at which, soul 
 holds converse with soul and Spirit w T ith Spirit. In the for- 
 mer case, Spirit is torn from its proper element, bound down 
 to something utterly alien to it — the Sensuous, the Non- 
 Spiritual. In the latter, on the contrary, the sensuous ob- 
 ject is a beautiful one, and the Spiritual Form with which it 
 is endued, gives it a soul and contains truth in itself. But 
 on the one hand, this element of truth as thus exhibited, is 
 manifested only in a sensuous mode, not in its appropriate 
 form ; on the other hand, while Religion normally involves 
 independence of that which is essentially a mere outward 
 and material object — a mere thing, —that kind of religion 
 w T hich is now under consideration, finds no satisfaction in 
 being brought into connection with the Beautiful : the 
 coarsest, ugliest, poorest representations will suit its purpose 
 equally ivell — perhaps better. Accordingly real master- 
 pieces — e. g. Raphael's Madonnas — do not enjoy distin- 
 guished veneration, or elicit a multitude of offerings : in- 
 ferior pictures seem on the contrary to be especial favourites 
 and to be made the object of the warmest devotion and the 
 most generous liberality. Piety passes by the former for 
 this very reason, that were it to linger in their vicinity it 
 would feel an inward stimulus and attraction ; — an excitement 
 of a kind which cannot but be felt to be alien, where all 
 that is desiderated is a sense of mental bondage in which 
 self is lost — the stupor of abject dependence. — Thus Art 
 in its very nature transcended the principle of the Church. 
 But as the former manifests itself only under sensuous limi- 
 tations [and does not present the suspicious aspect of abstract 
 thought], it is at first regarded as a harmless and indifferent 
 
SECT. II. MIDDLE AGES. — INFLUENCE OF ART, ETC. 427 
 
 matter. The Church, therefore, continued to follow it ; but 
 as soon as the free Spirit in which Art originated, advanced 
 to Thought and Science, a separation ensued. 
 
 For Art received a further support and experienced an 
 elevating influence as the result of the study of antiquity 
 (the name liumaniora is very expressive, for in those works 
 of antiquity honour is done to the Human and to the de- 
 velopment of Humanity) : through this study the West be- 
 came acquainted with the true and eternal element in the 
 activity of man. The outward occasion of this revival of 
 science was the fall of the Byzantine Empire. Large num- 
 bers of Greeks took refuge in the West and introduced 
 Greek literature there; and they brought with them not only 
 the knowledge of the Greek language but also the treasures 
 to which that knowledge was the key. Very little of Greek 
 literature had been preserved in the convents, and an ac- 
 quaintance with the language could scarcely be said to exist at 
 all. With the Homan literature it was otherwise ; in regard to 
 that, ancient traditions still lingered : Virgil was thought 
 to be a great magician (in Dante he appears as the guide 
 in Hell and Purgatory). Through the influence of the 
 Greeks, then, attention was again directed to the ancient 
 Greek literature ; the West had become capable of enjoying 
 and appreciating it ; quite other ideals and a different order 
 of virtue from that with which mediseval Europe was familiar 
 were here presented ; an altogether novel standard for judg- 
 ing of what was to be honoured, commended and imitated 
 was set up. The Greeks in their works exhibited quite 
 other moral commands than those with which the West was 
 acquainted ; scholastic formalism had to make way for a body 
 of speculative thought of a widely different complexion: Plato 
 became known in the West, and in him a new human world 
 presented itself. These novel ideas met with a principal 
 organ of diffusion in the newly discovered Art of Printing, 
 which, like the use of gunpowder, corresponds with 
 modern character, and supplied the desideratum of the age 
 in which it was invented, by tending to enable men to stand in 
 an ideal connection with each other. So far as the study of 
 the ancients manifested an interest in human deeds and vir- 
 tues, the Church continued to tolerate it, not observing that 
 in those alien works an altogether alien spirit was advancing 
 to confront it. 
 
428 
 
 PART IV. THE GERMAN "WORLD. 
 
 As a third leading feature demanding our notice in deter- 
 mining the character of the period, might be mentioned that 
 urging of Spirit outwards — that desire on the part of man 
 to become acquainted with his world. The chivalrous spirit 
 of the maritime heroes of Portugal and Spain opened a new 
 way to the East Indies and discovered America. This pro- 
 gressive step also, involved no transgression of the limits of 
 ecclesiastical principles or feeling. The aim of Columbus 
 was by no means a merely secular one : it presented also a 
 distinctly religious aspect; the treasures of those rich Indian 
 lands which awaited his discovery were destined in his in- 
 tention to be expended in a new Crusade, and the heathen 
 inhabitants of the countries themselves were to be converted 
 to Christianity. The recognition of the spherical figure of 
 the earth led man to perceive that it offered him a defi- 
 nite and limited object, and navigation had been benefited 
 by the new found instrumentality of the magnet, enabling it 
 to be something better than mere coasting : thus technical 
 appliances make their appearance when a need for them is 
 experienced. 
 
 These three events — the so-called Revival of Learning, 
 the flourishing of the Tine Arts and the discovery of America 
 and of the passage to India by the Cape — may be compared 
 with that blush of dawn, which after long storms first be- 
 tokens the return of a bright and glorious day. This day is 
 the day of Universality, which breaks upon the world after 
 the long, eventful, and terrible night of the Middle Ages — a 
 day which is distinguished by science, art and inventive im- 
 pulse, — that is, by the noblest and highest, and which H uma- 
 nity, rendered free by Christianity and emancipated through 
 the instrumentality of the Church, exhibits as the eternal 
 and veritable substance of its being. 
 
 SECTION III. 
 
 THE MODERN TIME. 
 
 We have now arrived at the third period of the German 
 "World, and thus enter upon the period of Spirit conscious 
 that it is free, inasmuch as it wills the True, the Eternal — 
 that which is in and for itself Universal. 
 
SECT. III. THE MODERN TIME. — TIIE REFORMATION. 429 
 
 In this third period also, three divisions present them- 
 selves. First, we have to consider the Reformation in itself — 
 the all-enlightening Sun, following on that blush of dawn 
 which we observed at the termination of the mediaeval period; 
 next, the unfolding of that state of things which succeeded 
 the Reformation ; and lastly, the Modern Times, dating from 
 the end of the last century. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE REFORMATION. 
 
 The Reformation resulted from the corruption of the Church. 
 That corruption was not an accidental phenomenon ; it was not 
 the mere abuse of power and dominion. A corrupt state of 
 things is very frequently represented as an "abuse;" it is 
 taken for granted that the foundation was good, — the system, 
 the institution itself faultless, — but that the passion, the 
 subjective interest, in short the arbitrary volition of men has 
 made use of that which in itself was good to further its own 
 selfish ends, and that all that is required to be done is to 
 remove these adventitious elements. On this shewing the 
 institute in question escapes obloquy, and the evil that dis- 
 figures it appears something foreign to it. But when acci- 
 dental abuse of a good thing really occurs, it is limited to par- 
 ticularity. A great and general corruption affecting a body 
 of such large and comprehensive scope as a Church, is quite 
 another thing. — The corruption of the Church was a native 
 growth ; the principle of that corruption is to be looked for 
 in the fact that the specific and definite embodiment of Deity 
 which it recognizes, is sensuous, — that the external in a 
 coarse material form, is enshrined in its inmost being. (The 
 refining transformation which Art supplied was not suffi- 
 cient) . The higher Spirit — that of the World — has al- 
 ready expelled the Spiritual from it ; it finds nothing to in- 
 terest it in the Spiritual or in occupation with it ; thus it 
 retains that specific and definite embodiment ; — i <?., we have 
 the sensuous immediate subjectivitj 7 , not refined by it to 
 
430 
 
 PAßT IV. THE GERMAN WORLD. 
 
 Spiritual subjectivity. — Henceforth it occupies a position of 
 inferiority to the World-Spirit ; the latter has already trans- 
 cended it, for it has become capable of recognizing the 
 Sensuous as sensuous, the merely outward as merely out- 
 ward ; it has learned to occupy itself with the Finite in a 
 finite way, and in this very activity to maintain an indepen- 
 dent and confident position as a valid and rightful subjec- 
 tivity.* 
 
 The element in question which is innate in the Ecclesias- 
 tical principle only reveals itself as a corrupting one when 
 the Church has no longer any opposition to contend with, — 
 when it has become firmly established. Then its elements 
 are free to display their tendencies without let or hindrance. 
 Thus it is that externality in the Church itself which becomes 
 evil and corruption, and develops itself as a negative princi- 
 ple in its own bosom. — The forms which this corruption 
 assumes are coextensive with the relations which the Church 
 itself sustains, into which consequently this vitiating ele- 
 ment enters. 
 
 The ecclesiastical piety of the period displays the very 
 essence of superstition — the fettering of the mind to a 
 sensuous object, a mere Thing — in the most various forms : 
 — slavish deference to Authority; for Spirit, having renounced 
 its proper nature in its most essential quality [having sacri- 
 ficed its characteristic liberty to a mere sensuous object], has 
 lost its Freedom, and is held in adamantine bondage to what 
 is alien to itself; — a credulity of the most absurd and child- 
 ish character in regard to Miracles, for the Divine is sup- 
 posed to manifest itself in a perfectly disconnected and 
 limited way, for purely finite and particular purposes; — 
 lastly, lust of power, riotous debauchery, all the forms of 
 barbarous and vulgar corruption, hypocrisy and deception, 
 — all this manifests itself in the Church ; for in fact the 
 Sensuous in it is not subjugated and trained by the Under- 
 
 * The Church, in its devotion to mere ceremonial observances, supposes 
 itself to be engaged with the Spiritual, while it is really occupied with the 
 Sensuous. The World towards the close of the Mediaeval period, is 
 equally devoted to the Sensuous, hnt labours under no such hallucination 
 as to the character of its activity ; and it has ceased to feel compunction 
 at the merely secular nature of its aims and actions, such as it might have 
 felt (e. g\) in the eleventh century. — Tr. 
 
SECT Iir. THE MODERN TIME. — THE REFORMATION. l.'U 
 
 standing ; it has become free, but only in a rough and 
 barbarous way. — On the other hand the virtue which the 
 Church presents, siuce it is negative only in opposition to 
 sensual appetite, is but abstractly negative ; it does not 
 know how to exercise a moral restraint in the indulgence of 
 the senses ; in actual life nothing is left for it but avoidance, 
 renunciation, inactivity. 
 
 These contrasts which the Church exhibits — of barbarous 
 vice and lust on the one hand, and an elevation of soul that 
 is ready to renounce all worldly things, on the other hand — 
 became still wider in consequence of the energetic position 
 which man is sensible of occupying in his subjective power 
 over outward and material things in the natural world, in 
 which he feels himself free, and so gains for himself an abso- 
 lute right. — The Church whose office it is to save souls from 
 perdition, makes this salvation itself a mere external appli- 
 ance, and is now degraded so far as to perform this office in 
 a merely external fashion. The remission of sins — the highest 
 satisfaction which the soul craves, the certainty of its peace 
 with God, that which concerns man's deepest and inmost 
 nature — is offered to man in the most grossly superficial and 
 trivial fashion, — to be purchased for mere money ; while the 
 object of this sale is to procure means for dissolute excess. 
 One of the objects of this sale was indeed the building of St. 
 Peter's, that magnificent chef-d'oeuvre of Christian fabrics 
 erected in the metropolis of religion. But, as that paragon 
 of works of art the Athene and her temple-citadel at Athens, 
 was built with the money of the allies and issued in the loss 
 of both allies and power ; so the completion of this Church 
 of St. Peter and Michael Angelo's " Last Judgment " in the 
 Sistiue Chapel, were the Doomsday and the ruin of this proud 
 spiritual edifice. 
 
 The time-honoured and cherished sincerity of the German 
 people is destined to effect this revolution out of the honest 
 truth and simplicity of its heart. While the rest of the 
 world are urging their way to India, to America — straining 
 every nerve to gain wealth and to acquire a secular 
 dominion which shall encompass the globe, and on which the 
 sun shall never set — we find a simple Monk looking for 
 that specific embodiment of Deity which Christendom ha 1 
 formerly sought in an earthly sepulchre of stpne, rather in 
 
432 
 
 PAßT IV. THE GERMAN WORLD. 
 
 the deeper ab)ss of the Absolute Ideality of all that is sen- 
 suous and external, — in the Spirit and the Heart, — the heart, 
 which, wounded unspeakably by the offer of the most tri- 
 vial and superficial appliances to satisfy the cravings of that 
 which is inmost and deepest, now detects the perversion of 
 the absolute relation of truth in its minutest features, and 
 pursues it to annihilation. Luther's simple doctrine is that 
 the specific embodiment of Deity— infinite subjectivity, that 
 is true spirituality, Christ — is in no way present and actual in 
 an outward form, but as essentially spiritual is obtained 
 only in being reconciled to God— in faith and spiritual en- 
 joyment. These two words express everything. That which this 
 doctrine desiderates, is not the recognition of asensuous object 
 as God, nor even of something merely conceived, and which is 
 not actual and present, but of a Reality that is not sensuous. 
 This abrogation of externality imports the reconstruction of 
 all the doctrines, and the reform of all the superstition into 
 which the Church consistently wandered, and in which its spi- 
 ritual life was dissipated. This change especially affects the 
 doctrine of works ; for works include what may be performed 
 under any mental conditions — not necessarily in faith, in 
 one's own soul, but as mere external observances prescribed 
 by authority. Faith is by no means a bare assurance re- 
 specting mere finite things — an assurance which belongs only 
 to limited mind — as e. g. the belief that such or such a per- 
 son existed and said this or that ; or that the Children of 
 Israel passed dry-shod through the Red Sea — or that the 
 trumpets before the walls of Jericho produced as powerful 
 an impression as our cannons ; for although nothing of all 
 this had been related to us, our knowledge of God would 
 not be the less complete. In fact it is not a belief in some- 
 thing that is absent, past and gone, but the subjective as- 
 surance of the Eternal, of Absolute Truth, the Truth of God. 
 Concerning this assurance, the Lutheran Church affirms that 
 the Holy Spirit alone produces it — i. e. that it is an assur- 
 ance which the individual attains, not in virtue of his 
 particular idiosyncrasy, but of his essential being. — The 
 Lutheran doctrine therefore involves the entire substance of 
 Catholicism, with the exception of all that results from the 
 element of externality — as far as the Catholic Church insists 
 upon that externality. Luther therefore could not do other- 
 
SECT. III. TIIE MODERN TIME. — THE REFORMATION". 433 
 
 wise than refuse to yield an iota in regard to that doctrine of 
 the Eucharist in which the whole question is concentrated. 
 Isor could he concede to the Reformed [Calvinistic] Church, 
 that Christ is a mere commemoration, a mere reminiscence : 
 in this respect his view was rather in accordance with that 
 of the Catholic Church, viz. that Christ is an actual presence, 
 though only in faith and in Spirit. He maintained that the 
 Spirit of Christ really fills the human heart, — that Christ 
 therefore is not to be regarded as merely an historical per- 
 son, but that man sustains an immediate relation to him in 
 Spirit. 
 
 While, then, the individual knows that he is filled with the 
 Divine Spirit, all the relations that sprung from that vitiating 
 element of externality which w r e examined above, are ipso 
 facto abrogated: there is no longer a distinction between 
 priests and laymen ; we no longer find one class in posses- 
 sion of the substance of the Truth, as of all the spiritual and 
 temporal treasures of the Church ; but the heart — the emo 
 tional part of man's Spiritual nature — is recognized as that 
 which can and ought to come into possession of the Truth ; 
 and this subjectivity is the common property of all mankind 
 Each has to accomplish the work of reconciliation in his 
 own soul. — Subjective Spirit has to receive the Spirit of 
 Truth into itself, and give it a dwelling place there. Thus 
 that absolute inwardness of soul which pertains to reli- 
 gion itself, and Freedom in the Church are both secured. 
 Subjectivity therefore makes the objective purport of Chris- 
 tianity, i. e. the doctrine of the Church, its own. In the 
 Lutheran Church the subjective feeling and the conviction 
 of the individual is regarded as equally necessary with the 
 objective side of Truth. Truth with Lutherans is not a 
 finished and completed thing ; the subject himself must be 
 imbued with Truth, surrendering his particular being in e x- 
 change for the substantial Truth, and making that Truth 
 his own. Thus subjective Spirit gains emancipation in the 
 Truth, abnegates its particularity and comes to itself in 
 realizing the truth of its being. Thus Christian Freedom is 
 actualized. If Subjectivity be placed in feeling only, with- 
 out that objective side, we have the stand-point of the merely 
 Natural Will. 
 
 In the proclamation of these principles is unfurled the new, 
 
 2r 
 
434 
 
 PAKT IT. THE GERMAN WOHLD. 
 
 the latest standard round which the peoples rally — the 
 banner of Free Spirit, independent, though finding its life in 
 the Truth, and enjoying independence only in it. This is 
 the banner under which we serve, and which we bear. Time, 
 since that epoch, has had no other work to do than the 
 formal imbuing of the world with this principle, in bringing 
 the Keconciliation implicit [in Christianity] into objective 
 and explicit realization. Culture is essentially concerned 
 with Form ; the work of Culture is the production of the 
 Form of Universality, which is none other than Thought.* 
 Consequently Law, Property, Social Morality, Government, 
 Constitutions, &c. must be conformed to general principles, 
 in order that they may accord with the idea of Free Will 
 and be Rational. Thus only can the Spirit of Truth mani- 
 fest itself in Subjective Will — in the particular shapes which 
 the activity of the Will assumes. In virtue of that degree 
 of intensity which Subjective Free Spirit has attained, ele- 
 vating it to the form of Universality, Objective Spirit attains 
 manifestation. This is the sense in which we must under- 
 stand the State to be based on Eeligion. States and Laws 
 are nothing else than Eeligion manifesting itself in the 
 relations of the actual world. 
 
 This is the essence of the Eeformation : Man is in his very 
 nature destined to be free. 
 
 At its commencement, the Eeformation concerned itself 
 only with particular aspects of the Catholic Church : Luther 
 w r ished to act in union with the whole Catholic world, and 
 expressed a desire that Councils should be convened. His 
 theses found supporters in every country. In answer to the 
 charge brought against Luther and the Protestants, of exag- 
 geration — nay, even of calumnious misrepresentation in their 
 descriptions of the corruption of the Church, we may refer 
 to the statements of Catholics themselves, bearing upon this 
 
 * The community of principle which really links together individuals 
 of the same class, and in virtue of which they are similarly related toother 
 existences, assumes a form in human consciousness ; and that form is the 
 thought or idea which summarily comprehends the constituents of generic 
 character. The primary meaning of the word idea and of the related terms 
 tldog and species, is " form." Every " Universal " in Thought has a corres- 
 ponding generic principle in Reality, to which it gives intellectual expres- 
 sion or form. — Tfi. 
 
SECT. HI. THE MODERN TIME. — THE REFORMATION". 435 
 
 point, and particularly to those contained in the official 
 documents of Ecclesiastical Councils. But Luther's on- 
 slaught, which was at first limited to particular points, was 
 soon extended to the doctrines of the Church ; and leaving in- 
 dividuals, he attacked institutions at large — conventual life, 
 the secular lordships of the bishops, &c. His writings now 
 controverted not merely isolated dicta of the Pope and the 
 Councils, but the very principle on which such a mode of 
 deciding points in dispute was based — in fact, the Authority 
 of the Ch urch. Luther repudiated that authority, and set up 
 in its stead the Bible and the testimony of the Human 
 Spirit. And it is a fact of the weightiest import that the 
 Bible has become the basis of the Christian Church : hence- 
 forth each individual enjoys the right of deriving instruction 
 for himself from it, and of directing his conscience in accord- 
 ance with it. We see a vast change in the principle by which 
 man's religious life is guided: the whole system of Tradi- 
 tion, the whole fabric of the Church becomes problematical, 
 and its authority is subverted. Luther's translation of the 
 Bible has been of incalculable value to the German people. 
 It has supplied them with a People's Book, such as no 
 nation in the Catholic world can boast ; for though the 
 latter have a vast number of minor productions in the shape 
 of prayer-books, they have no generally recognized and 
 classical book for popular instruction. In spite of this it 
 has been made a question in modern times whether it is 
 judicious to place the Bible in the hands of the People. Yet 
 the few disadvantages thus entailed are far more than coun- 
 terbalanced by the incalculable benefits thence accruing : 
 narratives, which in their external shape might be repellent 
 to the heart and understanding, can be discriminatingly 
 treated by the religious sense, which, holding fast the sub- 
 stantial truth, easily vanquishes any such difficulties. And 
 even if the books which have pretensions to the character 
 of People's Books were not so superficial as they are, 
 they would certainly fail in securing that respect which a 
 book claiming such a title ought to inspire in individuals. 
 But to obviate this difficulty is no easy matter, for even 
 should a book adapted to the purpose in every other respect 
 be produced, every country parson would have some fault to 
 find with it, and think to better it. In France the need of such 
 
 2 f 2 
 
436 
 
 PART 1Y. THE GERMAN WORLD. 
 
 a book has been very much felt ; great premiums have been 
 offered with a view to obtaining one, but, from the reason 
 stated, without success. Moreover, the existence of a 
 People's Book presupposes as its primary condition an ability 
 to read on the part of the People ; an ability which in Catho- 
 lic countries is not very commonly to be met with. 
 
 The denial of the Authority of the Church necessarily led 
 to a separation. The Council of Trent stereotyped the 
 principles of Catholicism, and made the restoration of con- 
 cord impossible. Leibnitz at a later time discussed with 
 Bishop Bossuet the question of the union of the Churches ; 
 but the Council of Trent remains the insurmountable ob- 
 stacle. The Churches became hostile parties, for even in 
 respect to secular arrangements a striking difference mani- 
 fested itself. In the non-Catholic countries the conventual 
 establishments and episcopal foundations were broken up, 
 and the rights of the then proprietors ignored. Educational 
 arrangements were altered ; the fasts and holy days were 
 abolished. Thus there was also a secular reform — a change 
 affecting the state of things outside the sphere of eccle- 
 siastical relations : in many places a rebellion was raised 
 against the temporal authorities. In Münster the Ana- 
 baptists expelled the Bishop and established a government 
 of their own ; and the peasants rose en masse to emancipate 
 themselves from the yoke of serfdom. But the world was 
 not yet ripe for a transformation of its political condition 
 as a consequence of ecclesiastical reformation. — The Catholic 
 Church also was essentially influenced by the Reformation : 
 the reins of discipline were drawn tighter, and the greatest oc- 
 casions of scandal, the most crying abuses were abated. Much 
 of the intellectual life of the age that lay outside its sphere, 
 but with which it had previously maintained friendly relations, 
 it now repudiated. The Church came to a dead stop — " hither- 
 to and no farther !" It severed itself from advancing Science, 
 from philosophy and humanistic literature ; and an occasion 
 was soon offered of declaring its enmity to the scientific 
 pursuits of the period. The celebrated Copernicus had dis- 
 covered that the earth and the planets revolve round the 
 sun, but the Church declared against this addition to human 
 knowledge. Galileo, who had published a statement in the 
 form of a dialogue of the evidence for and against the Coper- 
 
SECT. III. THE MODERN TIME. — THE REFORMATION". 437 
 
 nican discovery (declaring indeed his own conviction of its 
 truth), wa3 obliged to crave pardon for the offence on hin 
 knees. The Greek literature was not made the basis of cul- 
 ture; education was entrusted to the Jesuits. Thus does 
 the Spirit of the Catholic world in general sink behind the 
 Spirit of the Age. 
 
 Here an important question solicits investigation : — whv 
 the Reformation was limited to certain nations, and why it 
 did not permeate the whole Catholic world. The Reforms- 
 tion originated in Germany, and struck firm root only in the 
 purely German nations; outside of Germany itself it estab- 
 lished itself in Scandinavia and England. But the Romanic 
 and Sclavonic nations kept decidedly aloof from it. Even 
 South Germany has only partially adopted the Reformation 
 — a fact which is consistent with the mingling of elements 
 which is the general characteristic of its nationality. In 
 Swabia, Franconia, and the Rhine countries there were many 
 convents and bishoprics, as also many free imperial towns ; 
 and the reception or rejection of the Reformation very much 
 depended on the influences which these ecclesiastical and 
 civil bodies respectively exercised ; for we have already 
 noticed that the Reformation was a change influencing the 
 political life of the age as well as its religious and intellectual 
 condition. AVe must further observe, that authority has 
 much greater weight in determining men's opinions than 
 people are inclined to believe. There are certain fun- 
 damental principles which men are in the habit of receiving 
 on the strength of authority ; and it was mere authority 
 which in the case of many countries decided for or against 
 the adoption of the Reformation. In Austria, in Bavaria, in 
 Bohemia, the Reformation had already made great progress ; 
 and though it is commonly said that when truth has once pene- 
 trated men's souls, it cannot be rooted out again, it was 
 indisputably stifled in the countries in question, by force of 
 arms, by stratagem or persuasion. The Sclavonic nations were 
 agricultural. This condition of life brngs with it the rela- 
 tion of lord and serf. In agriculture the agency of nature 
 predominates ; human industry and subjective activity are 
 on the whole less brought into play in this department of 
 labour than elsewhere. The Sclavonians therefore did not 
 attain so quickly or readily as other nations the fundamental 
 
438 
 
 PART IT. THE GERMAN WORLD. 
 
 sense of pure individuality — the consciousness of Universality 
 — that which we designated above as " political power 
 [p. 415], and could not share the benefits of daw r ning 
 freedom. — But the Romanic nations also — Italy, Spain, 
 Portugal, and in part France — were not imbued with the 
 Eeformed doctrines. Physical force perhaps did much to 
 repress them ; yet this alone would not be sufficient to ex- 
 plain the fact, for when the Spirit of a Nation craves 
 anything no force can prevent its attaining the desired 
 object : nor can it be said that these nations were deficient 
 in culture ; on the contrary, they were in advance of the 
 Germans in this respect. It was rather owing to the funda- 
 mental character of these nations, that they did not adopt 
 the Eeformation. But what is this peculiarity of character 
 which hindered the attainment of Spiritual Freedom ? We 
 answer: the pure inwardness of the German Nation was 
 the proper soil for the emancipation of Spirit ; the Eomanic 
 Nations, on the contrary, have maintained in the very depth 
 of their soul — in their Spiritual Consciousness — the principle 
 of Disharmony : * they are a product of the fusion of Eoman 
 and German blood, and still retain the heterogeneity thence 
 resulting. The German cannot deny that the French, the 
 Italians, the Spaniards, possess more determination of charac- 
 ter — that they pursue a settled aim (even though it have a 
 fixed idea for its object) with perfectly clear consciousness 
 and the greatest attention — that they carry out a plan with 
 great circumspection, and exhibit the greatest decision in 
 regard to specific objects. The French call the Germans 
 entiers, "entire" — i.e., stubborn ; they are also strangers to 
 the whimsical originality of the English. The Englishman 
 attaches his idea of liberty to the special [as opposed to the 
 general] ; he does not trouble himself about the Understand- 
 ing [logical inference], but on the contrary feels himself so 
 much the more at liberty, the more his course of action or 
 his license to act contravenes the Understanding— i.e., runs 
 counter to [logical inferences or] general principles. On 
 the other hand, among the Eomanic peoples we immediately 
 encounter that internal schism, that holding fast by an ab- 
 
 * The acknowledgment of an external power authorized to command 
 the entire soul of man was not supplanted in their case by a deference to 
 Conscience and subjective Principle (i.e., the union of Objective and Sub- 
 jective freedom) as the supreme authority. — Tr. 
 
SECT. III. TUE MODERN - TIME.— TUE REFORMATION. {'.Id 
 
 stract principle, and as the counterpart of this, an absein ft ho 
 
 Totality of Spirit and sentiment which we call "Heart:" there 
 is not that meditative introversion of the soul upon itself ; — in 
 their inmost being they maybe said to be alienated from them- 
 selves [abstract principles carry them away\ With them the 
 inner life is a region whose depth they do not appreciate; for it 
 is given over * bodily' to particular [absorbing] interests, and 
 the infinity that belongs to Spirit is not to be looked for 
 there. Their inmost being is not their own. They leave it 
 as an alien and indifferent matter, and are glad to have its 
 concerns settled for them by another. That other to which 
 they leave it is the Church. They have indeed something 
 to do with it themselves ; but since that which they have to 
 do is not self-originated and self-prescribed, not their very 
 own, they are content to leave the affair to be settled in a 
 superficial way. " Eh bien" said Napoleon, " we shall go 
 to mass again, and my good fellows will say : 1 That is the 
 word of command!"' This is the leading feature in the 
 character of these nations — the separation of the religious 
 from the secular interest, i.e., from the special interest of 
 individuality ; and the ground of this separation lies in their 
 inmost soul, which has lost its independent entireness of 
 being, its profoundest unity. Catholicism does not claim 
 the essential direction of the Secular ; religion remains an 
 indifferent matter on the one side, while the other side of 
 life is dissociated from it, and occupies a sphere exclusively 
 its own. Cultivated Frenchmen therefore feel an antipathy 
 to Protestantism because it seems to them something pedan- 
 tic, dull, minutely captious in its morality ; since it requires 
 that Spirit and Thought should be directly engaged in reli- 
 gion : in attending mass and other ceremonies, on the con- 
 trary, no exertion of thought is required, but an imposing 
 sensuous spectacle is presented to the eye, which does not 
 make such a demand on one's attention as entirely to exclude 
 a little chat, while yet the duties of the occasion are not 
 neglected. 
 
 We spoke above of the relation ichich the neio doctrine 
 sustained to secular life, and now we have only to exhibit 
 that relation in detail. The development and advance of 
 Spirit from the time of the Reformation onwards consists in 
 this, that Spirit, having now gained the consciousness of its 
 
440 , PART IV. -TUE GERMAN "WORLD. 
 
 Freedom, through that process of mediation which takes 
 place between man and God — that is, in the full recognition 
 of the objective process as the existence [the positive and 
 definite manifestation] of the Divine essence — now takes it 
 up and follows it out in building up the edifice of secular 
 relations. That harmony [of Objective and Subjective Will] 
 which has resulted from the painful struggles of History, 
 involves the recognition of the Secular as capable of being 
 an embodiment of Truth ; whereas it had been formerly re- 
 garded as evil only, as incapable of Good — the latter being 
 considered essentially ultramundane. It is now perceived 
 that Morality and Justice in the State are also divine 
 and commanded by God, and that in point of substance 
 there is nothing higher or more sacred. One inference is 
 that Marriage is no longer deemed less holy than Celibacy. 
 Luther took a . wife to shew that lie respected marriage, 
 defying the calumnies to which he exposed himself by such 
 a step. It was his duty to do so, as it was also to eat meat 
 on Fridays ; to prove that such things are lawful and right, 
 in opposition to the imagined superiority of abstinence. 
 The Family introduces man to community — to the relation of 
 interdependence in society; and this union is a moral one: 
 while on the other hand the monks, separated from the sphere 
 of social morality, formed as it were the standing army of the 
 Pope, as the janizaries formed the basis of the Turkish 
 power. The marriage of the priests entails the disappear- 
 ance of the outward distinction between laity and clergy.— 
 Moreover the repudiation of work no longer earned the repu- 
 •ation of sanctity ; it was acknowledged to be more commen- 
 dable for men to rise from a state of dependence by activity, 
 intelligence, and industry, and make themselves independent. 
 It is more consonant with justice that he who has money 
 should spend it even in luxuries, than that he should give it 
 away to idlers and beggars; for he bestows it on an equal num- 
 ber of persons by so doing, and these must at any rate have 
 worked diligently for it. Industry, crafts and trades now have 
 their moral validity recognized, and the obstacles to their 
 prosperity which originated with the Church, have vanished. 
 For the Church had pronounced it a sin to lend money on 
 interest : but the necessity of so doing led to the direct 
 violation of her injunctions. The Lombards (a fact which 
 
SECT. III. THE MODERN TIME. — TILE REFORMATION. 441 
 
 accounts for the use of the term " lombard " in French to 
 denote a loan-office), and particularly the House of Medici, 
 advanced money to princes in every part of Europe. The 
 third point of sanctity in the Catholic Church, — blind 
 obedience, was likewise denuded of its false pretensions. 
 Obedience to the laws of the State, as the Eational element 
 in volition and action, was made the principle of human con- 
 duct. In this obedience man is free, for all that is demanded 
 is that the Particular should yield to the General. Man 
 himself has a conscience ; consequently the subjection re- 
 quired of him is a free allegiance. This involves the possi- 
 bility of a development of Reason and Freedom, and of their 
 introduction into human relations ; and Eeason and the 
 Divine commands are now synonymous. The Eational no 
 longer meets with contradiction on the part of the religious 
 conscience ; it is permitted to develop itself in its own 
 sphere without disturbance, without being compelled to 
 resort to force in defending itself against an adverse power. 
 But in the Catholic Church, that adverse element is uncon- 
 ditionally sanctioned. Where the Eeformed doctrine pre- 
 vails, princes may still be bad governors, but they are no 
 longer sanctioned and solicited thereto by the promptings 
 of their religious conscience. In the Catholic Church on the 
 contrary, it is nothing singular for the conscience to be 
 found in opposition to the laws of the State. Assassinations 
 of sovereigns, conspiracies against the state, and the like, 
 have often been supported and carried into execution by the 
 priests. 
 
 This harmony between the State and the Church has now 
 attained immediate realization.* We have, as yet, no recon- 
 struction of the State, of the system of jurisprudence, &c. for 
 thought must first discover the essential principles of Eight. 
 The Laws of Freedom had first to be expanded to a system 
 as deduced from an absolute principle of Eight. Spirit does 
 not assume this complete form immediately after the Refor- 
 mation ; it limits itself at first to direct and simple changes, 
 as e.g. the doing away with conventual establishments and 
 episcopal jurisdiction, &c. The reconciliation between God 
 
 * That is, the harmony in question simply exists ; its development and 
 results have not yet manifested themselves. — Tr. 
 
442 
 
 PART IV. THE GERMAN WORLD. 
 
 and the "World was limited in the first instance to an abstract 
 form ; it was not yet expanded into a system by which the 
 moral world could be regulated. 
 
 In the first instance this reconciliation must take place in 
 the individual soul, must be realized by feeling ; the indivi- 
 dual must gain the assurance that the Spirit dwells in him, — 
 that, in the language of the Church, a brokenness of heart has 
 been experienced, and that Divine grace has entered into the 
 heart thus broken. By Nature man is not what he ought 
 to be ; only through a transforming process does he arrive 
 at truth. The general and speculative aspect of the matter 
 is just this — that the human heart is not what it should be. 
 It was then required of the individual that he should know 
 what he is in himself ; that is, the teaching of the Church 
 insisted upon man's becoming conscious that he is evil. But 
 the individual is evil only when the Natural manifests itself in 
 mere sensual desire — when an unrighteous will presents 
 itself in its untamed, untrained, violent shape ; and yet it iä 
 required that such a person should know that he is depraved, 
 and that the good Spirit dwells in him; in fact he is required 
 to have a direct consciousness of and to " experience " that 
 which was presented to him as a speculative and implicit 
 truth. The Reconciliation having, then, assumed this ab- 
 stract form, men tormented themselves with a view to force 
 upon their souls the consciousness of their sinfulness and 
 to know themselves as evil. The most simple souls, the most 
 innocent natures were accustomed in painful introspection to 
 observe the most secret workings of the heart, with a view to a 
 rigid examination of them. "With this duty was conjoined that 
 of an entirely opposite description ; it was required that man 
 should attain the consciousness that the good Spirit dwells 
 in him — that Divine Grace has found an entrance into his 
 soul. In fact the important distinction between the know- 
 ledge of abstract truth and the knowledge of what has 
 actual existence was left out of sight. Men became the victims 
 of a tormenting uncertainty as to whether the good Spirit 
 has an abode in them, and it was deemed indispensable that 
 the entire process of spiritual transformation should become 
 [perceptible to the individual himself. An echo of this self- 
 tormenting process may still be traced in much of the reli- 
 gious poetry of that time j the Psalms of David which exhibit 
 
SECT. III. THE MODERN TIME. — THE REFORMATION. 1 & 
 
 a similar character were then introduced as hymns into the 
 ritual of Protestant Churches. Protestantism took this I urn 
 of minute and painful introspection, possessed with the con- 
 viction of the importance of the exercise, and was for a long 
 time characterized by a self-tormenting disposition and an 
 aspect of spiritual wretchedness ; which in the present day 
 has induced many persons to enter the Catholic pale, that thejr 
 might exchange this inward uncertainty for a formal broad 
 certainty based on the imposing totality of the Church. A 
 more refined order of reflection upon the character of human 
 actions was introduced into the Catholic Church also. The 
 Jesuits analysed the first rudiments of volition (velleitas) 
 with as painful minuteness as was displayed in the pious 
 exercises of Protestantism ; but they had a science of casuis- 
 try which enabled them to discover a good reason for every 
 thing, and so get rid of the burden of guilt which this rigid 
 investigation seemed to aggravate. 
 
 "With this was connected another remarkable phenomenon, 
 common to the Catholic with the Protestant World. The hu- 
 man mind was driven into the Inward, the Abstract, and the 
 [Religious element was regarded as utterly alien to the secular. 
 That lively consciousness of his subjective life and of the 
 inward origin of his volition that had been awakened in man, 
 brought with it the belief in Evil, as a vast power the sphere 
 of whose malign dominion is the Secular. This belief presents 
 a parallelism with the view in which the sale of Indulgences 
 originated: for as eternal salvation could be secured for 
 money, so by paying the price of one's salvation through 
 a compact made with the Devil, the riches of the world and 
 the unlimited gratification of desires and passions could be 
 secured. Thus arose that famous legend of Faust, who in dis- 
 gust at the unsatisfactory character of speculative science, is 
 said to have plunged into the world and purchased all its glory 
 at the expense of his salvation. Faust, if we may trust the 
 poet, had the enjoyment of all that the world could give, 
 in exchange for his soul's weal ; but those poor women who 
 were called Witches were reputed to get nothing more by the 
 bargain than the gratification of a petty revenge by making 
 a neighbour's cow go dry or giving a child the measles. 
 But in awarding puuishment it was not the magnitude of 
 the injury in the loss of the milk or the sickness of the 
 
444 
 
 PAET IT. THE GERMAN "WORLD. 
 
 child that was considered ; it was the abstract power of the 
 Evil One in them that was attacked. The belief in this 
 abstract, special power whose dominion is the world — in the 
 Devil and his devices — occasioned an incalculable number 
 of trials for witchcraft both in Catholic and Protestant 
 countries. It was impossible to prove the guilt of the ac- 
 cused ; they were only suspected : it was therefore only a 
 direct knowledge [one not mediated by proofs] on which 
 this fury against the evil principle professed to be based. 
 It was indeed necessary to have recourse to evidence, but 
 the basis of these judicial processes was simply the belief 
 that certain individuals were possessed by the power of the 
 Evil One. This delusion raged among the nations in the 
 sixteenth century with the fury of a pestilence. The main 
 impulse was suspicion. The principle of suspicion assumes 
 a similarly terrible shape during the sway of the Roman 
 Emperors, and under Robespierre's Reign of Terror ; when 
 mere disposition, unaccompanied by any overt act or ex- 
 pression, was made an object of punishment. Among the 
 Catholics, it was the Dominicans to whom (as was the Inqui- 
 sition in all its branches) the trials for witchcraft were 
 entrusted. Father Spee, a noble Jesuit, wrote a treatise 
 against them (he is also the author of a collection of fine 
 poems bearing the title of " Trutznachtigall,' n ) giving a full 
 exposure of the terrible character of criminal justice in pro- 
 ceedings of this kind. Torture, which was only to be applied 
 once, was continued until a confession was extorted. If the 
 accused fainted under the torture it was averred that the 
 Devil was giving them sleep : if convulsions supervened, it 
 "was said that the Devil was laughing in them ; if they held 
 out steadfastly, the Devil was supposed to give them power. 
 These persecutions spread like an epidemic sickness through 
 Italy, France, Spain and Germany. The earnest remon- 
 strances of enlightened men, such as Spee and others, 
 already produced a considerable effect. But it was Thoma- 
 sius, a Professor of Halle, who first opposed this prevalent 
 superstition with very decided success. The entire phenome- 
 non is in itself most remarkable when we reflect that we 
 have not long been quit of this frightful barbarity (even 
 as late as the year 1780 a witch was publicly burned at 
 Glarus in Switzerland). Among the Catholics persecution 
 
SECT. III. THE HE FORM AT ION AND THE STATE. 415 
 
 was directed against heretics as well as against witches : we 
 might say indeed that they were placed in one category'; 
 the unbelief of the heretics was regarded as none other 
 than the indwelling principle of Evil — a possession similar 
 to the other. 
 
 Leaving this abstract form of Subjectiveness we have now 
 to consider the secular side — the constitution of the State 
 and the advance of Universality — the recognition ot the 
 universal laws of Freedom. This is the second and the essen- 
 tial point. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 INFLUENCE OF THE REFORMATION ON POLITICAL 
 DEVELOPMENT. 
 
 In tracing the course of the political development of the 
 period, we observe in the first place the consolidation of 
 Monarchy, and the Monarch invested with an authority 
 emanating from the State. The incipient stage in the rise 
 of royal power, and the commencement of that unity which 
 the states of Europe attained, belong to a still earlier period. 
 While these changes were going forward, the entire body of 
 private obligations and rights which had been handed down 
 from the Middle Age, still retained validity. Infinitely im- 
 portant is this form of private rights, which the organic 
 constituents of the executive power of the State have as- 
 sumed. At their apex w r e find a fixed and positive principle 
 —the exclusive right of one family to the possession of the 
 throne, and the hereditary succession of sovereigns further 
 restricted by the law of primogeniture. This gives the State 
 an immovable centre. The fact that Germany was an elec- 
 tive empire prevented its being consolidated into one state ; 
 and for the same reason Poland has vanished from the circle 
 of independent states. The State must have a final decisive 
 will: but if an individual is to be the final deciding power, 
 he must be so in a direct and natural way, not as deter- 
 mined by choice and theoretic views, &c. Even among 
 
446 
 
 PART IV. THE GERMAN WORLD. 
 
 the free Greeks the oracle was the external power whic 
 decided their policy on critical occasions ; here birth is the 
 oracle — something independent of any arbitrary volition. 
 But the circumstance that the highest station in a monarchy 
 is assigned to a family, seems to indicate that the sovereignty 
 is the private property of that family. As such that sove- 
 reignty would seem to be divisible ; but since the idea of 
 division of power is opposed to the principle of the state, 
 the rights of the monarch and his family required to be 
 more strictly denned. Sovereign possession is not a pecu- 
 lium of the individual ruler, but is consigned to the dynasti 
 family as a trust; and the estates of the realm possess security 
 that that trust shall be faithfully discharged, for they have to 
 guard the unity of the body politic. Thus, then, royal 
 possession no longer denotes a kind of private property, pri- 
 vate possession of estates, demesnes, jurisdiction, &c, but 
 has become a State-property — a function pertaining to and 
 involved with the State. 
 
 Equally important, and connected with that just no- 
 ticed, is the change of executive powers, functions, duties 
 and rights, which naturally belong to the State, but which 
 had become private property and private contracts or obliga- 
 tions — into possession conferred by the State. The rights of 
 seigneurs and barons were annulled, and they were obliged 
 to content themselves with official positions in the State. 
 This transformation of the rights of vassals into official func- 
 tions took place in the several kingdoms in various ways. 
 In France, e.g., the great Barons, who were governors of 
 provinces, who could claim such offices as a matter of right, 
 and who like the Turkish Pashas, maintained a body of 
 troops with the revenues thence derived — troops which they 
 might at any moment bring into the field against the King — 
 were reduced to the position of mere landed proprietors or 
 court nobility, and those Pashalics became offices held under 
 the government ; or the nobility were employed as officers — 
 generals of the army, an army belonging to the State. In 
 this aspect the origination of standing armies is so important 
 an event ; for they supply the monarchy with an independent 
 force and are as necessary for the security of the central au- 
 thority against the rebellion of the subject individuals as for 
 the defence of the state against foreign enemies. The fiscal 
 
SECT. III. TIIE RKFORMATION AND THE STATE. 44/ 
 
 system indeed had not as yet assumed a systematic charac* 
 ter,— the revenue being derived from customs, taxes and 
 tolls in countless variety, besides the subsidies and contribu- 
 tions paid by the estates of the realm ; in return for which 
 the right of presenting a statement of grievances was con- 
 ceded to them, as is now the case in Hungary. — In Spain 
 the spirit of chivalry had assumed a very beautiful and noble 
 form. This chivalric spirit, this knightly dignity, degraded 
 to a mere inactive sentiment of honour, has attained 
 notoriety as the Spanish grandezza. The Grandees were 
 no longer allowed to maintain troops of their own, and were 
 also withdrawn from the command of the armies; desti- 
 tute of power they had to content themselves as private 
 persons with an empty title. But the means by which the 
 royal power in Spain was consolidated, was the Inquisition, 
 This, which was established for the persecution of those who 
 secretly adhered to Judaism, and of Moors and heretics, soon 
 assumed a political character, being directed against the ene- 
 mies of the State. Thus the Inquisition confirmed the despotic 
 power of the King : it claimed supremacy even over bishops 
 and archbishops, and could cite them before its tribunal. 
 The frequent confiscation of property — one of the most cus- 
 tomary penalties — tended to enrich the treasury of the 
 State. Moreover, the Inquisition was a tribunal which took 
 cognizance of mere suspicion; and while it consequently 
 exercised a fearful authority over the clergy, it had a peculiar 
 support in the national pride. For every Spaniard wished 
 to be considered Christian by descent, and this species of 
 vanity fell in with the views and tendency of the Inquisition. 
 Particular provinces of the Spanish monarchy, as e. g. Arra- 
 gon, still retained many peculiar rights and privileges ; but 
 the Spanish Kings from Philip II. downwards proceeded to 
 suppress them altogether. 
 
 It would lead us too far to pursue in detail the process of 
 the depression of the aristocracy in the several states of 
 Europe. The main scope of this depressing process was, as 
 already stated, the curtailment of the private rights of the 
 feudal nobility, and the transformation of their seigneurial 
 authority into an official position in connection with the 
 State. This change was in the interest of both the King 
 and the People. The powerful barons seemed to constitute 
 
448 
 
 PART 1Y. THE GERMAN WORLD. 
 
 an intermediate body charged with the defence of liberty ; 
 but properly speaking, it was only their own privileges which 
 they maintained against the royal power on the one hand 
 and the citizens on the other hand. The barons of England 
 extorted Magna Charta from the King ; but the citizens 
 gained nothing by it, on the contrary they remained in their 
 former condition. Polish Liberty too, meant nothing more 
 than the freedom of the barons in contraposition to the 
 King, the nation being reduced to a state of absolute serf- 
 dom. "When liberty is mentioned, we must always be careful 
 to observe whether it is not really the assertion of private in- 
 terests which is thereby designated. For although the nobi- 
 lity were deprived of their sovereign power, the people were 
 still oppressed in consequence of their absolute dependence, 
 their serfdom, and subjection to aristocratic jurisdiction; 
 and they were partly declared utterly incapable of possessing 
 property, partly subjected to a condition of bond-service 
 which did not permit of their freely selling the products of 
 their industry. The supreme interest of emancipation from 
 this condition concerned the power of the State as well as 
 the subjects — that emancipation which now gave them as 
 citizens the character of free individuals, and determined 
 that what was to be performed for the Commonwealth should 
 be a matter of just allotment, not of mere chance. The 
 aristocracy of possession maintains that possession against 
 both — viz. against the power of the State at large and 
 against individuals. But the aristocracy have a position as- 
 signed them, as the support of the throne, as occupied and 
 active on behalf of the State and the common weal, and at the 
 same time as maintaining the freedom of the citizens. This 
 in fact is the prerogative of that class which forms the link 
 between the Sovereign and the People — to undertake to dis- 
 cern and to give the first impulse to that which is intrinsi- 
 cally liational and Universal ; and this recognition of and 
 occupation with the Universal must take the place of positive 
 personal right. This subjection to the Head of the State of 
 that intermediate power which laid claim to positive au- 
 thority w r as now accomplished, but this did not involve the 
 emancipation of the subject class. This took place only at 
 a later date, when the idea of right in and for itself arose 
 in men's minds. Then the sovereigns relying on their re- 
 
SECT. III. TUE UEFORMATION AND THE STATE. 1 ! '. > 
 
 spective peoples, vanquished the caste of unrighteousness ; 
 but where they united with the barons, or where the latter 
 maintained their freedom against the kings, those positive 
 rights or rather wrongs continued. — 
 
 We observe also as an essential feature now first present- 
 ing itself in the political aspect of the time, a connected sys- 
 tem of States and a relation of States to each other. They 
 became involved in various wars: the Kings having enlarged 
 their political authority, now turn their attention to foreign 
 lands, insisting upon claims of all kinds. The aim and real 
 interest of the wars of the period is invariably conquest. 
 
 Italy especially had become such an object of desire, 
 and was a prey to the rapacity of the French, the Spaniards, 
 and at a later date, of the Austrians. In fact absolute disin- 
 tegration and dismemberment has always been an essential 
 feature in the national character of the inhabitants of Italy, 
 in ancient as well as in modern times. Their stubborn in- 
 dividuality was exchanged for a union the result of force, 
 under the Eoman dominion ; but as soon as this bond was 
 broken, the original character reappeared in full strength. 
 In later times, as if finding in them a bond of union otherwise 
 impossible — after having escaped from a selfishness of the 
 most monstrous order and which displayed its perverse 
 nature in crimes of every description — the Italians attained 
 a taste for the Fine Arts : thus their civilization, the miti- 
 gation of their selfishness, reached only the Grade of Beauty, 
 not that of Rationality — the higher unity of Thought. Con- 
 sequently, even in poetry and song the Italian nature is 
 different from ours. Improvisation characterizes the genius 
 of the Italians ; they pour out their very souls in Art and 
 the ecstatic enjoyment of it. Enjoying a naturel so imbued 
 with Art, the State must be an affair of comparative indif- 
 ference, a merely casual matter to the Italians. But we 
 have to observe also that the wars in which Germany en- 
 gaged, were not particularly honourable to it: it allowed 
 Burgundy, Lorraine, Alsace, and other parts of the empire 
 to be wrested from it. From these wars between the 
 various political powers there arose common interests, and 
 the object of that community of interest was the mainte- 
 nance of severalty,— the preservation to the several States of 
 their independence, —in fact the u balance of power The 
 
450 
 
 PART IT. THE GERMAN WORLD. 
 
 motive to this was of a decidedly "practical" kind, viz. the 
 protection of the several States from conquest. The union 
 of the States of Europe as the means of shielding individual 
 States from the violence of the powerful — the preservation 
 of the balance of power, had now taken the place of that 
 general aim of the elder time, the defence of Christendom, 
 whose centre was the Papacy. This new political motive 
 was necessarily accompanied by a diplomatic condition, — one 
 in which all the members of the great European sys- 
 tem, however distant, felt an interest in that which hap- 
 pened to any one of them. Diplomatic policy had been 
 brought to the greatest refinement in Italy, and was thence 
 transmitted to Europe at large. Several princes in suc- 
 cession seemed to threaten the stability of the balance of 
 power in Europe. When this combination of States was 
 ■just commencing, Charles V. was aiming at universal mon- 
 archy ; for he was Emperor of Germany and King of Spain 
 to boot : the Netherlands and Italy acknowledged his sway, 
 and the whole wealth of America flowed into his coffers. 
 With this enormous power, which, like the contingencies of 
 fortune in the case of private property, had been accumu- 
 lated by the most felicitous combinations of political dex- 
 terity, — among other things by marriage, —but which was 
 destitute of an internal and reliable bond, he was nevertheless 
 unable to gain any advantage over Erance, or even over the 
 German princes ; nay he was even compelled to a peace by 
 Maurice of Saxony. His whole life was spent in sup- 
 pressing disturbances in all parts of his empire and in 
 conducting foreign wars. The balance of power in Europe 
 was similarly threatened by Louis the Fourteenth. Through 
 that depression of the grandees of his kingdom which 
 Richelieu and after him Mazarin had accomplished, he had 
 become an absolute sovereign. Erance, too, had the con- 
 sciousness of its intellectual superiority in a refinement of 
 culture surpassing anything of which the rest of Europe 
 could boast. The pretensions of Louis were founded not 
 on extent of dominion, (as was the case with Charles V.) so 
 much as on that culture which distinguished his people, and 
 which at that time made its way everywhere with the lan- 
 guage that embodied it, and was the object of universal 
 admiration : they could therefore plead a higher justification 
 
8ECT. III. THE REFORMATION AND TUE STATE. 451 
 
 than those of the German Emperor. But the very rock on 
 which the vast military resources of Philip II. had al- 
 ready foundered — the heroic resistance of the Dutch — proved 
 fatal also to the ambitious schemes of Louis. Charles the 
 Twelfth also presented a remarkably menacing aspect ; but 
 his ambition had a Quixotic tinge and was less sustained by 
 intrinsic vigour. Through all these storms the nations of 
 Europe succeeded in maintaining their individuality and 
 independence. 
 
 An external relation in which the States of Europe had 
 an interest in common, was that sustained to the Turks — 
 the terrible power which threatened to overwhelm Europe 
 from the East. The Turks of that day had still a sound and 
 vigorous nationality, whose power was based on conquest, and 
 which was therefore engaged in constant warfare, or at least 
 admitted only a temporary suspension of arms. As was 
 the case among the Pranks, the conquered territories were 
 divided among their warriors as personal, not heritable pos- 
 sessions ; when in later times the principle of hereditary 
 succession was adopted, the national vigour was shattered. 
 The flower of the Osman force, the Janizaries, were the 
 terror of the Europeans. Their ranks were recruited from 
 a body of Christian boys of handsome and vigorous propor- 
 tions, brought together chiefly by means of annual con- 
 scriptions among the Greek subjects of the Porte, strictly 
 educated in the Moslem faith, and exercised in arms from 
 early youth. Without parents, without brothers or Bisters, 
 without wives, they were, like the monks, an altogether 
 isolated and terrible corps. The Eastern European powers 
 were obliged to make common cause against the Turks — viz.: 
 Austria, Hungary, Venice and Poland. The battle of Le- 
 panto saved Italy, and perhaps all Europe, from a barbarian 
 inundation. 
 
 An event of special importance following in the train of 
 the Reformation was the struggle of the Protestant Church 
 for political existence. The Protestant Church, even in 
 its original aspect, was too intimately connected with secular 
 interests not to occasion secular complications and political 
 contentions respecting political possession. The subjects 
 of Catholic princes become Protestant, have and make 
 claims to ecclesiastical property, change the nature of the 
 
 2 g2 
 
452 
 
 PART IV. THE GERMAN WORLD. 
 
 tenure, and repudiate or decline the discharge of those 
 ecclesiastical functions to whose due performance the emo- 
 luments are attached (jura stolce). Moreover a Catholic 
 government is bound to be the brachium seculare of the 
 Church ; the Inquisition, e.g, never put a man to death, but 
 simply declared him a heretic, as a kind of jury; he was then 
 punished according to civil laws. Again, innumerable occa- 
 sions of offence and irritation originated with processions and 
 feasts, the carrying of the Host through the streets, with- 
 drawals from convents, &c. Still more excitement would be 
 felt when an Archbishop of Cologne attempted to make his 
 archiepiscopate a secular princedom for himself and his 
 family. Their confessors made it a matter of conscience 
 with Catholic princes to wrest estates that had been the 
 property of the Church out of the hands of the heretics. 
 In Germany, however, the condition of things was favour- 
 able to Protestantism in as far as the several territories 
 which had been imperial fiefs, had become independent 
 principalities. But in countries like Austria, the princes 
 were indifferent to Protestants, or even hostile to them ; 
 and in Prance they were not safe in the exercise of 
 their religion except as protected by fortresses. War was 
 the indispensable preliminary to the security of Protestants ; 
 for the question was not one of simple conscience, but in- 
 volved decisions respecting public and private property 
 which had been taken possession of in contravention of the 
 rights of the Church, and whose restitution it demanded. 
 A condition of absolute mistrust supervened ; absolute, 
 because mistrust bound up with the religious conscience 
 was its root. The Protestant princes and towns formed at 
 that time a feeble union, and the defensive operations they 
 conducted were much feebler still. After they had been 
 worsted, Maurice the Elector of Saxony, by an utterly unex- 
 pected and adventurous piece of daring, extorted a peace, it- 
 self of doubtful interpretation, and which left the real sources 
 of embitterment altogether untouched. It was necessary to 
 fight out the battle from the very beginning. This took 
 place in the Thirty Years' War, in which first Denmark and 
 then Sweden undertook the cause of freedom. The former 
 was compelled to quit the field, but the latter under Gustavus 
 Adolph us— that hero of the North of glorious memory — 
 played a part which was so much the more brilliant inas- 
 
SECT. III. THE REFORMATION AND TJECM STATE. 453 
 
 much as it began to wage war with the vast force of tin 
 Catholics, alone— without the help of the Protestant state- 
 of the Empire. The powers of Europe, with a few excep- 
 tions, precipitate themselves on Germany, — flowing hack 
 towards it as to the fountain from which they had originally 
 issued, and where now the right of inwardness that has 
 come to manifest itself in the sphere of religion, and that <;!" 
 internal independence and severalty is to be fought out. 
 The struggle ends without an Ideal result — without having 
 attained the consciousness of a principle as an intellectual 
 concept — in the exhaustion of all parties, in a scene of utter 
 desolation, where all the contending forces have been 
 wrecked ; it issues in letting parties simply take their course 
 and maintain their existence on the basis of external power. 
 The issue is in fact exclusively of apolitical nature. 
 
 In England also, war was indispensable to the establish- 
 ment of the Protestant Church : the struggle was in this 
 case directed against the sovereigns, who were secretly at- 
 tached to Catholicism because they found the principle of 
 absolute sway confirmed by its doctrines. The fanaticised 
 people rebelled against the assumption of absolute sovereign 
 power — importing that Kings are responsible to God alone 
 {i.e. to the .Father Confessor) — and in opposition to Catholic 
 externality, unfurled the banner of extreme subjectivity in 
 Puritanism — a principle which, developing itself in the real 
 world, presents an aspect partly of enthusiastic elevation, 
 partly of ridiculous incongruity. The enthusiasts of Eng- 
 land, like those of Münster, were for having the State 
 governed directly by the fear of God ; the soldiery sharii g 
 the same fanatical views prayed while they fought for the 
 cause they had espoused. But a military leader now has 
 the physical force of the country and consequently the 
 government in his hands : for in the State there must be 
 government, and Cromwell knew what governing is. He, 
 therefore, made himself ruler, and sent that praying parlia- 
 ment about their business. "With his death however his 
 right to authority vanished also, and the old dynasty regained 
 possession of the throne. Catholicism, we may observe, 
 is commended to the support of princes as promoting the 
 security of their government — a position supposed to be par- 
 ticularly manifest if the Inquisition be comiected with the 
 
454 
 
 PAßT IT. THE GERMAN WORLD- 
 
 government; the former constituting the bulwark of the 
 latter. But such a security is based on a slavish religious 
 obedience, and is limited to those grades of human deve- 
 lopment in which the political constitution and the whole 
 legal system still rest on the basis of actual positive posses- 
 sion ; but if the constitution and laws are to be founded on 
 a veritable eternal Eight, then security is to be found only 
 in the Protestant religion, in whose principle [Rational Sub- 
 jective Freedom also attains development. The Dutch too 
 offered a vigorous opposition to the Catholic principle as 
 bound up with the Spanish sovereignty. Belgium was still 
 attached to lhe Catholic religion and remained subject to 
 Spain : on the contrary, the northern part of the Nether- 
 lands — Holland — stood its ground with heroic valour against 
 its oppressors. The trading class, the guilds and companies 
 of marksmen formed a militia whose heroic courage was 
 more than a match for the then famous Spanish infantry. 
 Just as the Swiss peasants had resisted the chivalry of 
 Austria, so here the trading cities held out against disciplined 
 troops. During this struggle on the Continent itself, the 
 Dutch fitted out fleets and deprived the Spaniards of part 
 of their colonial possessions, from which all their wealth 
 was derived. As independence was secured to Holland in 
 its holding to the Protestant principle, so that of Poland 
 was lost through its endeavour to suppress that principle in 
 the case of dissidents. 
 
 Through the Peace of Westphalia the Protestant Church 
 had been acknowledged as an independent one — to the great 
 confusion and humiliation of Catholicism. This peace has 
 often passed for the palladium of Germany, as having estab- 
 lished its political constitution. But this constitution was 
 in fact a confirmation of the particular rights of the countries 
 into which Germany had been broken up. It involves no 
 thought, no conception of the proper aim of a state. We 
 should consult " Hippolytus ä lapide " (a book which, written 
 before the conclusion of the peace, had a great influence on 
 the condition of the Empire) if we would become acquainted 
 with the character of that German freedom of which so much 
 is made. In the peace in question the establishment of a 
 complete particularity, the determination of all relations on 
 the principle of private right is the object manifestly con- 
 
SECT. III. THE REFORMATION AND THE STATE. 455 
 
 templated — a constituted anarchy, such as the world had never 
 before seen ; — i.e. the position that an Empire is properly a 
 unity, a totality, a state, while yet all relations arc deter- 
 mined so exclusively on the principle of private right that 
 the privilege of all the constituent parts of thai Empire to 
 act for themselves contrarily to the interest of the whole, 
 or to neglect that which its interest demands and which is 
 even required by law, — is guaranteed and secured by the 
 most inviolable sanctions. Immediately after this settle- 
 ment, it was shewn what the German Empire was as a state 
 in relation to other states : it waged ignominious wars with 
 the Turks, for deliverance from whom Vienna was indebted 
 to Poland. Still more ignominious was its relation to 
 Prance, which took possession in time of peace of free cities, 
 the bulwarks of Germany, and of flourishing provinces, and 
 retained them undisturbed. 
 
 This constitution, which completely terminated the career 
 of Germany as an Empire, was chiefly the work of Richelieu, 
 by whose assistance — Romish Cardinal though he was — 
 religious freedom in Germany was preserved. Richelieu, 
 with a view to further the interests of the State whose 
 affairs he superintended, adopted the exact opposite of that 
 olicy which he promoted in the case of its enemies ; for 
 e reduced the latter to political impotence by ratifying the 
 political independence of the several parts of the Empire, 
 while at home he destroyed the independence of the Protes- 
 tant party. His fate has consequently resembled that of 
 many great statesmen, inasmuch as he has been cursed by his 
 countrymen, while his enemies have looked upon the work 
 by which he ruined them as the most sacred goal of their 
 desires, —the consummation of their rights and liberties. 
 
 The result of the struggle therefore was the forcibly 
 achieved and now politically ratified coexistence of religious 
 parties, forming political communities whose relations are 
 determined according to prescriptive principles of civil or 
 [rather, for such their true nature was,] of private right. 
 
 The Protestant Church increased and so perfected the 
 stability of its political existence by the fact that one of the 
 states which had adopted the principles of the Eeformation 
 raised itself to the position of an independent European 
 power. This power was destined to start into a new life 
 
456 
 
 PART I.V. THE GERMAN WORLD. 
 
 with Protestantism : Prussia, viz., which making its appear- 
 ance at the end of the seventeenth century, was indebted, 
 if not for origination, yet certainly for the consolidation of 
 its strength, to Frederick the Great ; and the Seven Tears' 
 War was the struggle by which that consolidation was ac- 
 complished. Frederick II. demonstrated the independent 
 vigour of his power by resisting that of almost all Europe — 
 the union of its leading states. He appeared as the hero 
 of Protestantism, and that not individually merely, like 
 Gustavus Adolphus, but as the ruler of a state. The Seven 
 Years' War was indeed in itself not a war of religion ; but 
 it was so in view of its ultimate issues, and in the disposi- 
 tion of the soldiers as well as of the potentates under wmose 
 banner they fought. The Pope consecrated the sword of 
 Field-Marshal Daun, and the chief object which the Allied 
 Powers proposed to themselves, was the crushing of Prussia 
 as the bulwark of the Protestant Church. But Frederick 
 the Great not only made Prussia one of the great powers of 
 Europe as a Protestant power, but was also a philosophical 
 King — an altogether peculiar and unique phenomenon in 
 modern times. There had been English Kings who were 
 subtle theologians, contending for the principle of abso- 
 lutism : Frederick on the contrary took up the Protestant 
 principle in its secular aspect ; and though he was by no 
 means favourable to religious controversies, and did not side 
 with one party or the other, he had the consciousness of 
 Universality, which is the profoundest depth to which Spirit 
 can attain, and is Thought conscious of its own inherent 
 power. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE ECLAIRCISSEMENT AND REVOLUTION* 
 
 Protestantism had introduced the principle of Sub- 
 jectivity, importing religious emancipation and inward har- 
 
 * There is no current term in English denoting- that great intellectual 
 movement which dates from the first quarter of the eighteenth century, 
 sind which, if not the chief cause, was certainly the guiding genius of the 
 French Revolution. The word " Illuminati," (.signifying the members of 
 an imaginary confederacy for propagating the open secret of the day) might 
 suggest " Illumination," as an equivalent lor the German "Aufklärung j" 
 but the French * f Eclaircissement " conveys a more specific idea. — Tr. 
 
SECT. III. THE ECLAIRCISSEMENT AN I> I, I VOLUTION. 457 
 
 mony, but accompanying this with the belief in Subjectivity 
 as Evil, and in a power [adverse to man's bighesl interests] 
 whose embodiment is "the World." Within the Catholic 
 pale also, the casuistry of the Jesuits brought into vogue 
 interminable investigations, as tedious and wire-drawn as 
 those in which the scholastic theology delighted, respecting 
 the subjective spring of the Will and the motives that affect 
 it. This Dialectic, which unsettles all particular judgments 
 and opinions, transmuting the Evil into Good and Good 
 into Evil, left at last nothing remaining but the mere action 
 of subjectivity itself, the Abstractum of Spirit — Thought. 
 Thought contemplates everything under the form of Uni- 
 versality, and is consequently the impulsion towards and 
 production of the Universal. In that elder scholastic the- 
 ology the real subject-matter of investigation — the doctrine 
 of the Church, remained an ultramundane affair; in the Pro- 
 testant theology also Spirit still sustained a relation to the 
 Ultramundane ; for on the one side we have the will of the 
 individual —the Spirit of Man— I myself, and on the other 
 the Grace of God, the Holy Ghost ; and so in the Wicked, 
 the Devil. But in Thought, Self moves within the limits 
 of its own sphere ; that with which it is occupied — its objects 
 are as absolutely present to it [as they w r ere distinct and 
 separate in the intellectual grade above mentioned] ; for in 
 thinking I must elevate the object to Universality.* This 
 is utter and absolute Freedom, for the pure Ego, like pure 
 Light, is with itself alone [is not involved with any alien 
 principle] ; thus that which is diverse from itself, sensuous 
 or spiritual, no longer presents an object of dread, for in con- 
 templating such diversity it is inwardly free and can freely 
 confront it. A practical interest makes use of, consumes the 
 objects offered to it : a theoretical interest calmly contem- 
 plates them, assured that in themselves they present no alien 
 element. — Consequently, the ne plus ultra of Inwardness, 
 of Subjectiveness, is Thought. Man is not free, when he is 
 
 * Abstractions (pure thoughts,) are, vi termini, detached from the 
 material objects which suggested them, and are at least as evidently the 
 product of the thinking mind as of the externe] world. Hence they are 
 ridiculed by the unintelligent as mere fancies. In proportion as such 
 abstractions involve activity and intensity of thought, the mind may be 
 said to be occupied with itself in contemplating them, — Tr. 
 
458 
 
 PAKT IV. THE GERMAN WORLD. 
 
 not thinking ; for except when thus engaged he sustains a rela- 
 tion to the world around him as to an other, an alien form of 
 being. This comprehension — the penetration of the Ego into 
 and beyond other forms of being with the most profound self- 
 certainty, [the identity of subjective and objective Reason 
 being recognized,] directly involves the harmonization of 
 Being : for it must be observed that the unity of Thought with 
 its Object is already implicitly present [i.e. in the fundamental 
 constitution of the Universe,] for Reason is the substantial 
 basis of Consciousness as well as of the External and 
 Natural. Thus that which presents itself as the Object of 
 Thought is no longer an absolutely distinct form of existence 
 [ein Jenseits], not of an alien and grossly substantial, [as 
 opposed to intelligible,] nature. 
 
 Thought is the grade to which Spirit has now advanced. 
 It involves the Harmony of Being in its purest essence, 
 challenging the external world to exhibit the same Reason 
 which Subject [the Ego] possesses. Spirit perceives that 
 Nature — the World — must also be an embodiment of Reason, 
 for God created it on principles of Reason. An interest in 
 the contemplation and comprehension of the present world 
 became universal. Nature embodies Universality, inasmuch 
 as it is nothing other than Sorts, Genera, Power, Gravitation, 
 &c, phenomenallv presented. Thus Experimental Science 
 became the science of the World ; for experimental science 
 involves on the one hand the observation of phenomena, 
 on the other hand also the discovery of the Law, the essen- 
 tial being, the hidden force that causes those phenomena — 
 thus reducing the data supplied by observation to their 
 simple principles. Intellectual consciousness was first ex- 
 tricated from that sophistry of thought, which unsettles 
 everything, by Descartes. As it was the purely German 
 nations among whom the principle of Spirit first manifested 
 itself, so it was by the Romanic nations that the abstract 
 idea (to which the character assigned them above — -viz., that 
 of internal schism, more readily conducted them) was first 
 comprehended. Experimental science therefore very soon 
 made its way among them (in common with the Protest- 
 ant English), but especially among the Italians. It seemed 
 to men as if God had but just created the moon and stars, 
 plants and animals, as if the laws of the universe were now 
 
SECT. III. TIIE ECLAIECTSSEMENT AND REVOLUTION. 459 
 
 established for the first time ; for only then did they feel a 
 real interest in the universe, when they recognized their own 
 Reason in the Beason which pervades it. The human eye 
 "became clear, perception quick, thought active and interpre- 
 tative. The discovery of the laws of Nature enabled men 
 to contend against the monstrous superstition of the time, 
 as also against all notions of mighty alien powers which 
 magic alöne could conquer. The assertion was even ven- 
 tured on, and that by Catholics not less than by Protestants, 
 that the External [and Material], with which the Church 
 insisted upon associating superhuman virtue, was external 
 and material, and nothing more — that the Host was simply 
 dough, the relics of the Saints mere bones. The independtMit 
 authority of Subjectivity was maintained against belief 
 founded on authority, and the Laws of .Nature were recog- 
 nized as the only bond connecting phenomena with phe- 
 nomena. Thus all miracles were disallowed : for Nature 
 is a system of known and recognized Laws ; Man is at home 
 in it, and that only passes for truth in which he finds himself 
 at home ; he is free through the acquaintance he has gained 
 with Nature. Nor was thought less vigorously directed to 
 the Spiritual side of things : Right and [Social] Morality 
 came to be looked upon as having their foundation in the 
 actual present Will of man, whereas formerly it was referred 
 only to the command of God enjoined ab extra, written in 
 the Old and New Testament, or appearing in the form of 
 particular Right [as opposed to that based on general prin- 
 ciples] in old parchments, as privilegia, or in international 
 compacts. What the nations acknowledge as international 
 Bight was deduced empirically from observation (as in the 
 work of Grotius) ; then the source of the existing civil and 
 political law was looked for, after Cicero's fashion, in those 
 instincts of men which Nature has planted in their hearts — 
 e.g., the social instinct ; next the principle of security for the 
 person and property of the citizens, and of the advantage of the 
 commonwealth — that which belongs to the class of " reasons 
 of State." On these principles private rights were on the 
 one hand despotically contravened, but on the other hand such 
 contravention was the instrument of carrying out the general 
 objects of the State in opposition to mere positive or pre- 
 
4G0 
 
 PA.RT IV. THE GERMAN WORLD. 
 
 script! ve claims. Frederick II. may be mentioned as the, 
 ruler who inaugurated the new epoch in the sphere of prac- 
 tical life — that epoch in which practical political interest 
 attains Universality [is recognized as an abstract principle], 
 and receives an absolute sanction. Frederick II. merits especial 
 notice as having comprehended the general object of the 
 State, and as having been the first sovereign who kept the 
 general interest of the State steadily in view, ceasing to 
 pay any respect to particular interests when they stood in 
 the way of the common weal. His immortal work is a 
 domestic code — the Prussian municipal law. How the head 
 of a household energetically provides and governs with a view 
 to the weal of that household and of his dependents — of 
 this he has given a unique specimen. 
 
 These general conceptions, deduced from actual and present 
 consciousness — the Laws of Nature and the substance of 
 what is right and good — have received the name of Reason. 
 The recognition of the validity of these laws was designated 
 by the term Eclaircissement (Aufklärung). From France it 
 passed over into Germany, and created a new world of ideas. 
 The absolute criterion— taking the place of all authority 
 based on religious belief and positive laws of Right (especially 
 political Bight) — is the verdict passed by Spirit itself on the 
 character of that which is to be believed or obeyed. After a 
 free investigation in open day, Luther had secured to man- 
 kind Spiritual Freedom and the Reconciliation [of the Ob- 
 jective and Subjective] in the concrete : he triumphantly 
 established the position that man's eternal destiny [his 
 spiritual and moral position] must be wrought out in himself 
 [cannot be an opus operatum, a work performed for him]. 
 But the import of that which is to take place in him — what 
 truth is to become vital in him, was taken for granted by 
 Luther as something already given, something revealed by 
 religion. Now the principle was set up that this import 
 must be capable of actual investigation — something of which 
 I [in this modern time] can gain an inward conviction — and 
 that to this basis of inward demonstration every dogma must 
 be referred. 
 
 This principle of thought makes its appearance in the first 
 instance in a general and abstract form. 3 and is based on the 
 
SECT. III. THE ECLAIItCTSSEMENT AND It KYOLUTION. 4GI 
 
 axiom of Contradiction and Identity.* The results of 
 thought are thus posited as finite, and the eclairciscemeDt 
 utterly banished and extirpated all that was speculative from 
 things human and divine. Although it is of incalculable im- 
 portance that the multiform complex of things should bo 
 reduced to its simplest conditions, and brought into the form 
 of Universality, yet this still abstract principle does not 
 satisfy the living Spirit, the concrete human soul. 
 
 This formally absolute principle brings us to the last stage 
 in History, our world, our own time. 
 
 Secular life is the positive and definite embodiment of the 
 Spiritual Kingdom — the Kingdom of the Will manifesting 
 itself in outward existence. Mere impulses are also forms 
 in which the inner life realizes itself; but these are transient 
 and disconnected ; they are the ever changing applications 
 of volition. But that which is just and moral belongs to the 
 essential, independent, intrinsically universal Will; and if 
 we would know what Right really is, we must abstract from 
 inclination, impulse and desire as the particular ; i.e., we 
 must know what the Will is in itself. For benevolent, 
 charitable, social impulses are nothing more than impulses — 
 to which others of a different class are opposed. What the 
 Will is in itself can be known only when these specific and 
 contradictory forms of volition have been eliminated. Then 
 Will appears as Will, in its abstract essence. The Will is 
 Free only when it does not will anything alien, extrinsic, 
 foreign to itself (for as long as it does so, it is dependent), 
 but wills itself alone — wills the Will. This is absolute Will 
 — the volition to be free. Will making itself its own object 
 is the basis of all Eight and Obligation — consequently of all 
 statutory determinations of Bight, categorical imperatives, 
 and enjoined obligations. The Freedom of the Will per se, 
 is the principle and substantial basis of all Right — is itself 
 absolute, inherently eternal Right, and the Supreme Right in 
 
 * The sensational conclusions of the " materialistic" school of the 18th 
 century are reached by the " axiom of Contradiction and Identify," as 
 applied in this simple dilemma: "In cog-nition, Man is either active or 
 passive ; he is not active (unless he is grossly deceiving himself), therefore 
 he is passive; therefore all knowledge is derived ob extra." Whitt 
 this external objective being- is of which this knowledge is the cognition, 
 remains an eternal mystery — i.e., us Hegel says: "The results of thought 
 are. posited as finite." — Tß. 
 
462 
 
 PART IV. THE GERMAN WORLD. 
 
 comparison with other specific Eights ; nay, it is even that 
 by which Man becomes Man, and is therefore the funda- 
 mental principle of Spirit. But the next question is : How 
 does Will assume a definite form ? For in willing itself, it 
 is nothing but an ideutical reference to itself; but, in point 
 of fact, it wills something specific : there are, we know, 
 distinct and special Duties and Eights. A particular appli- 
 cation, a definite form of Will, is desiderated ; for pure Will 
 is its own object, its own application, which, as far as this 
 shewing goes, is no object, no application. In fact, in this 
 form it is nothing more than formal Will. But the meta- 
 physical process by which this abstract Will develops itself, 
 so as to attain a definite form of Freedom, and how Eights 
 and Duties are evolved therefrom, this is not the place to 
 discuss.* It may however be remarked that the same prin- 
 ciple obtained speculative recognition in Germany, in the 
 Kantian Philosophy. According to it the simple unity ot 
 Self-consciousness, the Ego, constitutes the absolutely inde- 
 pendent Freedom, and is the fountain of all general concep- 
 tions — i.e. all conceptions elaborated by Thought — Theoreti- 
 cal Eeason ; and likewise of the highest of all practical deter- 
 minations [or conceptions] — Practical Eeason, as free and 
 pure Will ; and Eationality of Will is none other than the 
 maintaining one's self in pure Freedom — willing this and 
 this alone — Eight purely for the sake of Eight, Duty purely 
 for the sake of Duty. Among the Germans this view 
 assumed no other form than that of tranquil theory; but 
 the French wished to give it practical effect. Two ques- 
 tions, therefore, suggest themselves : Why did this principle 
 
 * " Freedom of the Will," in Hegel's use of the term, has an intensive 
 signification, and must be distinguished from " Liberty of Will" in its 
 ordinary acceptation. The latter denotes a mere liability to be affected 
 by extrinsic motives : the former is that absolute strength of Will which 
 enables it to defy all seductions that challenge its persistency. Its sole 
 object is self-assertion. In fact it is Individuality maintaining itselt 
 against all dividing or distracting forces. And to maintain individuality 
 is to preserve consistency — to " act on principle,'' — phrases with which 
 Language, the faithful conservator of metaphysical genealogies, connects 
 virtuous associations. In adopting a code of Duties, and in acknowledging 
 Rights, the Will recognizes its own Freedom in this intensive sense, lor 
 in such adoption, it declares its 07vn ability to pursue a certain course of 
 action in spite of all inducements, sensuous or emotional, to deviate from it. 
 These remarks may supply some indications of the process referred to in 
 the text.— Tr. 
 
SECT. III. ECLAI KCl S SEME NT AND THE REVOLUTION. 103 
 
 of Freedom remain merely formal ?* and why did the French 
 alone, and not the Germans, set about realizing it ? 
 
 "With the formal principle more significant categories were 
 indeed connected : one of the chief of these (for instance) 
 was Society, and that which is advantageous for Society: 
 but the aim of Society is itself political — that of the Stute 
 (vid. "Droits de l'homme et du citoyen," 1791) — the con- 
 servation of Natural Eights ; but Natural Right is Freedom, 
 and, as further determined, it is Equality of Rights before 
 the Law. A direct connection is manifest here, for Equalitv, 
 Parity, is the result of the comparison of many ;f the "Many" 
 in question being human beings, whose essential character- 
 istic is the same, viz. Freedom. That principle remains 
 formal, because it originated with abstract Thought — with 
 the Understanding, which is primarily the self-consciousnesfl 
 of Pure Reason, and as direct [unreflected, undeveloped] is 
 abstract. As yet, nothing further is developed from it, for 
 it still maintains an adverse position to Keligion, i.e. to the 
 concrete absolute substance of the Universe. 
 
 As respects the second question, — why the French imme- 
 diately passed over from the theoretical to the practical, 
 while the Germans contented themselves with theoretical 
 abstraction, it might be said : the French are hotheaded [ils 
 ont la tete pres du bonnet] ; but this is a superficial solution : 
 the fact is that the formal principle of philosophy in Ger- 
 many encounters a concrete real "World in which Spirit 
 finds inward satisfaction and in which conscience is at rest. 
 For on the one hand it was the Protestant World itself which 
 advanced so far in Thought as to realize the absolute cul- 
 mination of Self-Consciousness ; on the other hand, Protest- 
 antism enjoys, with respect to the moral and legal relations 
 of the real world, a tranquil confidence in the [Honourable] 
 
 * " Formal Freedom " is mere liberty to do what one likes. It is called 
 "formal, " because, as already indicated, the matter of volition — what it is 
 that is willed — is left entirely undetermined. In the next paragraph the 
 writer goes on to shew that some definite object was associated with a Ben- 
 /ment otherwise unmeaning or bestial, " Vive la Liberte !" — Tit. 
 
 f The radical correspondence of " Gleichheit" and "Veryleichuna" is 
 attempted to be rendered in English by the terms parity and corner/son , 
 and perhaps etymology may justify the expedient. The meaning of the 
 derivative " comparatio" seems to point to the connection of its root " paro ' 
 with " par." — Tr. 
 
464 
 
 PART IV. THE GERMAN WORLD. 
 
 Disposition of men — a sentiment, which, [in the Protestant 
 "World,] constituting one and the same thing with Religion, 
 is the fountain of all the equitable arrangements that prevail 
 with regard to private right and the constitution of the 
 State.* In Germany the eclaircissement was conducted in 
 the interest of theology : in France it immediately took up 
 a position of hostility to the Church. In Germany the en- 
 tire compass of secular relations had already undergone a 
 change for the better ; those pernicious ecclesiastical insti- 
 tutes of celibacy, voluntary pauperism, and laziness, had been 
 already done away with ; there w r as no dead weight of enor- 
 mous wealth attached to the Church, and no constraint put 
 upon Morality, — a constraint which is the source and occa- 
 sion of vices ; there was not that unspeakably hurtful form 
 of iniquity which arises from the interference of spiritual 
 power with secular law, nor that other of the Divine Eight 
 of Kings, i.e. the doctrine that the arbitrary will of princes, 
 in virtue of their being " the Lord's Anointed," is divine and 
 holy : on the contrary their will is regarded as deserving of 
 respect only so far as in association with reason, it wisely con- 
 templates Right, Justice, and the weal of the community. 
 The principle of Thought, therefore, had been so far concili- 
 ated already; moreover the Protestant World had a convic- 
 tion that in the Harmonization which had previously been 
 evolved [in the sphere of Religion] the principle which would 
 result in a further development of equity in the political 
 sphere was already present. 
 
 Consciousness that has received an abstract culture, and 
 whose sphere is the Understanding [Verstand] can be in- 
 different to Religion, but Religion is the general form in 
 which Truth exists for non-abstract consciousness. And the 
 Protestant Religion does not admit of two kinds of con- 
 sciences, while in the Catholic world the Holy stands on the 
 one side and on the other side abstraction opposed to Religion, 
 that is to its superstition and its truth. That formal, indi- 
 vidual Will is in virtue of the abstract position just mentioned 
 made the basis of political theories ; Right iu Society is that 
 which the Law wills, and the Will in question appears as 
 
 * This moral aspect of Protestantism is discussed more fully in p. 88 
 of the Introduction. 
 
SECT. III. THE ECLAIRCISSEMENT AND REVOLUTION*. 166 
 
 an isolated individual will ; thus the State, as an aggregate 
 of many individuals, is not an independently substant la lUnity, 
 and the truth and essence of Eight in and for itself— to 
 which the will of its individual members ought to be con- 
 formed in order to be true, free Will; but the volitional 
 atoms [the individual wills of the members of the State] are 
 made the starting point, and each will is represented as ab- 
 solute. 
 
 An intellectual principle was thus discovered to serve as a 
 basis for the State — one which does not, like previous princi- 
 ples, belong to the sphere of opinion, such as the social im- 
 pulse, the desire of security for property, &c nor owe its ori- 
 gin to the religious sentiment, as does that of the Divine ap- 
 pointment of the governing power, — but the principle of 
 Certainty, which is identity with my self-consciousness, stop- 
 ping short however of that of Truth, which needs to be dis- 
 tinguished from it. This is a vast discovery in regard to the 
 profoundest depths of being and Freedom. The conscious- 
 ness of the Spiritual is now the essential basis of the political 
 fabric, and Philosophy has thereby become dominant. It has 
 been said, that the French Revolution resulted from Philo- 
 sophy, and it is not without reason that Philosophy has been 
 called " Weltweisheit' ' [World Wisdom ;] for it is not only 
 Truth in and for itself, as the pure essence of things, but 
 also Truth in its living form as exhibited in the affairs of 
 the world. We should not, therefore, contradict the asser- 
 tion that the Revolution received its first impulse from Phi- 
 losophy. But this philosophy is in the first instance only 
 abstract Thought, not the concrete comprehension of abso- 
 lute Truth— intellectual positions between which there is an 
 immeasurable chasm. 
 
 The principle of the Freedom of the Will, therefore, as- 
 serted itself against existing Eight. Before the French 
 [Revolution, it must be allowed, the power of the grandees 
 had been diminished by Richelieu, and they had been de- 
 prived of privileges ; but, like the clergy, they retained all 
 the prerogatives which gave them an advantage over the 
 lower class. The political condition of France at that time 
 presents nothing but a confused mass of privileges altogether 
 contravening Thought and Eeason, — an utterly irrational 
 state of things, and one with which the greatest corruption 
 
 2h 
 
466 
 
 PART IT. THE GERMAN WOKLD. 
 
 of morals, of Spirit was associated — an empire characterized 
 by Destitution of Eight, aud which, when its real state begins 
 to be recognized, becomes shameless destitution of Eight. 
 The fearfully heavy burdens that pressed upon the people, the 
 embarrassment of the government to procure for the Court the 
 means of supporting luxury and extravagance, gave the first 
 impulse to discontent. The new Spirit began to agitate men's 
 minds : oppression drove men to investigation. It was per- 
 ceived that the sums extorted from the people were not ex- 
 pended in furthering the objects of the State, but were 
 lavished in the most unreasonable fashion. The entire po- 
 litical system appeared one mass of injustice. The change 
 was necessarily violent, because the work of transformation 
 was not undertaken by the government. And the reason 
 why the government did not undertake it was that the Court, 
 the Clergy, the Nobility, the Parliaments themselves, were 
 unwilling to surrender the privileges they possessed, either 
 for the sake of expediency or that of abstract Eight ; more- 
 over, because the government as the concrete centre of the 
 power of the State, could not adopt as its principle ab- 
 stract individual wills, and reconstruct the State on this basis ; 
 lastly, because it was Catholic, and therefore the Idea of 
 Freedom— Eeason embodied in Laws — did not pass for the 
 final absolute obligation, since the Holy and the religious 
 conscience are separated from them. The conception, the 
 idea of Eight asserted its authority all at once, and the old 
 framework of injustice could ofler no resistance to its on- 
 slaught. A constitution, therefore, was established in har- 
 mony with the conception of Eight, and on this foundation 
 all future legislation was to be based. Xever since the sun had 
 stood in the firmament and the planets revolved around him 
 had it been perceived that man's existence centres in his head, 
 i.e. in Thought, inspired by which he builds up the world of 
 reality. Anaxagoras had been the first to say that rovg governs 
 the \Torld ; but not until now had man advanced to the re- 
 cognition of the principle that Thought ought to govern spi- 
 ritual reality. This was accordingly a glorious mental dawn. 
 All thinking beinsrs shared in the jubilation of this epoch. 
 Emotions of a lofty character stirred men's minds at that 
 time ; a spiritual enthusiasm thrilled through the world, as if 
 the reconciliation between the Divine and the Secular was 
 now first accomplished. 
 
SECT. III. THE ECLAIRCISSEMENT AND REVOLUTION. 467 
 
 The two following points must now occupy our attention : 
 1st. The course which the Kevolution in France took; 2nd. 
 How that Revolution became World-Historical. 
 
 1. Freedom presents two aspects : the one concerns its 
 
 substance and purport, — its objectivity — the thing itself 
 
 [that which is performed as a free act] ; the other relates to 
 the Form of Freedom, involving the consciousness of big 
 activity on the part of the individual ; for Freedom demands 
 that the individual recognize himself in such acts, that they 
 should be veritably his, it being his interest that the result 
 in question should be attained. The three elements and 
 powers of the State in actual working must be contem- 
 plated according to the above analysis, their examination 
 in detail being referred to the Lectures on the Philosophy 
 of Eight. 
 
 (1.) Laws of Rationality — of intrinsic Right— Objective 
 or Real Freedom : to this category belongs Freedom of 
 Property and Freedom of Person. Those relics of that 
 condition of servitude which the feudal relation had intro- 
 duced are hereby swept away, and all those fiscal ordinances 
 which were the bequest of the feudal law— its tithes and 
 dues, are abrogated. Real [practical] Liberty requires more- 
 over freedom in regard to trades and professions — the per- 
 mission to every one to use his abilities without restriction — 
 and the free admission to all offices of State. This is a sum- 
 mary of the elements of real Freedom, and which are not 
 based on feeling, — for feeling allows of the continuance even 
 of serfdom and slavery, — but on the thought and self-con- 
 sciousness of man recognizing the spiritual character of his 
 existence. 
 
 (2.) But the agency which gives the laws practical effect 
 is the Government generally. Government is primarily the 
 formal execution of the laws and the maintenance of their 
 authority : in respect to foreign relations it prosecutes the 
 interest of the State; that is, it assists the independence of 
 the nation as an individuality against other nations ; lastly, 
 it has to provide for the internal weal of the State and all 
 its classes — what is called administration: for it is not enough 
 that the citizen is allowed to pursue a trade or calling, it 
 must also be a source of gain to him; it is not enough that 
 men are permitted to use their powers, they must also find 
 
468 
 
 PAET IV. THE GEEMAN WOELD. 
 
 an opportunity of applying them to purpose. Thus the 
 State involves a body of abstract principles aud a practical 
 application of them. This application must be the work of 
 a subjective will, a will which resolves and decides. Legis- 
 lation itself, — the invention and positive enactment of these 
 statutory arrangements, is an application of such general 
 principles. The next step, then, consists in [specific] deter- 
 mination and execution. Here then the question presents 
 itself : what is the decisive will to be ? The ultimate decision 
 is the prerogative of the monarch : but if the State is based 
 on Liberty, the many wills of individuals also desire to have 
 a share in political decisions. But the Many are All; 
 and it seems but a poor expedient, rather a monstrous in- 
 consistency, to allow only a few to take part in those deci- 
 sions, since each wishes that his volition should have a share 
 in determining what is to be law for him. The Few assume 
 to be the deputies, but they are often only the despoilers of the 
 Many. Nor is the sway of the Majority over the Minority a 
 less palpable inconsistency. 
 
 (3.) This collision of subjective wills leads therefore to 
 the consideration of a third point, that of Disposition — an 
 ex animo acquiescence in the laws ; not the mere customary 
 observance of them, but the cordial recognition of laws and the 
 Constitution as in principle fixed and immutable, and of the 
 supreme obligation of individuals to subject their particular 
 wills to them. There may be various opinions and views 
 respecting laws, constitution and government, but there 
 must be a disposition on the part of the citizens to regard 
 all these opinions as subordinate to the substantial interest 
 of the State, and to insist upon them no farther than that in- 
 terest will allow; moreover nothing must be considered higher 
 and more sacred than good will towards the State ; or, if 
 Religion be looked upon as higher and more sacred, it must 
 involve nothing really alien or opposed to the Constitution. 
 It is, indeed, regarded as a maxim of the profoundest wisdom 
 entirely to separate the laws and constitution of the State 
 from Eeligion, since bigotry and hypocrisy are to be 
 feared as the results of a State Eeligion. But although the 
 aspects of Eeligion and the State are different, they are 
 radically one ; and the laws find their highest confirmation 
 in Eeligion. 
 
SECT. III. THE ECLAIRCTSSEMENT AND REVOLUTION. 400 
 
 Here it must be frankly stated, that with the Catholic 
 Eeligon no rational constitution is possible -, for GoTern- 
 ment and People must reciprocate that final guarantee of 
 Disposition, and can have it only in a Religion that is not 
 opposed to a rational political constitution. 
 
 Plato in his Republic makes everything depend upon the 
 Government, and makes Disposition the principle of the 
 State ; on which account he lays the chief stress on Education. 
 The modern theory is diametrically opposed to this, refer- 
 ring everything to the individual will. But here we have 
 no guarantee that the will in question has that right dispo- 
 sition which is essential to the stability of the State. 
 
 In view then of these leading considerations we have to 
 trace the course of the French Revolution and the remodel- 
 ling of the State in accordance with the Idea of Bight. In 
 the first instance purely abstract philosophical principles 
 were set up : Disposition and Religion were not taken into 
 account. The first Constitutional form of Government in 
 France was one which recognized Royalty ; the monarch 
 was to stand at the head of the State, and on him in conjunc- 
 tion with his Mimisters was to devolve the executive power ; 
 the legislative body on the other hand were to make the 
 laws. But this constitution involved from the very first 
 an internal contradiction ; for the legislature absorbed the 
 whole power of the administration : the budget, affairs of 
 war and peace, and the levying of the armed force were in 
 the hands of the Legislative Chamber. Everything was 
 brought under the head of Law. The budget however is 
 in its nature something diverse from law, for it is annually 
 renewed, and the power to which it properly belongs is that 
 of the Government. With this moreover is connected the 
 indirect nomination of the ministry and officers of state, &c. 
 The government was thus transferred to the Legislative 
 Chamber, as in England to the Parliament. This constitu- 
 tion was also vitiated by the existence of absolute mistrust ; 
 the dynasty lay under suspicion, because it had lost the 
 power it formerly enjoyed, and the priests refused the oath. 
 Neither government nor constitution could be maintained 
 on this footing, and the ruin of both was the result. A go- 
 vernment of some kind however is always in existence. The 
 question presents itself then, Whence did it emanate ? The- 
 
470 
 
 PAET IV. THE GERMAN WOELD. 
 
 oretically, it proceeded from the people ; really and truly 
 from the National Convention and its Committees. The 
 forces now dominant are the abstract principles — Freedom^ 
 and, as it exists within the limits of the Subjective Will, — 
 Virtue. This Virtue has now to conduct the government 
 in opposition to the Many, whom their corruption and 
 attachment to old interests, or a liberty that has degenerated 
 into license, and the violence of their passions, render unfaith- 
 ful to virtue. Virtue is here a simple abstract principle and 
 distinguishes the citizens into two classes only — those who 
 are favourably disposed and those who are not. But dis- 
 position can only be recognized and judged of by disposition. 
 Suspicion therefore is in the ascendant ; but virtue, as soon 
 as it becomes liable to suspicion, is already condemned. 
 Suspicion attained a terrible power and brought to the 
 scaffold the Monarch, whose subjective will was in fact the 
 religious conscience of a Catholic. Robespierre set up the 
 principle of Virtue as supreme, and it may be said that with 
 this man Virtue was an earnest matter. Virtue and Terror 
 are the order of the day ; for Subjective Virtue, whose sway 
 is based on disposition only, brings with it the most fearful 
 tyranny. It exercises its power without legal formalities, 
 and the punishment it inflicts is equally simple — Death. 
 This tyranny could not last ; for all inclinations, all interests, 
 reason itself revolted against this terribly consistent Liberty, 
 which in its concentrated intensity exhibited so fanatical a 
 shape. An organized government is introduced, analogous 
 to the one that had been displaced ; only that its chief 
 and monarch is now a mutable Directory of Five, who may 
 form a moral, but have not an individual unity ; under them 
 also suspicion was in the ascendant, and the government 
 was in the hands of the legislative assemblies ; this constitu- 
 tion therefore experienced the same fate as its predecessor, 
 for it had proved to itself the absolute necessity of a govern- 
 mental power. Napoleon restored it as a military power, 
 and followed up this step by establishing himself as an 
 individual will at the head of the State : he knew how to 
 rule, and soon settled the internal affairs of France. The 
 avocats, ideologues and abstract-principle men who ven- 
 tured to show themselves he sent " to the right about," and 
 the sway of mistrust was exchanged for that of respect 
 
SECT. 111. THE ECLAIRCISSEMENT AND REVOLUTION. 171 
 
 and fear. He then, with the vast might of his character, 
 turned his attention to foreign relations, subjected all 
 Europe, and diffused his liberal institutions in every quarter. 
 Greater victories were never gained, expeditions displaying 
 greater genius were never conducted: but never was' the 
 powerlessness of Victory exhibited in a clearer light than 
 then. The disposition of the peoples, i.e. their religious dis- 
 position and that of their nationality, ultimately precipitated 
 this colossus; and in France constitutional monarchy, w ith 
 the " Charte " as its basis, was restored. But here again t he 
 antithesis of Disposition [good feeling] and Mistrust made 
 its appearance. The French stood in a mendacious position 
 to each other, when they issued addresses full of devotion 
 and love to the monarchy, and loading it with benediction. 
 A fifteen years' farce was played. For although the Charte, 
 was the standard under which all were enrolled, and though 
 both parties had sworn to it, yet on the one side the ruling 
 disposition was a Catholic one, which regarded it as a matter 
 of conscience to destroy the existing institutions. Another 
 breach, therefore, took place, and the Government was over- 
 turned. At length, after forty years of war and confusion 
 indescribable, a weary heart might fain congratulate itself 
 on seeing a termination and tranquillization of all these dis- 
 turbances. But although one main point is set at rest, there 
 remains on the one hand that rupture which the Catholic 
 principle inevitably occasions, on the other hand that which 
 has to do with men's subjective will. In regard to the latter, 
 the main feature of incompatibility still presents itself, in the 
 requirement that the ideal general will should also be the 
 empirically general, — i.e. that the units of the State, in their 
 individual capacity, should rule, or at any rate take part in 
 the government. Not satisfied with the establishment of ra- 
 tional rights, with freedom of person and property, with the 
 existence of a political organization in which are to be found 
 various circles of civil life each having its own functions to 
 perform, and with that influence over the people which is 
 exercised by the intelligent members of the community, and 
 the confidence that is felt in them, "Liberalism" sets up in 
 opposition to all this the atomistic principle, that which insist a 
 upon the sway of individual wills ; maintaining that all go- 
 vernment should emanate from their express power, and have 
 
472 
 
 PAET IV. THE GERMAN "WORLD. 
 
 their express sanction. Asserting this formal side of Free- 
 dom — this abstraction— the party in question allows no poli- 
 tical organization to be firmly established. The particular 
 arrangements of the government are forthwith opposed by the 
 advocates of Liberty as the mandates of a particular will, 
 and branded as displays of arbitrary power. The will of the 
 Many expels the Ministry from power, and those who had 
 formed the Opposition fill the vacant places ; but the latter 
 having now become the Government, meet with hostility 
 from the Many, and share the same fate. Thus agitation and 
 unrest is perpetuated. This collision, this nodus, this pro- 
 blem is that with which history is now occupied, and whose 
 solution it has to work out in the future. 
 
 2. We have now to consider the French Eevolution 
 in its organic connection with the History of the WoHd; 
 for in its substantial import that event is World- Histori- 
 cal, and that contest of Formalism which we discussed in the 
 last paragraph must be properly distinguished from its 
 wider bearings. As regards outward diffusion its principle 
 gained access to almost all modern states, either through 
 conquest or by express introduction into their political life. 
 Particularly all the Romanic nations, and the Roman 
 Catholic World in special — France, Italy, Spain — were 
 subjected to the dominion of Liberalism. But it became 
 bankrupt everywhere ; first, the grand firm in France, then 
 its branches in Spain and Italy ; twice, in fact, in the 
 states into which it had been introduced. This was the 
 case in Spain, where it was first brought in by the Napo- 
 leonic Constitution, then by that which the Cortes adopted, 
 — in Piedmont, first when it was incorporated with the 
 French Empire, and a second time as the result of internal 
 insurrection ; so in Eome and in Naples it was twice set up. 
 Thus Liberalism as an abstraction, emanating from France, 
 traversed the Roman World; but Religious slavery held that 
 world in the fetters of political servitude. For it is a false 
 principle that the fetters which bind Right and Freedom 
 can be broken without the emancipation of conscience — that 
 there can be a Revolution without a Reformation. — These 
 countries, therefore, sank back into their old condition, — in 
 Italy with some modifications of the outward political con- 
 dition. Venice and Genoa, those ancient aristocracies, 
 
SECT. III. THE ECLAIRCISSEMENT AND REVOLUTION. 473 
 
 which could at least boast of legitimacy, vanished as rotten 
 despotisms. Material superiority in power can achieve no 
 enduring results : Napoleon could not coerce Spain into free- 
 dom any more than Philip II. could force Holland into 
 slavery. 
 
 Contrasted with these Romanic nations we observe the 
 other powers of Europe, and especially the Protestant na- 
 tions. Austria and England were not drawn within the 
 vortex of internal agitation, and exhibited great, immense 
 roofs of their internal solidity. Austria is not a Kingdom, 
 ut an Empire, i.e. an aggregate of many political organiza- 
 tions. The inhabitants of its chief provinces are not Ger- 
 man in origin and character, and have remained unaffected 
 by '* ideas." Elevated neither by education nor religion, the 
 lower classes in some districts have remained in a condition 
 of serfdom, and the nobility have been kept down, as in Bo- 
 hemia ; in other quarters, while the former have continued 
 the same, the barons have maintained their despotism, as 
 in Hungary. Austria has surrendered that more intimate 
 connection with Germany which was derived from the im- 
 perial dignity, and renounced its numerous possessions and 
 rights in Germany and the Netherlands. It now takes its 
 place in Europe as a distinct power, involved with no other, 
 England, with great exertions, maintained itself on its old 
 foundations ; the English Constitution kept its ground amid 
 the general convulsion, though it seemed so much the more 
 liable to be affected by it, as a public Parliament, that habit 
 of assembling in public meeting which was common to all 
 orders of the state, and a free press, offered singular facili- 
 ties for introducing the French principles of Liberty and 
 Equality among all classes of the people. "Was the English 
 nation too backward in point of culture to apprehend these 
 general principles ? Yet in no country has the question of 
 Liberty been more frequently a subject of reflection and 
 public discussion. Or was the English constitution so 
 entirely a Free Constitution, — had those principles been 
 already so completely realized in it, that they could no 
 longer excite opposition or even interest? The English 
 nation may be said to have approved of the emancipation of 
 Erance ; but it was proudly reliant on its own constitution 
 and freedom, and instead of imitating the example of the 
 
474 
 
 PART IY. THE GERMAN WORLD. 
 
 foreigner, it displayed its ancient hostility to its rival, anc 
 was soon involved in a popular war with France. 
 
 The Constitution of England is a complex of mere parti- 
 cular Bights and particular privileges : the Government is 
 essentially administrative, — that is, conservative of the in- 
 terests of all particular orders and classes ; and each par- 
 ticular Church, parochial district, county, society, takes care 
 of itself, so that the Government, strictly speaking, has 
 nowhere less to do than in England. This is the leading 
 feature of what Englishmen call their Liberty, and is the 
 very antithesis of such a centralized administration as exists 
 in Prance, where down to the least village the Maire is 
 named by the Ministry or their agents. Nowhere can 
 people less tolerate free action on the part of others than in 
 .France : there the Ministry combines in itself all adminis- 
 trative power, to which, on the other hand, the Chamber of 
 Deputies lays claim. In England, on the contrary, every 
 parish, every subordinate division and association has a part 
 of its own to perform. Thus the common interest is con- 
 crete, and particular interests are taken cognizance of and 
 determined in view of that common interest. These ar- 
 rangements, based on particular interests, render a general 
 system impossible. Consequently, abstract and general 
 principles have no attraction for Englishmen — are addressed 
 in their case to inattentive ears. — The particular interests 
 above referred to have positive rights attached to them, 
 which date from the antique times of Feudal Law, and have 
 been preserved in England more than in any other country. 
 By an inconsistency of the most startling kind, we find them 
 contravening equity most grossly ; and of institutions cha- 
 racterised by real freedom there are nowhere fewer than in 
 England. In point of private right and freedom of posses- 
 sion they present an incredible deficiency : sufficient proof of 
 which is afforded in the rights of primogeniture, involving 
 the necessity of purchasing or otherwise providing military 
 or ecclesiastical appointments for the younger sons of the 
 aristocracy. 
 
 The Parliament governs, although Englishmen are un- 
 willing to allow that such is the case. It is worthy of re- 
 mark, that what has been always regarded as the period of 
 the corruption of a republican people, presents itself here ; 
 
SECT. III. THE ECLAIRCISSEMENT AND REVOLUTION. 17Ö 
 
 viz. election to seats in parliament by means of briberi . 
 But this also they call freedom — the power to sell ones 
 vote, and to purchase a seat in parliament. 
 
 But this utterly inconsistent and corrupt state of things 
 has nevertheless one advantage, that it provides for the 
 possibility of a government— that it introduces a majority of 
 men into parliament who are statesmen, who from their very 
 outh have devoted themselves to political business and 
 ave worked and lived in it. And the nation has the cor- 
 rect conviction and perception that there must be a govern- 
 ment, and is therefore willing to give its confidence to a body 
 of men who have had experience in governing; for a general 
 sense of particularity involves also a recognition of that 
 form of particularity which is a distinguishing feature of one 
 class of the community — that knowledge, experience, and 
 facility acquired by practice, which the aristocracy who 
 devote themselves to such interests exclusively possess. 
 This is quite opposed to the appreciation of principles and 
 abstract views which every one can understand at once, and 
 which are besides to be found in all Constitutions and 
 Charters. It is a question whether the Reform in Parliament 
 now on the tapis, consistently carried out, will leave the 
 possibility of a Government. 
 
 The material existence of England is based on commerce 
 and industry, and the English have undertaken the weighty 
 responsibility of being the missionaries of civilization to the 
 world ; for their commercial spirit urges them to traverse 
 every sea and land, to form connections with barbarous peo- 
 ples, to create wants and stimulate industry, and first and 
 foremost to establish among them the conditions necessary 
 to commerce, viz. the relinquishment of a life of lawless 
 violence, respect for property, and civility to strangers. 
 
 Germany was traversed by the victorious Erench hosts, 
 but German nationality delivered it from this yoke. One of 
 the leading features in the political condition of Germany is 
 that code of Bights which was certainly occasioned by French 
 oppression, since this was the especial means of brintjiti^ 
 to light the deficiencies of the old system. The fiction of an 
 Empire has utterly vanished. It is broken up into sovereign 
 states. Eeudal obligations are abolished, for freedom of 
 property and of person have been recognized as fundamental 
 
476 
 
 PART IT. THE GERMAN WORLD. 
 
 principles. Offices of State are open to every citizen, talent 
 and adaptation being of course the necessary conditions. The 
 government rests with the official world, and the personal 
 decision of the monarch constitutes its apex; for a final 
 decision is, as was remarked above, absolutely necessary. 
 Yet with firmly established laws, and a settled organization 
 of the State, what is left to the sole arbitreinent of the 
 monarch is, in point of substance, no great matter. It is 
 certainly a very fortunate circumstance for a nation, when a 
 sovereign of noble character falls to its lot ; yet in a great 
 state even this is of small moment, since its strength lies in 
 the Reason incorporated in it. Minor states have their 
 existence and tranquillity secured to them more or less by 
 their neighbours : they are therefore, properly speaking, not 
 independent, and have not the fiery trial of war to endure. 
 As has been remarked, a share in the government may be 
 obtained by every one who has a competent knowledge, ex- 
 perience, and a morally regulated will. Those who know ought 
 to govern — ol apurriot, not ignorance and the presumptuous 
 conceit of " knowing better." Lastly, as to Disposition, we 
 have already remarked that in the Protestant Church the 
 reconciliation of Religion with Legal Right has taken place. 
 In the Protestant world there is no sacred, no religious 
 conscience in a ^ state of separation from, or perhaps even 
 hostility to Secular Right. 
 
 This is the point which consciousness has attained, and these 
 are the principal phases of that form in which the principle 
 of Freedom has realized itself ; — for the History of the 
 "World is nothing but the development of the Idea of Free- 
 dom. But Objective Freedom— the laws of real Freedom — 
 demand the subjugation of the mere contingent "Will, — for 
 this is in its nature formal. If the Objective is in itself 
 Rational, human insight and conviction must correspond with 
 the Reason which it embodies, and then we have the other 
 essential element — Subjective Freedom — also realized.* Wo 
 have confined ourselves to the consideration of that progress 
 of the Idea [which has led to this consummation], and have 
 been obliged to forego the pleasure of giving a detailed 
 
 * That is, the will of the individual goes along with the requirements of 
 reasonable Laws. — Ta. 
 
SECT. III. THE ECLAIKCISSEMENT AND REVOLUTION. 477 
 
 picture of the prosperity, the periods of glory that have dis- 
 tinguished the career of peoples, the beauty and grandeur of 
 the character of individuals, and the interest attaching to then 
 fate in weal or woe. Philosophy concerns itself only with 
 the glory of the Idea mirroring itself in the History of the 
 "World. Philosophy escapes from the weary strife of passions 
 that agitate the surface of society into the calm region of 
 contemplation ; that which interests it is the recognition of 
 the process of development which the Idea has passed 
 through in realizing itself — i. e. the Idea of Freedom, whose 
 reality is the consciousness of Freedom and nothing short 
 of it. 
 
 That the History of the "World, with all the changing 
 scenes which its annals present, is this process of develop- 
 ment and the realization of Spirit, — this is the true Theodiccea, 
 the justification of God in History. Only this insight can 
 reconcile Spirit with the History of the World — viz., that 
 what has happened, and is happening every day, is not 
 only not " without God," but is essentially His Work. 
 
 THE END. 
 
 LONDON; PRINTED BT WILT-TAM CLOWES AND SONS STAMFORD STREET 
 AND CHARING CROSS. 
 
ERRATA. 
 
 Page 35, line 5 from the bottom, for " that is his destiny, &c." read 
 44 that his Destiny is his very ability, &c." 
 
 Page 112, line 18, for "contrast of Substance — Form, Infinity, &c." 
 read " antithesis of Form, -viz., Infinity, Ideality, has not yet asserted 
 itself." 
 
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