We think it essential to provide a summary of the following two paragraphs. on Hegel’s “The Enlightenment and the Revolution” (Opening Paragraphs) – Beezone editors
In these opening paragraphs, Hegel outlines a major spiritual and intellectual turning point in Western history. He traces how Protestantism first brought about a new form of inwardness—a personal relation to God, a self-conscious religious life, and a sense of inner moral responsibility. But this inward turn also introduced a dilemma: the individual’s inner life became a site of anxiety, confusion, and contradiction. Protestantism viewed the self as both the seat of conscience and as a domain of sin, creating tension between freedom and guilt.
At the same time, within the Catholic Church, the Jesuits had developed an elaborate system of casuistry—a kind of moral calculus aimed at assessing the subtle motives behind human action. This contributed to a growing skepticism about clear moral distinctions. Every good intention could be doubted, and every rule had exceptions. In both cases, inward life became increasingly complex, unsettled, and subject to endless examination.
What remained after this collapse of moral certainty, Hegel argues, was thought itself—the pure activity of reason. Thought, unlike faith or feeling, does not depend on something outside itself. It works with universals, not particulars. And in this, Hegel sees the birth of true freedom: the thinking subject is no longer in fear of external authority, divine judgment, or the chaos of passions. In thinking, the self becomes present to itself, and the world becomes something that can be understood and reconciled within the clarity of reason.
This is the moment, for Hegel, when modern subjectivity fully emerges. It is not merely a spiritual awakening, but a philosophical transformation. Freedom becomes rational, and the stage is set for both the Enlightenment and the revolutions—intellectual and political—that followed.
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Here is the text of Hegel’s discourse on pages 141-158 entitled,
The Enlightenment and the Revolution
Protestantism had introduced the principle of inwardness, together with religious emancipation and contentment with oneself, but accompanying this with the belief in the inward as evil and in the power of the worldly. Within the Catholic Church, too, the casuistry of the Jesuits introduced interminable inquiries, as protracted and subtle as those of scholastic theology, respecting the inward aspect of the will and the motives that affect it.
This dialectic, which unsettled all particular judgments and opinions, transforming the good into evil and the evil into good, left at last nothing remaining but the pure activity of inwardness itself, the abstract element of the spirit—thought. Thought contemplates everything in general form and is consequently the activity and the production of the general. In the older scholastic theology the real subject-matter, the doctrine of the Church, remained something beyond.* Protestant theology, too, retained the relation of the spirit to the other world; for on the one hand there remains the will of the individual, the spirit of man, I myself, and on the other hand i the grace of God, the Holy Ghost, and likewise (in evil means) the devil. But in thought, the self is present to itself and its content, its objects are just as absolutely present to it. For in thinking I must elevate the object and see it as something general. This is simply the absolute freedom, for the pure ego, like pure light, is simply by itself. Thus what is different, sensuous or spiritual, no longer presents an object of dread, for in contemplating such diversity it is inwardly free and can freely confront it. A practical interest makes use of and consumes the objects offered to it. A theoretical interest contemplates them, assured that they in themselves present no alien element. Consequently, the furthest reach of inwardness, of subjectivity, is thought. Man is not free when he is not thinking; for then he is related to the world around him as to another. This comprehension, the reaching of the ego beyond other forms of being with the most profound self-certainty, directly contains the reconciliation of the opposites. For it must be observed that the unity of thought with its object is already implicitly present, for reason is the substantial basis of the consciousness as well as of the external and natural. Thus that which presents itself as the object of thought is no longer something beyond (ein Jenseits)* not of another substantial nature.
The spirit has now advanced to the level of thought. It involves the reconciliation in its completely pure essence, challenging the external world to exhibit the same reason which 1 the subject possesses. The spirit perceives that nature, the world, must also be an embodiment of reason, for God created it rationally. A general interest in the observation and comprehension of the preset world development.
* Something beyond = jenseits, meaning beyond the subject and its reasoning.—Ed.
The general in nature is nothing other than species, genera, force, gravitation, etc., phenomenally presented. Thus experience became the science of the world, for experience involves on the one hand the observation of phenomena, on the other hand, also, the discovery of a law, of what is inside, the hidden force that causes those phenomena, thus reducing to their simple principles the data supplied by observation.
The consciousness of thinking was first elevated from that sophistry of thought which unsettles everything, by Descartes. As it was the purely Germanic nations among whom the principle of spirit first manifested itself, so it was by the Latin nations that the abstract was first comprehended. . . . Experimental science therefore very soon made its way among the French, in common with the Protestant English, and among the Italians. It seemed to men as if God had just created the moon and the stars, plants and animals, as if the laws of the universe were now established for the first time. For they only felt a real interest in the universe when they recognized their own reason in its reason. The human eye became clear, perception quick, thought active and interpretative. 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 alone could conquer. Men said, and Catholics no less than Protestants, that the external with which the Church wanted to associate superhuman virtue was external and material, and nothing more, that the host was simply dough, the relics of the saints mere bones. The independent authority of the subject was maintained against belief founded on authority and the laws of nature were recognized as the only bond connecting the external with the external. Thus all miracles were objected to, for nature is now a system of known and recognized laws. Man is at home in it, and only that passes for truth in which he finds himself at home; he is free through the knowledge of nature. Thought was also directed to the spiritual side of things. Right and morality came to be looked upon as having their foundation in the present will of man, whereas formerly it was referred only to the command of God enjoined from without. . . . What the nations acknowledge as international law was deduced empirically from observation (as in the work of Grotius). The source of the existing civil and constitutional laws was looked for, after Cicero’s fashion, in those instincts of men which nature has planted in their hearts, e.g., the social instinct. It was also looked for in the principle of security of the person and property of the citizens and in the principle of the general good, of reason of state. On the basis of these principles private rights were on the one hand despotically disregarded but on the other hand the general objectives of the state were carried through in opposition to mere positive or prescriptive claims. Frederick II may be mentioned as the ruler with whom the new epoch enters actual reality, in which the real interest of the state achieves general recognition and highest justification. Frederick II merits especial notice, because he comprehended in thought the general end of the state, and because he was the first ruler who kept the general interest of the state steadily in view, and refused to admit the validity of any particular interests when they stood in the way of the end of the state. His immortal work is a native code, the Prussian common law. How the head of a household energetically provides and governs with a view to the welfare of the household and of his dependents, of this Frederick has given a unique example.
These general conceptions, deduced from the present consciousness, the laws of nature and the content of what is right and good, have been called reason. The recognition of the validity of these laws was called the Enlightenment. From France it passed over to Germany and a new world of ideas arose. The absolute criterion against all authority based on religious belief and positive laws and right, especially political right, is the verdict passed by spirit itself on the character of that which is to be believed or obeyed. Luther secured spiritual freedom to mankind and the reconciliation in the concrete. He triumphantly established the position that man’s eternal destiny must be worked out in himself. But the content of what is to take place within him, what truth is to become vital in him, was taken for granted by Luther as something already given, something revealed by religion. In the Enlightenment the principle was established that this content must be capable of actual investigation, something of which I can gain an inward conviction, and that every dogma must be referred to this ground of inward conviction.
This principle of thought appears at first in a general and abstract form, and is based on the principle of contradiction and of identity. The results of thought are thus posited as finite. The Enlightenment utterly banished from things human and divine and extirpated all that was speculative. Yet while it is extremely important that the multiform complex of things should be reduced to its simplest definition, and brought into the form of universality, 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, to our world, to 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. Feeling, sense and impulse are also forms in which the inner life realizes itself. But these things are transient and disconnected. They are the ever-changing content of will. But that which is just and moral belongs to the essential, independent and intrinsically general will. If we would know what right really is, we must abstract from inclination, impulse and desire as the particular. We must know what the will is in itself. For benevolent, charitable and social impulses remain impulses to which other impulses are opposed. What the will is in itself must be differentiated from these specific and contradictory impulses. Until then will remains abstract will. 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. The absolute will is the will to be free. Will making itself its own object is the basis of all right and law and obligation and consequently of all statutory laws, commands and duty and imposed obligations.. The freedom of the will itself, as such is itself absolute, inherently eternal right and law and the supreme right in comparison with other rights; nay, it is even that by which man becomes man, and is therefore the fundamental principle of the spirit.
But the next question is: how does will assume a definite form? For in willing itself, it is nothing but an identical reference to itself. In point of fact, however, it wills something specific. There are, we know, distinct and special duties and rights. A particular content, a definite form of will is demanded; for pure will is its own object, its own content, which is no content. In fact, this form is nothing more than formal will. But this is not the place to discuss how a definite form of freedom and rights and duties is evolved from this simple will. It may, however, be remarked that the same principle was theoretically formulated in Germany by the Kantian philosophy. According to it the simple unity of self-consciousness, the ego, constitutes the impenetrable and absolutely independent freedom and is the fountain of all general conceptions, of all conceptions elaborated by thought, of theoretical reason. And likewise the highest of ah practical conceptions, practical reason, is free and pure and will. Rationality of will is nothing else than maintaining oneself in pure freedom, willing this and this alone, right purely for the sake of right, duty purely for the sake of duty. This remained calm theory among the Germans, but the French wished to give it practical effect. Two questions therefore suggest themselves: why did this principle of freedom remain merely formal? and why did the
French alone, and not the Germans, set about to realize it? . . . The principle remains formal because it originated in abstract thought, in the intellect, which is primarily the selfconsciousness of pure reason, and being immediate it is abstract. Nothing further is developed from it as yet, for it still remains in a contrary position to religion, that is, to the concrete absolute content of the world.
As to the second question, why the French immediately passed over from the theoretical to the practical, while the Germans contented themselves with theoretical abstraction, it might be said that the French are hot-headed Qils ont la tete ‘pres du bonnet); but the reason lies deeper. The fact is that the formal principle of philosophy in Germany encounters a concrete real world in which spirit finds inward satisfaction and in which the conscience is at rest. For, on the one hand, it was the Protestant world which advanced so far in thought as to realize the absolute culmination of self-consciousness. On the other hand, Protestantism enjoys, with respect to the moral and legal relations of the real world, a quiet confidence in the moral conviction of men. Such conviction, at one with religion, is the fountain of all lawful arrangements in private and constitutional law. The Enlightenment was on the same side as theology in Germany. In France it immediately took up a position of hostility toward the Church. In Germany the entire secular relations had already been improved by the Reformation; those pernicious institutes of celibacy, poverty and laziness had already been abolished. There was no deadweight of enormous wealth attached to the Church, and no constraint was put upon ethics, a constraint which is the source and cause of vices. There was not that unspeakable iniquity which arises from the interference of spiritual power with secular law, not that other of the sanctified legitimacy of kings, the doctrine that the arbitrary will of princes is divine and holy in virtue of their being “the Lord’s Anointed.” On the contrary, their will is regarded as deserving of respect only so far as it wisely wills right and law, justice and the common good. The principle of thought, therefore, had so far been reconciled already. Moreover the Protestant world had a conviction that the principle which would result in a further development of law was already present in the reconciliation which had been evolved previously.
A consciousness which is abstractly developed and sensible can be indifferent to religion, but religion is the general form in which truth exists for the non-abstract consciousness. The Protestant religion does not admit of two kinds of conscience, while in the Catholic world the Holy stands on the one side and on the other side abstraction opposed to religion, to its superstition and its truth. This formal, individual will is now made the basis of general propositions. Right in society is that which the law wills, and the will exists as an isolated one. Thus the state, as an aggregate of many individuals, is not a substantial unity in and by itself. It is not the truth of right and law in and by itself, to which the will of its individual members ought to be conformed in order to be true free will. On the contrary, atoms of the will are made the starting point, and each will is represented as absolute.
A principle was thus discovered to serve as the rational basis for the state, which does not, like previous principles, belong to the sphere of opinion, such as the social impulse, the desire for security of property, and the like. Nor does this principle owe its origin to piety, as does that of the divine appointment of the governing power. Rather, it is a principle of certainty, resulting from the recognition of identity with my self-consciousness; but it is not yet the principle of truth which needs to be distinguished from it. This is a vast discovery with regard to the most inward and freedom. The consciousness of the spiritual is now the foundation of the political society, and philosophy has thereby become dominant. It has been said that the French Revolution resulted from philosophy, and it is not without reason that philosophy has been called world wisdom. For it is not only truth in and by itself, as the pure essence of things, but also truth as it is alive in the world. We should not, therefore, contradict the assertion that the Revolution received its first impulse from philosophy. But this philosophy was only abstract thought in the first instance, not the concrete comprehension of absolute truth—an immeasurable difference.
[After elaborating these thoughts further, Hegel states:]
The two following points must now occupy our attention: first, the course which the Revolution in France took; second, how that Revolution became world-historical, i) Freedom presents two aspects. The one concerns its content, its objectivity, the thing itself. The other relates to the form of freedom, involving consciousness on the part of the individual of his own activity. For freedom demands that the individual recognize himself in these acts, and that they should invariably be his, it being in his interest that the desired result be attained. The three elements and powers of the living state must be considered according to the above analysis, their examination in detail being referred to the Philosophy of Right and Law.
[What follows here closely parallels what may be found in the selections from that work, below § 273 ff, p. 293.]
In view then of these main considerations we have to trace the course of the French Revolution and the remodeling of the state in accordance with the idea of right. Purely abstract philosophical principles were set up at first. Conviction 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 conjunction with his ministers, was to devolve the executive power; the legislative body, on the other hand, was to make the laws. But this constitution involved an internal contradiction from the very first, for the legislature
absorbed the whole power of the administration. The budget, affairs of war and peace, and the levying of the armed forces were in the hands of the legislative chamber. The budget, however, is in its nature something different from law, for it | is annually renewed, and the power to which it properly belongs is that of the executive. With this, moreover, is connected | the indirect nomination of the ministry and officers of state, i The executive was thus transferred to the legislative chamber, I as it was to the parliament in England. This constitution was J also vitiated by the existence of absolute mistrust. The royal family 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 foot- | ing, and the ruin of both was the result. A government of some kind, however, is always in existence. The question presents itself, then, whence did it emanate? Theoretically, it proceeded from the people, really and truly from the National Convention and its Committees. The forces now dominant I were the abstract principles, freedom, and, in so far as it exists within the limits of the subjective will, virtue. This virtue had i now to conduct the government in opposition to the many, I who had been rendered unfaithful to virtue through their 1 corruption and attachment to old interests, or a liberty that had degenerated into license, or through the violence of their passions. Virtue is here a simple abstract principle and dis- | tinguishes the citizens into two classes only, those who are favorably disposed and those who are not. But conviction can only be recognized and judged of by conviction. Suspicion therefore prevailed. But virtue, as soon as it is suspect, is already condemned. Suspicion attained a terrible power and brought to the scaffold the monarch, whose subjective will was I in fact the Catholic religious conscience. Robespierre set up the | principle of virtue as supreme, and it may be said that he was serious about virtue. Virtue and terror were the order of the day; for subjective virtue, which governs on the basis of conviction only, brings with it the most fearful tyranny. It exercises its power without judicial formalities, and the punishment it inflicts is equally simple—death. Such a tyranny could not last, for all inclinations, all interest, reason itself revolted against this terribly inconsistent liberty which was so fanatical in its concentration. An organized executive government was introduced, analogous to the one that had been displaced. Its chief and monarch was a changeable Directory of Five who might form a moral, but did not have an individual unity. Suspicion continued to prevail, and the government was in the hands of the legislative assemblies. This constitution therefore had the same fate as its predecessor, for the absolute necessity of a governmental power had been proven. Napoleon restored it as military authority 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 affairs of France. He scattered the barristers, the ideologues and the abstract-principle men who were still around. Mistrust no longer prevailed but respect and fear. He then, with the vast might of his personality, turned his attention to foreign relations, subjected all Europe and diffused his liberal institutions everywhere. Greater victories were never gained, expeditions displaying greater genius were never conducted, but never was the powerlessness of victory exhibited in a clearer light. The conviction of the peoples, both religious and national, ultimately overthrew this colossus. Constitutional monarchy was restored in France with the “Charte” as its basis. But here again the antithesis of conviction and mistrust appeared. The French were lying to one another when they issued addresses full of devotion and love for the monarchy and loading it with benediction. For fifteen years a farce was played. For although the “Charte” was the standard under which all were enrolled, and though both parties had sworn to it, yet the ruling conviction 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 overturned. At length, after forty years of indescribable war and confusion, a weary heart might well congratulate itself on seeing a termination and pacification of all these disturbances. 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 mans subjective will. The main one-sidedness consists in this, that the [ideal] general will should also be the empirically general, that is, that the individuals as such should rule or at any rate take part in the executive government. Not satisfied with the establishment of rights, with freedom of person and property, with the existence of a political organization in which are I to be found various circles of civil life, each having its own functions to perform, and with that influence over the people I which is exercised by the intelligent members of the community, and the confidence that is felt in them, liberalism sets I up in opposition to all this the atomistic principle of individual wills. It maintains that all should emanate from their express power and have their express sanction. Asserting this formal side of freedom, this abstraction, the Liberals allow no political organization to be firmly established. The particular orders of ‘ the government are forthwith opposed by the advocates of liberty as the mandates of a particular will, and are branded as the displays of arbitrary power. The will of the many expells the ministry from power, and the opposition steps in. But the latter, having now become the government, have the many against them. Thus are agitation and unrest perpetuated. This collision, this knot, this problem, is that with which history is now occupied, and whose solution it has to work out in the future.
2) We have next to consider the French Revolution, for the event is world-historical in its significance, and that contest of formalism which we discussed in the last paragraph must be properly distinguished from its wider bearings. As regards outward diffusion, the principle of the French Revolution permeated almost all the modern states, either through conquest or by express introduction into their political life. Particularly all the Latin nations, and specially the Catholic world, France, Italy, Spain, fell under 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 two states into which it had been introduced. This was the case in Spain where it was first brought in by the Napoleonic constitution, then by that which the Cortes adopted. This happened first in Piedmont when it was incorporated into the French Empire, and a second time as a result of internal insurrection. A liberal constitution was also set up twice in Rome and Naples. Thus liberalism traversed the Latin world as an abstraction emanating from France; but religious subjection held that world in the fetters of political servitude. For it is a false principle that the shackles which bind right and freedom can be broken without the emancipation of the conscience, that there can be a Revolution without a Reformation. Therefore these countries sank back into their old condition, with some modifications of the outward political condition in Italy; Venice and Genoa, those ancient aristocracies, which could at least boast of legitimacy, vanished like rotten despotisms. Material superiority in power can achieve no enduring results: Napoleon could no more coerce Spain into freedom than Philip II could force Holland into slavery. Contrasted with these Latin nations we observe another development in the other powers of Europe, especially the Protestant nations. Austria and England were not drawn into the vortex of internal agitation and exhibited great proofs of their internal solidity. Austria is not a kingdom but an empire, an aggregate of many political organizations. The inhabitants of its chief provinces are not German 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 Bohemia. In » other regions, while the former have continued the same, the barons have maintained their despotism as in Hungary. Aus- tria has surrendered that more intimate connection with Germany which was derived from the imperial dignity. It has renounced its numerous possessions and rights in Germany and the Netherlands. It now takes its place in Europe a distinct power, involved with no other.
England by great exertions maintained itself on its old foundations. The English constitution remained intact amid | the general convulsion, though it seemed so much more liable to be affected by it. As a public parliament, that habit of assembling in public meeting which was common to all the orders of a the state, as well as the free press, offered singular facilities for introducing the French principles of liberty and equality I among all the classes of the people. Was the English nation too backward in point of culture to apprehend these general principles? In no country has the question of liberty been more fre- quently a subject of reflection and public discussion. Or was the English constitution so entirely a free constitution, had those principles already been so completely realized in it that they could no longer excite opposition or even interest? The English nation certainly applauded the emancipation of ’ France, but it proudly relied on its own constitution and freedom, and instead of imitating the example of the foreign- ers, it displayed its ancient hostility to its rival and was soon involved in a popular war with France. The constitution of England is a complex of mere particular rights and particular privileges. The government is essentially administrative, that is, fl it conserves the interests of all particular classes and orders. Each particular 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 I feature of what the English call their liberty and is the antithesis of such a centralized administration as exists in France, where down to the last village the maire is named by the ministry or their agents. Nowhere can a people less tolerate free action on the part of others than in France. There the Ministry combines in itself all administrative power, to which on the other hand, every parish, every subordinate division and association has a part of its own to perform. Thus the common interest is concrete and particular interests are taken cognizance of and determined in view of that common interest. These arrangements, based on particular interest, render a general system impossible. Abstract and general principles consequently have no attraction for Englishmen, addressed as they are to inattentive ears. The particular interests above referred to have positive rights attached to them which date from the ancient times of feudal law and which have been preserved more in England than in any other country. By an inconsistency of the most startling kind, we find them contravening equity most grossly. There are nowhere fewer institutions characterized by real freedom than in England. In point of private A. right and freedom of possession they present an incredible deficiency. Sufficient proof of this has been afforded by the rights of primogeniture, involving the necessity of purchasing or otherwise providing military or ecclesiastical appointments for the younger members of the aristocracy. The parliament governs, although Englishmen are unwilling to allow that such is the case. It is noteworthy that what has always been regarded as the corruption of a republican people presents itself here; there is election to seats in parliament by means of bribery. But they also call this freedom, the power to sell one’s vote and to purchase a seat in parliament. This utterly inconsistent and corrupt state of things nevertheless has one advantage in that it provides for the possibility of government. It introduces a majority of men into parliament who are statesmen, who from their very youth have devoted themselves to political business and have worked and lived in it. And the nation has the correct conviction and conception that there must be a government, and is therefore willing to give its confidence to a body of men who have had experience in governing. . . . This is quite different from appreciation of principles and abstract views which everyone can understand at once, and which are besides to be found in constitutions and charters. It is a question whether the reform in parliament now under consideration will, when consistently carried out, 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 makes them traverse every land and sea, to form connections with barbarous peoples, to create wants and stimulate industry, and first and foremost to establish among these peoples the respect for property, civility to strangers, conditions necessary to commerce, that is, the relinquishment of a life of lawless violence. Germany was overrun by the victorious French hosts, but the German people delivered it from this yoke. One of the leading features in the political condition of Germany is that code of law which was certainly occasioned by French occupation, since this was the especial means of bringing to light the deficiencies of the old system. The fiction of an empire has utterly vanished. The empire has been broken up into sovereign states. Feudal obligations have been abolished, for freedom of property and of person have been recognized as fundamental principles. Offices of state are open to every citizen, talent and aptitude being of course the necessary prerequisite. The executive government is focused upon administration and the personal decision of the monarch constitutes its apex. A final decision is absolutely necessary, as was remarked above. Yet with firmly established laws and a settled organization of the state, what is left to the sole arbitrament of the monarch is, in point of substance, no great matter. It is certainly very fortunate for a nation when a sovereign of noble character is 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 neighbors. 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 everyone who possesses competent knowledge, experience, and a morally disciplined will. Those who know ought to govern; knowledge, not ignorance and the presumptuous conceit of knowing better. Lastly, as to conviction, 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 bases 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 freedom.
Objective freedom, the laws of real freedom, demand the subjugation of the mere contingent will, for this is completely formal. If the objective is rational in itself, human conviction and insight must correspond with the reason which it embodies, and then we have the other essential element, subjective freedom, also realized. We have confined ourselves to the consideration of that progress of the idea and have been obliged to forego the pleasure of giving a detailed picture of the prosperity, the periods of glory that have distinguished the rise and fall of nations, the beauty and the grandeur of the character of individuals, and the interest attaching to their fate. 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 the passions that agitate the surface of society into the calm region of contemplation. Thal which interests it is the recognition of the process of development which the idea has passed through in realizing itself, the idea of freedom, whose reality is the consciousness of freedom and nothing short of it. World history, with all the changing drama of its histories, is this process of the development and realization of the spirit. It is the true theodicy, the justification of God in history. Only this insight can reconcile the spirit with world history and the actual reality, that what has happened, and is happening every day, is not only not “without God,” but is essentially the work of God.