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LECTURES
ON THE
PHILOSOPHY
OF
WORLD HISTORY

Volume 1: Manuscripts of the Introduction
and The Lectures of 1822–1823

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GEORG WILHELM FRIEDRICH HEGEL

LECTURES ON THE PHILOSOPHY OF
WORLD HISTORY
VOLUME 1
MANUSCRIPTS OF THE INTRODUCTION
AND
THE LECTURES OF 1822–1823

Edited and Translated by
Robert E. Brown and Peter C. Hodgson

with the assistance of
William G. Geuss

Digital edition by
Simon Gros

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This volume is a translation of G. W. F. Hegel, Vorlesungsmanuskripte II (1816–1831),
edited by Walter Jaeschke (vol. 18 of Gesammelte Werke,
© 1995 by Felix Meiner Verlag GmbH, Hamburg),
pp. 121–207; and G. W. F. Hegel, Vorlesungen über die Philosophie der Weltgeschichte,
Bertin, 1822–1823, edited by Karl Heirs-Bring, Kari Brehmen, and Hoc Nam Seelmann
(vol. 12 of Vorlesungen. Ausgewählte Fachschriften und Metaphysik,
© 1996 by Felix Meiner Verlag GmbH, Hamburg).
© Robert E. Brown and Peter G. Hodgson 2011

First published 2013

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PREFACE

With this book an entirely new version of Hegel’s Lectures on the Philosophy of World History is made available to the English-reading public. Earlier editions, in both German and English, amalgamated various manuscript and lecture sources into an editorially constructed text that obscured Hegel’s distinctive presentation in each of the five series of lectures he delivered on this topic. The present edition, based on German critical editions, publishes Hegel’s surviving manuscripts of his Introduction to the lectures, and then presents the full transcription of the first series of lectures, that of 1822-3. A second, later volume will publish the transcription of the last series, that of 1830-1, together with selections from intervening years. The Editorial Introduction surveys the history of the texts and provides an analytic sum mary of them, enabling the structure of Hegel’s presentation to stand out clearly; and editorial footnotes introduce readers to Hegels many sources and allusions. The volume concludes with a glossary and a bibliography. For the first rime an edition is made available that permits critical scholarly study. Presented in this way, the Weltgeschichte becomes more accessible than in the past.

German pagination is provided in the margins. For the manuscripts of the Introduction, our source is Vorlesungsmanuskripte II (1816-1), edited by Walter Jaeschke, Gesammelte Werke, xviii (Hamburg: Felix Meiner Vertag, 1995), 121-207. For the transcription of the Lectures of 1822-3, the source is Vorlesungen über die Philosophie der Weltgeschichte, Berlin, 1822-3, transcribed by K. G. J. von Griesheim, H. G. Hotho, and F. C. H. V von Kehler; edited by Karl Heinz flting, Karl Brehmer, and Hoo Nam Seelmann, Vorlesungen: Ausgewählte Nachschriften und Manuskripte, xii (Hamburg: Felix Meiner Vertag, 1996), 3-521.

The editors, Robert F. Brown and Peter C. Hodgson, are deeply indebted to the assistance provided by William G. Geuss in reviewing and correcting the sections we translated and in initiating the translation of one of the sections. Our collaborative work has greatly improved the quality of the translations. Readers for the Press also reviewed the translation and made several helpful suggestions, for which we are grateful. Our thanks go to Walter Jaeschke for answering several questions and for providing a preliminary typescript of the transcription by Karl Hegel of the Lectures of 1830-1.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Editorial Introduction
The Lectures on the Philosophy of World History
Manuscripts of the Introduction
The Transcriptions of the Lectures
Previous Editions and This Edition
Analytic Summary of the Texts
Manuscript: Introductory Fragment, 1822, 1828
Manuscript: Introduction, 1830–1
Transcription of the Lectures of 1822–3
Introduction: The Concept of World History
The Course of World History
The Oriental World
The Greek World
The Roman World
The Germanic World

MANUSCRIPTS OF THE INTRODUCTION

Introductory Fragment, 1822, 1828
Introduction, 1830–1
A The General Concept of World History
B The Actualization of Spirit in History
a The General Definition of Spirit as Intrinsically Free
b The Means of Spirit’s Actualization: Passions, Interests, Ideals
c The Material of Spirit’s Actualization: the State
d The Constitution
C The Course of World History
a The Principle of Development
b The Stages of Development
c The Beginning of World History
d The Course of Development of World History
Loose Sheets
Also Spectacles of Endless Complexities
C Course [of World History]

THE LECTURES OF 1822–3

INTRODUCTION: THE CONCEPT OF WORLD HISTORY

The Types of Treatment of History
Original History
Reflective History
Philosophical World History
The Idea of Human Freedom
The Fabric of World History
The Concept of Spirit
The Beginning of History
The Progress of History
The End of History
Human Passions and the Divine Idea
The Nature of the State
The State and the Actualization of Freedom
The Constitution of the State
The State and Religion, Art, Science, and Culture
The State and Geography
The Division of World History

THE COURSE OF WORLD HISTORY

The Oriental World

China

The Historical Records of China
The Shu-Jing
The Main Elements in Chinese History
Characteristics of the Chinese State
The Moral Sphere, Subjective Freedom, and their Violation
Ethical Customs
The Sciences
Art
Religion

India

The Principle of India
The Region of India
The Castes
Civil Legislation
The Religious Sphere
The State and its History
Astronomy and Art
India in the Framework of World History
Buddhism and Lamaism

Persia

The Principle of the Persian Empire
The Geography of Ancient Persia
The Zend People, Language, and Books
The Religion of Light
Assyria and Babylonia
Sources for Persia and the Persian Empire
The Medes and the Chaldeans
The Founding of the Persian Empire by Cyrus
Features of the Persian Empire
Phoenicia
The Religion of Astarte and Adonis
The Jewish Religion

Egypt

The Land of Enigmatic Marvels
Egyptian History
Features of the Land and Life of Egypt
Religion and the Cycle of Nature
Animal Worship
How the Egyptians Envisaged Spirit
Art and Architecture
The Dead and Immortality
Private or Particular Purpose
Transition to Greece

The Greek World

The Periods of Greek History
The Origins of the Greek Folk Spirit
Who Are the Greeks
The First Social and Political Organization
Greek Culture and Art
Greek Religion
The Constitution of Greece
The Maturity of the Greek Spirit
The Persian Wars
Athens versus Sparta
Decline and Fall
The Peloponnesian War
The Emergence of Thought
The End of Greek Life and the Age of Alexander the Great

The Roman World

The Roman Spirit
Introduction
The Origins of Rome
Marriage and the Social Order
Roman Religion, Utility, and the Aristocracy
The Periods of Roman History
The Formation of Roman Power
Early Kings, Patricians, and Plebeians
Expansion and Conquest
The World-Dominion of Rome
Rome’s Place on the World Stage
The Emperors: One Will Dominates All
The Arrival of Christianity
The Truth of the Idea
The Appearance of the Idea
Consequences of Christianity for Life and the State
The Downfall of Rome

The Germanic World

Introduction
The Idea and Historical Particularity
The Beginning of Europe: Three Groups of Nations
The Periods of the History of the Germanic World
The Preparation of the Early Middle Ages
Commonality and Individuality
The Triumph of Particularity
The Abstract Unity of Islam and its Challenge to Europe
The Middle Ages
The Empire of Charlemagne
Medieval Christianity
Political Developments: Relations between Church and State
The Quest for the Presence of Christ in the Church
The Crusades
The Turn to the External World and Nature

The Transition to Modernity

Art
The Corruption of the Church
The Reformation
The Constellations of Europe after the Reformation

The History of Modernity

The Worldly Existence of the Modern Church: Wars of Religion
The Formal Universality of Thought: The Natural Sciences
The Turn to Concrete Actuality: The Enlightenment

Conclusion

Glossary
Bibliography
Name Index
Subject Index

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EDITORIAL INTRODUCTION

THE LECTURES ON THE PHILOSOPHY OF WORLD HISTORY

Hegel lectured on the philosophy of world history for the first time in the winter semester of 1822–23 in Berlin.¹ The lectures were repeated on four occasions: in 1824–25, 1826–27, 1828–29, and 1830–31. World history was the last discipline of Hegel’s system to become the topic of lectures, with the exception¹ of those on the proofs of the existence of God, but thereafter they had a secure place in the two-year cycle of his lectures. These were also among the most popular of his lectures, for they served as an introduction to his thought and addressed other parts of his system as well, such as the philosophy of right, the philosophy of spirit, the philosophy of art, and the philosophy of religion. Prior to 1822–23, Hegel treated world history in the context of his lectures on the philosophy of right, where it comprised the third and final section of his discussion¹ of the state. These lectures were published as a textbook in 1820–21², and thereafter Hegel developed the philosophy of world history into a full topic in its own right. Hegel’s other major historical work, his lectures on the history of philosophy, also attained their final form during the Berlin period³.

Auditors’ transcriptions (Nachschriften) exist for all of Hegel’s lectures on world history, but his own manuscripts survive for only a fragment of the Introduction, used in 1822 and 1828, and for most of the Introduction in 1830–31. The present edition, as explained more fully below, translates the manuscript materials and the transcription of the first lectures (1822–23) in this first volume, while a second volume will contain the transcription of the last lectures (1830–31) and selections from intervening years.

MANUSCRIPTS OF THE INTRODUCTION⁴

The Manuscript of 1822, 1828

This manuscript consists of three sheets; the first sheet is in the Hegel Collection of the Staatsbibliothek Preußischer Kulturbesitz in Berlin, and the second two sheets are in the Deutsches Literaturarchiv of the Schiller-Nationalmuseum in Marbach. The two sets of sheets are clearly connected and form a unitary whole, even though, through uncertain circumstances, they were separated and found their way to different locations.

At the top of the first sheet, Hegel wrote the date of the beginning of his lectures in 1828, 30 October 1828, and adjacent to this notation, the date of the beginning of the lectures in 1822, 31 October 1822. The two dates might suggest that Hegel wrote this manuscript for the earlier lectures and then, at a later time, revised it. However, the order in which he wrote the dates, as well as differences in the quality and color of the ink, indicate that the extant sheets come from the later lectures. The earlier date was most likely copied from an earlier (and now lost) notebook, which served as a prototype for the preparation of the notes for 1828–29. Nonetheless, the manuscript agrees in content with the beginning of the lectures of 1822–23, except for marginal additions. It covers only the first two of three types of historiography—original and reflective history—before breaking off. In the Introduction to the lectures other than those of 1822–23 and 1828–29, the varieties of historiography are not discussed as such, and the Introduction begins with the philosophical concept of world history.

The Manuscript of 1830–31

This manuscript has been in the Hegel Collection of the Staatsbibliothek since the end of the nineteenth century. It contains the date of the beginning of the lectures, 8 November 1830. The manuscript is very carefully prepared and evidences a great deal of editing and revision, so that it almost has the quality of a fair copy. In terms of both diction and care of composition, it was apparently intended to serve as the preliminary stage of a publication, even though reports are lacking of a plan for publication such as exist for the proofs of the existence of God.⁵ Despite its highly edited condition, the manuscript is not complete. A comparison of the manuscript with transcriptions of the lectures of 1830–31 shows that at several significant places (marked as such in our translation), Hegel presented shorter or longer passages in the lectures that drew on earlier preparatory materials and for which today there is no extant manuscript. At other places, the manuscript has passages that are not used for the lectures at all, and passages that differ from parallels in the lectures.

Toward the end of the Introduction, there is a diminishing agreement between the manuscript and the transcriptions until, in the last section (on “the course of world history”), they diverge completely.⁶ Hegel’s announced topic for the winter semester of 1830–31 was not, as it had been previously, Philosophiam historiae universalis, but Philosophiae historiae universalis partem priorem. Thus, he intended to lecture on only the first part of the philosophy of world history, and by this, he in all likelihood meant the Introduction that preceded the historical presentation.

Hegel apparently intended to reverse the tendency of the more recent lectures, which his son Karl Hegel described as reducing the philosophical and abstract aspects, expanding the historical material, and popularizing the whole. However, Hegel did not follow through with this plan and again lectured on the whole of the Weltgeschichte. We can only assume that he did not proceed as quickly as expected with the revision of the Introduction, and thus it was not possible for him to devote the entire course to introductory and conceptual matters. Hegel’s Berlin rectorate fell during the preceding year (1829–30), and his numerous publication plans—a new edition of the Science of Logic, a revision of the Phenomenology of Spirit, and a work on the Proofs of the Existence of God—made it impossible to undertake a thorough revision of the beginning of the philosophy of world history lectures. The writing of the manuscript probably occurred only in the weeks immediately preceding the beginning of the winter semester, that is, in October 1830; and, in place of the expansion of the Introduction that Hegel intended, his version in 1830–31 is shorter than that of 1822–23.

Loose Sheets

Two sets of loose sheets relate to the philosophy of world history. The first of these, contained in the Berlin Staatsbibliothek, beginning with the words “Also Spectacles of Endless Complexities,” is written on the back of a single quarto sheet, which on the front has a notice by Eduard Gans on the current state of the July Revolution in France, dated 5 August 1830. This fragment relates to Hegel’s preparation of his manuscript of the Introduction to world history. It represents a preliminary stage of the middle section of the manuscript, in which Hegel discusses the means by which freedom is actualized in the world. Its themes are recognizable in corresponding passages of the manuscript. The motif of struggle and of the mutual destruction of particular passions is, to be sure, not found in the existing manuscript. But comparison with the transcriptions of the lectures of 1830–31 shows that Hegel treated these themes, including his famous reference to the “cunning of reason,” immediately following the discussion of world-historical individuals, notably Caesar. In our edition, this occurs at the transition from page 165 to 166 of the German text. Since the fragment is one of several preliminary pieces to the manuscript, it is probable that Hegel wrote it at the beginning of his preparation for the lectures of 1830–31, namely in September 1830.

The second of the loose sheets, “Course [of World History],” is owned by the Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale, Florence. It is written on the back of a letter from Hegel to Friedrich Wilken, dated 27 November 1829. The fragment corresponds to the beginning of Part C, “The Course of World History,” in the 1830–31 manuscript. But it is not a preliminary draft of this material as formulated in the manuscript; rather, it contains themes found in the actual delivery of the lectures.

THE TRANSCRIPTIONS OF THE LECTURES

The Lectures of 1822–23

Two excellent transcriptions exist of this first course of lectures: those prepared by Karl Gustav Julius von Griesheim (located in the Berlin Staatsbibliothek) and by Heinrich Gustav Hotho (owned by the Bibliothèque de Sorbonne, Paris, in the Victor Cousin Collection). Griesheim provides a careful, complete, and reliable fair copy of Hegel’s lectures, while Hotho’s transcription was written down during the course of the lectures with many abbreviations and some obscurities. According to the German editors of the edition we have translated, Hotho is better at providing the language and philosophical conceptuality of Hegel without interjecting his own point of view, while Griesheim has fewer details and more summaries that reflect his own view. However, an astonishing amount of nearly verbatim agreement exists between Griesheim and Hotho. Hotho serves as the guiding text (Leittext) for our edition, but the extensive agreement with Griesheim makes it possible to employ both sources in the construction of a continuous, integral text that approximates as closely as possible what Hegel actually said. Where necessary, reference can be made to a third transcription, that of Friedrich Carl Hermann Victor von Kehler (Staatsbibliothek), which is not complete and comprises only twenty-three quarto pages; Kehler also transcribed the 1824–25 lectures.

In his first lectures on the philosophy of world history, Hegel devoted considerable attention not only to the Introduction but also to the Oriental World (China, India, Persia, Egypt), which comprises nearly half the volume following the Introduction. He shared the growing interest in Asia of the 1820s and studied much of the available literature, acquiring a knowledge that he utilized also for lectures on the philosophies of art and religion and on the history of philosophy. Toward the end of his lectures, he ran out of time and, as a consequence, his treatment of the Germanic world was compressed. This imbalance was redressed in later lectures.

From these lectures, we learn that Hegel’s treatment of geography (at least in 1822–23) is systematically anchored in his discussion of the state as one of its essential features, rather than the topic being treated separately or relegated to an appendix, as in earlier editions. The state, as the bearer of history, has not only a spiritual-cultural aspect but also a natural aspect, and in this way it is the unity of spirit and nature. Historical events are objectifications of spirit in interaction with nature, yielding the history of the consciousness of freedom. The latter, as we shall explain below, also constitutes a theodicy, for the progress of freedom is the work of God in history.

The Lectures of 1830–31

Hegel’s last lectures on the philosophy of world history were completed only a few months before his death in November 1831. A transcription by the philosopher’s son, Karl Hegel, is in the possession of the Hegel-Archiv (Ruhr-Universität, Bochum), and it will serve as the basis for our second English volume when the transcription is published in the Gesammelte Werke a few years from now, along with selected materials from intervening years. As we have indicated, these lectures provide a more balanced treatment of the four major “worlds” or “realms” comprising world history (Oriental, Greek, Roman, and Germanic).

We could have elected to hold our translation of Hegel’s manuscript of the Introduction to the lectures of 1830–31 for this second volume, where it would appear along with the transcription of these lectures. However, there are good reasons for presenting all the manuscript materials together in a single volume, as is the case with the German critical edition (Gesammelte Werke, vol. XVIII). And the uncertainties involved in the delay led us to proceed with its publication now.

PREVIOUS EDITIONS AND THIS EDITION

Previous Editions

Eduard Gans, a former student and friend of Hegel, was the first editor to work with these materials. His edition appeared in 1837 as volume IX of the Werke, an 18-volume edition prepared by an “association of friends of the deceased.” Gans’s edition was based principally on transcriptions of later lectures, especially those of 1830–31, but he also made use of Hegel’s lecture manuscript of 1830. After his death, a second edition of the Werke appeared in 1840, edited by Karl Hegel, who added to what Gans had done by introducing materials from earlier lectures.¹¹ John Sibree translated Karl Hegel’s edition into English in 1857, and it remained the only English source for over a hundred years.

In 1917, Georg Lasson published a four-volume edition of the “Weltgeschichte.”¹² The first volume of his edition, containing the Introduction (under the title Die Vernunft in der Geschichte), was revised by Johannes Hoffmeister in 1955, and the latter was translated by H. B. Nisbet in 1975.¹³ As the German editors of the new edition point out, all these earlier editions obscure the conception of the individual lectures and mask the changes Hegel introduced. They had the principal goal of producing an editorially constructed unitary text—of making “a book out of lectures”¹⁴—rather than providing a critical source for the study of the Weltgeschichte.

According to his notes on the composition of the text, Lasson published in his first volume Hegel’s 1830 manuscript of the Introduction. He interwove passages from the manuscript with parallel texts from the transcriptions, distinguishing the manuscript by larger type. For the transcriptions, he used Griesheim as the source for the lectures of 1822–23, Kehler for the lectures of 1824–25, and Stieve for 1826–27. Apparently unaware of Karl Hegel’s transcription of the lectures of 1830–31, he assumed that Hegel lectured only on “Part One” in the final year. Where the lecture transcriptions available to Lasson paralleled the printed text of the second edition of the Werke, Lasson corrected the printed text in light of the transcriptions; but he found numerous sections in the printed text for which no parallels existed in his transcriptions, and these he reproduced exactly as they appeared in the published version. Thus, Lasson’s edition, apart from the manuscript, was an amalgam of diverse materials with no identification of sources and no distinction between lecture series.¹⁵

Hoffmeister made only minor changes to Lasson, although he recognized that the whole needed to be re-edited. In addition to following Hegel’s own subdivisions in the 1830 manuscript of the Introduction, he made use of the sheets containing what he called “The Varieties of Historical Writing,” realizing that this material constituted the beginning of the lectures in 1822 and 1828.¹⁶ Consequently, Hoffmeister placed it at the beginning of the volume, designating it the “first draft” of the Introduction, followed by the “second draft” of 1830. In both cases, the manuscript materials were printed in italics and interwoven with passages from the transcriptions in roman type.¹⁷ The “geographical basis of world history” and the “division of world history” remained in the appendix. As indicated, it is this edition that was translated by Nisbet in 1975, and until now, it has remained the best source for Hegel’s Introduction in English.

This Edition

The underlying principle of the critical edition of Hegel’s lectures is that the transcriptions must be treated separately and published as independent units. Obviously, it is impractical to edit and translate transcriptions of all five of Hegel’s series of lectures on Weltgeschichte. A selection must be made, and here the principal criterion is the reliability and intrinsic value of the sources. The two best transcriptions are those by Griesheim and Hotho of the first series (1822–23); and the possibility of constructing an integral text based on both sources makes this an obvious choice. Karl Hegel’s transcription of the lectures of 1830–31 is also reliable, and its inclusion will make it possible for the critical edition to publish the first and the last lecture series, with selections from intervening years.¹⁸ Added to this is the fact that the manuscripts of the Introduction are from the first and the last series.

Considerable agreement exists between Walter Jaeschke’s edition of the manuscripts of the Introduction in volume XVIII of the Gesammelte Werke and the earlier work of Lasson and Hoffmeister on these materials. Consequently, we have been helped by H. B. Nisbet’s translation of the manuscripts in Reason in History. However, our translation differs from his in many ways, large and small, and we always follow Jaeschke’s critical text and annotations. For the transcription of the lectures of 1822–23 in volume XII of the Vorlesungen, there is no precedent in English, although parallel passages are found in the Sibree translation of the second Werke edition.

Our translation is a collaborative effort. The work of each of us has been read and corrected by the other two. The German editors of the lectures of 1822–23 provide detailed annotations for the sections on China, India, and Persia, but very few for the remainder of the work where (they claim) Hegel draws upon well-known sources. We have extensively supplemented the annotations for these other sections and have provided additional annotations for China, India, and Persia.¹⁹ The German editors of both the manuscripts and the transcriptions include a detailed apparatus on the construction of the text. We have not translated the apparatus except at a few places where there is significant bearing on meaning or where we prefer an alternative reading of the main text. We have held bracketed insertions to a minimum, not reproducing the many brackets used by the editors of the transcription to complete sentences grammatically. In the manuscripts, we indicate Hegel’s frequent use of emphasis by means of italics; elsewhere, italics are found sparingly. We have provided the subheadings for the 1822–23 lectures. Pagination of the German texts is in the margins, with the page breaks marked by vertical slashes.

Our translation principles follow those originally worked out for the Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion.²⁰ These principles are, in brief:

1) To achieve uniformity in the translation of key terms, we have worked from a glossary, which is modified from that used for the Philosophy of Religion and the History of Philosophy, and is printed at the back of the volume. 2) We have not sacrificed precision for the sake of fluency and believe that the more precisely Hegel’s thought is rendered, the more intelligible it generally becomes. 3) We have attempted to preserve a sense of the spoken word and of Hegel’s oral delivery. 4) We have used a “down” format and have avoided capitalizing common Hegelian terms such as idea and spirit. 5) We have employed gender-inclusive references to human beings and, wherever possible, to God.

We conclude these preliminary remarks by noting that what follows after the Introduction is not a history in the sense of a chronological account of events but rather a cultural and political portrayal of various “worlds,” a portrait of what is distinctive about each of several great civilizations (Chinese, Indian, Persian, Egyptian, Greek, Roman, and Germanic or European), and why Hegel thinks they constitute a meaningful progression in the development of spirit, truth, and freedom, viewed on a large scale. For the purpose of philosophical portraiture, the medium of oral lectures is ideally suited. Duncan Forbes claims, in his Introduction to Reason in History,²¹ that Hegel’s philosophy “is best approached in the spirit of Plato’s, as something that is in danger of being destroyed or distorted if it is written down.” Forbes points out that Hegel was, in fact, reluctant to publish, and that only four of his books were published during his lifetime. To give these publications a definitive priority over his spoken lectures, with which he was almost exclusively occupied during the last decade in Berlin, is to treat his philosophy as a closed book, whereas it was an attempt to “think life”—dialectically yet concretely, holistically yet with shrewd insight into detail—and it is precisely the details that occupy most of the Weltgeschichte.

The only way to appreciate this kind of thinking, says Forbes, is to “watch it at work” on the podium. Once it ceases to be thinking and becomes thought, once it stops speaking and is reduced to an editorial amalgam (as with older editions of the lectures), it ceases to be a living process and becomes a system. The principal goal of Hegel’s philosophy is to permit thinking to remain open, fluid, and continuous.

Our analysis of the texts attempts to honor that intention. In this analysis, references to footnotes are to those belonging to the texts of the various units under discussion, not to the note sequence in the Editorial Introduction.

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ANALYTIC SUMMARY OF THE TEXTS

MANUSCRIPT: INTRODUCTORY FRAGMENT, 1822, 1828

By way of indicating what is distinctive about a philosophical history of the world, Hegel begins his lectures in 1822 and 1828 by surveying three varieties of historiography: original history, reflective history, and philosophical history.

Original history is written by historians such as Herodotus and Thucydides who have themselves witnessed, experienced, and lived through some of the events they describe. They transposed things that merely happened and existed externally (res gesta) into the realm of intellectual representation by constructing narrative and poetic accounts (historia). It is the historian who does this—fashioning a whole out of what has passed away—thereby investing it with immortality and giving it “a more exalted and better soil than that transient soil in which it grew.” Original historians, however, do this only with events that are mostly contemporaneous with them and belong to their own world, in which they are participants, leaders, or authors. Such historians are immersed in the material and do not rise above it to reflect on it. They have written the “bibles” of their peoples, and through them, the material comes to us, fresh and alive.

Reflective history goes beyond what is present simply to the author; it depicts what was present not only in time but also in the life of spirit. It includes everything written by those whom we customarily call historians. The author approaches the material with his own spirit, likely different from the spirit of the content itself, and everything depends on the maxims and representational principles the author applies to the content and the style of writing.

Hegel distinguishes between several modes of reflective history. The first consists of surveys of a people, country, or even the world as a whole—compilations from the accounts of original historians and other sources. When the reflective historian attempts to depict the spirit of the age about which he writes, it is usually his own spirit that is heard (compare an original historian such as Polybius with a compiler such as Livy). As much as we admire Greece and find its life congenial, we cannot truly sympathize with the Greeks or share their feelings. In a revision of his notes in 1828–29, Hegel introduces a reference to Leopold Ranke, whom he criticizes for offering an assortment of details with little political context or overarching purpose.

The second mode is pragmatic history, which Hegel views with both criticism and appreciation. On one hand, historians can act like amateur psychologists, deriving motives from particular inclinations and passions rather than from the concept of the event itself. On the other hand, pragmatic history can also be rational, focusing on the totality of interests such as the state, constitutions, or conflicts—reflecting on how a people becomes a state, the ends of the state, necessary institutions, and the forces driving history.

The manuscript breaks off at this point, without completing the discussion of reflective history or addressing philosophical history. For the continuation, reference must be made to the transcription of the lectures of 1822–23.

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MANUSCRIPT: INTRODUCTION, 1830–31

In the 1830–31 lectures, instead of surveying the varieties of historiography, Hegel begins by asserting that the philosophy of world history is nothing other than its contemplation through thinking. This raises the question of whether thinking should be subordinated to what empirically exists. Philosophy is often assumed to generate thoughts independently and impose them on history, arranging it according to speculative reasoning. Historians like Ranke argue that history’s task is simply to discover “what happened.” Hegel’s first objective is to refute the claim that philosophy merely imposes ideas onto history.

A. The General Concept of World History

The sole concept philosophy brings is the bold claim that reason governs the world and that world history is a rational process. From a historical perspective, this is a presupposition. But speculative philosophy proves that reason—and God—is substance and infinite power, both the material and the form of all natural and spiritual life. Reason is its own presupposition, the ultimate purpose of history, manifesting itself in both the natural universe and the spiritual realm. The whole of philosophy—logic, nature, and spirit—demonstrates this.

What will become evident from studying world history is that it is a rational and necessary course of the world spirit. This “speculative cognition” forms Hegel’s metahistory, and every historian has such a perspective, consciously or not. However, history must also be taken empirically. Hegel criticizes historians for introducing their own a priori assumptions, like myths of a primeval wise people. Scientific study requires meditative thinking, and whoever views the world rationally sees it as rational.

This belief in reason’s rule over the world is not new; it dates back to philosophers like Anaxagoras and Socrates. The alternative is to attribute events to chance, as Epicurus did. Religious faith also holds that the world is governed by divine providence, not randomness. Providence is the wisdom and power to actualize its rational purpose. This is spiritual, not physical power—it works positively and negatively, guiding history beyond narrow human interests.

Hegel acknowledges the widespread belief that God’s providential plan is hidden. Yet, he argues that providence appears openly in history and should not be reduced to isolated signs. Hegel insists that philosophy must address religious truths directly, stating that in Christianity, God has revealed Himself to humanity, making divine nature knowable. This includes a theodicy—a justification of how God’s ways are manifest in history, even through suffering and evil.

B. The Actualization of Spirit in History

World history unfolds in the realm of spirit (Geist), and the realization of spirit is what constitutes history. This realization occurs in three (or four) major stages:

1. In the Oriental world, only one— the despot—is free, and the people are subjects.
2. Among the Greeks and Romans, only some are free—Greek citizens or Roman elites—with freedom dependent on slavery.
3. In the Germanic or European world, through Christianity, humanity first recognizes that all are inherently free.

The application of this principle of freedom to reality is the long, difficult process of history. Hegel famously states, “World history is the progress of the consciousness of freedom.” History is the education of humanity toward freedom, though this is not immediate but arises as a result of struggle. Freedom contains within itself the necessity to become conscious and actual.

The central question becomes: What means does spirit employ to actualize freedom in history?

…