Phänomenologie des Geistes

IN the case of a philosophical work it seems not onlysuperfluous, but, in view of the nature of the subject, even inappropriate and inexpedient to begin, as writers usually do, with a preface explaining the end the author had in mind, the circumstances which gave rise to the work, and the relation in which the writer takes it to stand to other treatises on the same subject, written by his predecessors or his contemporaries. For whatever it might be smtable to state about philosophy in a preface — say, an historical sketch of the main drift and point of view, the general content and results, a string of desultory assertions and assurances about truth — this cannot be accepted as the form and manner in which to expound philosophical truth. Moreover, because philosophy has its being essentially in the element of universality, which encloses the particular within it, the end or final result seems, in the case of philosophy more than in that of other sciences, to have absolutely expressed the complete fact itself in its very nature, for which the mere process of bringing it to light would seem, properly speaking, to have no essential significance. On the other hand, in the general idea of e.g. anatomy — the knowledge of the VOL. I. — B I 2 Phenomenology of Mind VOL. I. — B I 2 Phenomenology of Mind parts of the body regarded as lifeless — we are quite sure we do not possess the objective concrete fact, the actual content of the science, but must, over and above, be concerned with particulars. Further, in the case of such a collection of items of knowledge, which has no real right to the name of science, any talk about purpose and such-like generalities is not commonly very different in manner from the descriptive and superficial way in which the contents of the science — these nerves and muscles, etc. — are themselves spoken of.…