vocation of Humanity that in this, its first life on Earth, it should train itself up with freedom to become an outward manifestation of Reason. But out of nothing, nothing ean arise; and thus Unreason can never become Reason. Hence, in one point of its existence, at least, the Human Race must have been purely Reasonable in its primi- tive form, without either constraint or freedom. In one point of its existence, at least, I say; for the true purpose of its existence does not consist in being Reasonable, but in becoming Reasonable by its own freedom; and the for- mer is only the means and the indispensable condition of the latter: we are therefore entitled to no more extensive conclusion than that the condition of Absolute Reason- ableness must have been somewhere extant. From this conclusion we are forced to admit the existence of an ori- ginal Normal People, who by the mere fact of their exist- ence, without Science or Art, found themselves in a state of perfectly developed Reason. But there is nothing to -hinder us from also admitting that there lived at the same time dispersed over the whole earth, timid and rude Earth born Savages without any Culture but what was necessary for the preservation of their mere sensuous ex- istence;—for the purpose of the life of the Human Race is only to cultivate itself according to Reason, and it would be quite practicable to carry out this process among the Earth born Savages by means of the Normal People.
As an immediate consequence of this position, no His- tory should attempt to explain the origin of Culture in general, nor the Population of the different regions of the Earth. The laboured hypotheses, especially on the last point, which are accumulated in books of travels, are, in our opinion, trouble and labour lost. But there is nothing from which History, as well as a certain half-philosophy, should more carefully guard itself than the altogether irrational and fruitless attempt to’ raise Unreason to Reason by a gradual lessening of its degree; and, given 148 LECTURE IX.
only a sufficient range of centuries, to produce at last a Leibnitz or a Kant as the descendant of an Ourang- Outang.
History takes cognisance only of the New,—the Won- derful; —that which may be contrasted with what has gone before, and what shall follow it. On this account there was no History among the Normal People, and there is no History of them. Under the guidance of their Tnstinct, one day passed away like another; and one indi- vidual life like all the rest. Everything shaped itself spontaneously according to order and morality. There could even be no Science or Art; Religion alone adorned their existence, and gave the simple uninformed mind a relation to the Eternal. As little could there be a History among the Earth born Savages; for with them, likewise, one day passed away like another, —with only this dif- ference, that on one day they found food in abundance while on another they could obtain nothing; prostrated the one day from indulgence and on the next from ener- vation;— to awaken again, in either case, to the same uncbanging round which led to no result.
Had things remained in this state; had the absolute Culture,—which however did not look upon itself as Cul- ture but only as Nature,—remained separate from the surrounding Barbarism, then no History could have arisen; and, what is still more important, the end of the existence of the Human Race could not have been attained. The Normal People must therefore, by some occurrence or other, lave been driven away from their habitations, all access to which was thenceforth cut off; and must have been dis- persed over the seats of Barbarism. Now for the first time could the process of the free development of the Human Race begin; and with it, History, — the record of the Unexpected and the New,—which accompanies such a process. For now, for the first time, the dispersed descen- dants of the Normal People perceived with astonishment THE ORIGIN AND LIMITS OF HISTORY. 149 that all things were not, of necessity, such as they were with them; but might be otherwise having indeed dis- covered them to be otherwise in reality; and the Earth- born, after they had been awakened to conscious intelligence, had a great deal even more wonderful to record. In this conflict of Culture with Barbarism, the germs of al] Ideas and all Science,—except Religion, which is as old as the world itself, and is inseparable from the existence of the world,—unfolded themselves, as the power and means of leading Barbarism to Culture.
Far from History being able reasonably to raise her voice on the subject of her own birth, all that has now been set forth is presupposed in the mere existence of History. Inferences from a state of things amid which it has had its beginning, as to what has preceded that state, especially inferences from the Myths which are already in actual existence, and in so far have them- selves become facts,—particularly when such inferences are in accordance with Logic,—should be. thankfully accepted. But let us bear in mind that they are in- ferences and not History;—and should we desire to ex- amine more closely the form of the inference, let us not be scared back by the bugbear—Fact. Let this be our first incidental observation; and let the second be as follows: ——Every one who is capable of a survey of History as a whole,—which however is always rarer than a knowledge of its individual curiosities; and who in particular is able to comprehend what is universal, eternal, and unchanging in it, might in such a survey obtain a clear view of some of the most important problems of History;—for example, how the existence of races of men, differing so much from each other in colour and physical structure, is possible;—why it is that at all times, down even to the present day, civilization is always spread by means of foreign incomers, who encounter aboriginal inhabitants in a state of greater or lesser Barbarism;—whence arises 150 LECTURE 1X.
150 LECTURE 1X.
the inequality among men discoverable wherever History has a beginning;—and so forth.
All that we have now set forth are necessary conditions of the existence of a Human Race;—the latter, however, must absolutely be, and hence the former must have been; —so far Philosophy informs us. Now all this is not merely a general supposition, but these things must further have had a definite existence;—for example, with regard to what we have said above,—the existence of the Normal People isnota mere general supposition, but they must have ex- isted in one particular region of the earth and in no other; although, so far as appears to us, they might have existed elsewhere; they had a language, which of course was con- stituted according to the fundamental laws of all language, but which possessed besides an element which appears to us as if it might have been otherwise, and therefore as an arbitrary element. Here Philosophy is at an end, because the Comprehensible is at an end; and what is Incompre- hensible in the present life begins. Here accordingly Empiricism enters the field, which in this connexion is named History;—and the subordinate phenomena, which only in their general nature can be deduced from a priort principles, would now present themselves in their special and particular character as facts, without any explanation of their genesis, if they were not necessarily concealed from the view of History by other causes, This much, however, follows from what has now been said:—History is mere Empiricism; it has only facts to communicate, and all its proofs are founded upon facts alone. To attempt to rise from such facts to Primeval History, or to argue how such or such a thing might have been, and then to take for granted that it has been so in reality,—is to stray beyond the limits of History, and produce an a priori History; just as the Philosophy of Nature, referred to in our preceding lecture, endeavoured to find an @ priort Science of Physics.
THE ORIGIN AND LIMITS OF HISTORY, 151 The evidence of facts proceeds in the following manner: First of all, there is a fact which has come down to our own time,—which may be seen with our eyes, heard with our ears, and felt with our hands. This can be understood only .on the supposition of an earlier fact no longer perceptible tous. Hence such an earlier fact is es as having been once perceptible. This rule, that we can accept as proved only so much of the earlier fact as is absolutely ne- cessary for the comprehension of the now-existing fact, is to be taken strictly; for it is only to the eee and by no means to the Imagination, that we can ences any ‘value in historical evidence. Why then should we attempt ‘to educe and define the earlier fact further than is absolutely requisite for the explanation of the present? In all Sciences, and particularly in History, it is of greater importance to understand distinctly how much we do not know than to fill up the void with fiction and conjecture. For example, I read a work which is said to be Cicero’s, and till now has been universally acknowledged to be his:—this is the fact of the Present. The earlier fact to be detected herein is this: —Whether the particular Cicero who is distinctly known to us by means of other history did actually write this work. I go through the whole series of evidence lying in the interval of time between me and Cicero; but I know that herein error and illusion are possible, and this external proof of authenticity is notin itself decisive. I turn there- fore to the internal characteristics: Is it the style, the mode of thinking of a man who lived at that time, who filled such a station in society, and was surrounded by such circumstances? Suppose I find these things so, then the evidence is complete:—it is not possible to conceive. that this book, as it now exists, could have existed if Cicero had not written it: he was the only man who could write it thus; therefore he has written it.
Another instance:—I read the first chapters of the socalled first book of Moses, and, as must be presupposed, I Hie, LECTURE IX.
understand them. Whether it was Moses who composed them; or,—since this, from internal evidence, may be ob- viously impossible,—whether it was he who collected them from mere verbal tradition and placed them on record; or whether it was Ezra, or some still later writer; is of no importance to me here:—it is even of no importance to me in this case whether any such person as Moses or Ezra ever lived; nor do I care to know how this composition has been preserved;—fortunately it has been preserved, and this is the main point. I perceive by its contents that it is a Myth concerning the Normal People in opposition to another merely Earth born People; and concerning the religion of the Normal People and their dispersion; and of the origin of the Jehovah-Worship, among the adherents of which the primitive religion of the Normal People was once more to re-appear, and through them to be spread over the whole world. I conclude from the contents of this Myth that it must be older than all History, since from the commencement of the historic period down to the time of Jesus there was none able even to understand much less to invent it; and also because J find the same Myth everywhere repeated as the mythical beginning of the History of all nations;—although in a more fabulous and sensuous form. The existence of this Myth, before all other His- tory, is the first fact of History, and its true beginning; and therefore it cannot be explained by means of any previous fact:—the contents of this Myth are thus not History but Philosophy, and a belief in it is no further obligatory on any one than as it is confirmed by his own investigations.
We have said before, that if the true end of the Ex- istence of the Human Race was to be attained it was necessary that the Normal People should be dispersed over the seats of Barbarism: and now, for the first time, there occurred something new and remarkable, which THE ORIGIN AND LIMITS OF HISTORY. 153 aroused the memory of Man for its preservation;—now, for the first time, could History, properly so called, have a beginning; for it can do no more than collect in the shape-of facts, and by means of mere Empiricism, that gradual civilization of the Actual Human Race of His- tory which is produced by the admixture of the original Culture with the original Barbarism. In this province, for the first time, the historical Art, the fundamental principle of which we have stated above, comes into play for the discovery and collection of facts; and to enable us to comprehend clearly and completely the actual con- dition of the Present Time, particularly in so far as it may lead us to the discovery of previous facts, as well as to perceive distinctly under the condition of what earlier facts. alone the present can be understood. It is here particularly necessary to dismiss altogether the delusive notion of probability which, taking its rise in a feeble Philosophy, has thence spread over every other science, and especially has found a secure refuge in History. The Probable, because it is only probable, is for that very reason not true;—-and why should we concede any place whatever in Science to the untrue? Strictly speaking, the Probable is what would be true if such and such principles, evidences, and facts which are awanting, could be produced. If we are of opinion that these absent proofs may be recovered, perhaps by the discovery of lost documents, or the digging up of hidden volumes, we may then properly enough note down these probabilities, so that their substance may not be lost, distinguishing them by this mark,—mere probabilities, accompanied with a notice of what is requisite to establish their truth; but we must by no means fill up the gap between them and Truth by our own too easy belief, and by the desire to prove an hypothesis which we, as Historians, choose to advance @ priori. u 154 ‘ LECTURE IX.
The History of this gradual Culture of the Human Race, as History properly so called, is again made up of two in- timately connected elements; one a priori, and the other a posteriori. The a priori is the World-Plan, the general features of which we have set forth in our first lecture, conducting Humanity through the Five Epochs already enumerated. Without historical information at all the Thinker may know that these Epochs, as we have de- scribed them, must succeed each other, and may also be able, in the same way, to characterize generally such of them as have not yet taken their place in History as facts. Now this development of the Human Race does not take place at once, as the philosopher pictures it to himself in thought, but, disturbed by foreign powers, it takes place gradually, at different times, in different places, and under particular circumstances. ‘These con- ditions do not by any means arise from the Idea of the World-Plan, but are unknown to it; and since there is no other Idea-of a World-Plan, they are an Absolute Unknown to Philosophy: and here begins the pure Em- piricism of History;—its a posterior? element;—History in its own proper form.
The Philosopher who in his capacity of Philosopher meddles with History follows the @ priori course of the World-Plan, which is clear to him without the aid of His- tory at all; and the use which he makes of History is not to prove anything by it, for his principles are already proved independently of History; but only to illustrate and make good in the actual world of History, that which is already understood without its aid. Through- out the whole course of events, therefore, he selects only the instances in which Humanity really advances towards the true end of its being, and appeals only to these instances,—laying aside and rejecting everything else; and as he does not intend to prove historically that Hu- manity has to pursue this course, having already proved YHE ORIGIN AND LIMITS OF HISTORY. 155 it philosophically, he only points out, for the purposes of illustration, the occasions on which this has been visible in History. The mere Collector of Facts indeed proceeds, and ought to proceed, quite differently. But his business is not to be despised on account of its opposition to Philosophy;—it is, on the contrary, highly honourable if properly pursued. He has absolutely no support, no guide, no fixed point, except the mere out- ward succession of years and centuries, wholly irrespective of. their significance; and it is his business to declare all that can be discovered historically in any of these Epochs of Time. He is an Annalist. Does anything of this kind escape him?—then he has transgressed the rules of his art, and must endure the reproach of ignorance or carelessness. Now in each of these Epochs, —which he distinguishes only by their succession in Time, but not by means of their essential nature, there lie, as only the Philosopher can tell him, or the Annalist himself if he be a Philosopher may know, the most diverse elements in immediate contact and inter- mixture;—the remnants of original Barbarism, or of an original Culture which has passed away without com- munication; remnants or else foreshadowings of all the other four Epochs of Culture;—and finally the actually living and progressive Culture itself. The merely em- pirical Historian has to collect faithfully all these elements just as he finds them, and to place them in order beside each other: the Philosopher who uses History for the purpose which we have here in view, has only to do with the latter element,—the actually living and pro- gressive movement of Culture,—laying aside all the rest; and thus the empirical Historian, who should judge him according to the rules of his own art, and conclude that he was ignorant of that which he had no occasion to produce, would be at fault, for it is specially to be expected of the Philosopher that he should not bring forward on every 156 LECTURE IX.
occasion all that he knows, but only so much as bears upon the purpose in view. To make the distinction clear at once:—the Philosopher employs History only so far as it serves his purpose, laying aside everything of which he can make no use; and I announce freely, that in the following inquiry I shall employ it in this way. Such a proceeding, which would be highly culpable in the mere empirical study of History, and would indeed sub- vert the very nature of this science, is quite justifiable in the Philosopher; for he has already, independently of all History, proved the principles for the illustration of which he makes use of History. He should indeed deserve blame did he assert as fact that which had never taken place; but he relies upon the results of historical inquiry, of which results he employs only the most general; and it would be a great misfortune to historical inquiry itself, if so much as this were not clearly established;—but he deserves no blame if he is merely silent with respect to some things which may nevertheless have taken place. He endeavours to under- stand the true significance and meaning of such historical events as are of universal importance; and with regard to them he calls to mind only the fact of their occur- rence;-—the manner in which they took place, which doubtless. implies many other facts, he leaves to the empirical Historian. Should he find that, with his perhaps limited knowledge of historical details, he may yet be able to understand and explain a fact in its connexion with the whole World-Plan much better than he who possesses a more extensive acquaintance with such details, he need not be surprised at this, for only on this account is he a Philosopher. In short, it is Necessity which guides our Race,—not by any means a mere blind Necessity, but the living, conscious, and intelligent Ne- cessity of the Divine Life; and only after we have come under this gentle leading can we be truly free, and THE ORIGIN AND LIMITS OF HISTORY. 17 interpenetrated with Life; for beyond this there is nothing but Illusion and Unreality. Nothing is as it is, because God wills it so arbitrarily, but because He cannot manifest Himself otherwise than as he does. To acknowledge this guidance, humbly to acquiesce therein, and in the consciousness of this identity with the Divine Power to attain true Blessedness, is the business of all men; to comprehend in clear intelligence what is Universal, Absolute, Eternal, and Unchangeable in this leading of the Human Race, is the business of the Philosopher; to set forth the Actual Phenomena of the inconstant and ever-changing spheres over which with steadfast course it holds its way, is the business of the Historian;—whose discoveries are only incidentally employed by the former.
It is of course to be understood that the use which we have partly made of History already, and partly still intend to make of it, can be no other than this its philosophical use, and cannot be looked at otherwise than as we have described it to-day,—I trust clearly and distinctly. Our next task shall be to show how the Idea of the State according to Reason gradually became realized among men, and at what point of this development of the Absolute State our own Age stands. In order to confine ourselves very carefully within the boundaries of our own Science, and not to give any cause on our part for reviving the old dispute between Philosophy and History, we shall not even give out that which we have to state on this subject as ascertained historical data, but only as hypotheses and distinct questions for History, leaving it to the Historian to bring them to the test of facts, and to inquire how far they are confirmed thereby. Should our views prove merely new and interesting, they may still give rise to inquiries from which at least something also new and interesting may come forth, if not exactly that which was 158 LECTURE IX.
hoped for;—and so our trouble shall not be wholly lost. Restricting ourselves to this modest desire, we hope that we shall not lose the countenance even of the Historian.
( 159 ) LECTURE X, THE ABSOLUTE FORM OF THE STATE, To show at what point of its development the State has arrived in our own Age, is our next business as announced in the last lecture. The intelligibility of the demonstration which we have to make must evidently depend upon our starting from a strictly defined conception of the State in its Absolute Form.
There is nothing, especially in the Epoch in which we live, about which more has been written, read, and spoken, than about the State: therefore in all cultivated, even if not exactly scientific society, we can reckon, almost with certainty, upon a greater amount of existing knowledge and opinion concerning the State than con- cerning any other subject. We must first of all declare, especially with regard to what we intend to say here upon this question, that we partly coincide with certain. well-known authors but upon other and profounder principles than theirs; while we differ from them again in many important matters: and that the view of the State most prevalent among German Philosophers is not unknown to us, according to which the State ought to be almost nothing more than a juridical institution;—a view which we oppose with deliberate and well-considered de- termination. It is to be remembered, then, that we are 160 LECTURE X.
compelled to begin with some apparently uninteresting principles, concerning which, all I can ask of you at first is only to keep them in mind:—but I trust that before the end of this lecture these principles shall have become quite clear, by means of farther definitions and applications.
The Absolute State is in its form, according to our opi- 7 nion, an artistic institution, intended to direct all indivi- dual powers towards the Life of the Race and to transfuse them therein; and thus to realize and manifest in indivi- dual life the general form of the Idea, as we have already sufficiently described it. Since the State cannot calculate upon the inward life and the original activity of the Idea in the minds of men,—all life in Idea being of this latter kind, as we have seen in our former lectures,—and since it rather operates outwardly upon individuals who feel no desire, but on the contrary a reluctance, to offer up their individual life for the Race, it follows that this institution must be one of constraint. For those individuals in whom the Idea has assumed a real inward life, and whose \ wish and desire is nothing else than to offer up their lives for the Race, no constraint is necessary and for them it disappears;— the State remains, with respect to them, only that comprehensive Unity which continually watches over the Whole, which points out and explains at all times the first and nearest purpose of the Race, and arranges the willing powers of man in their appropriate sphere of action. It is an artistic institution, we have said: but it is so, in the strictest sense of this word as an institution of free and self-intelligent Art, only after it has scientifically penetrated to its complete and perfect purpose in the Age of Reason as Knowledge, and tothe means for the attainment of that purpose, when the Fifth Age of Rea- son as Art has begun. But there is also an order in Na- ture, that is, in the destiny of the Human Race, through which it is led towards its true end without its own know- THE ABSOLUTE FORM OF THE STATE, 161 ledge or will: which order might be called the Art of Nature: and in this sense alone I call the State, in the first Ages of the Human Race, an artistic institution, What we have already set forth as the dedication of all | individual powers to the purpose of the Race, is the Ab- | solute State according to its form; te. the existence of a State at all depends simply on the dedication of the individual powers to @ purpose of the Race whatever / that purpose of the Race may be. It remains, however, | quite undecided by this definition of the State, how many purposes of the Race to the attainment of which the individual power is to be dedicated can be prosecuted in particular States;—and it remains just as undecided by this definition what is the absolute purpose of the Race, by the disclosure of which the material of the State,— the true meaning and purpose of it,—might be described.
And now, after these preliminary definitions, to examine more closely the Idea which we have announced: In the first place, the State which has to direct a necessarily finite sum of individual powers towards the common pur- pose, must regard itself as a completed whole; and, as its 1 common purpose is identical with that of the soem Race, it must regard the aggregate of its citizens as the/ Human Race itself. It is not irreconcilable with this view that it may also entertain purposes connected with others who are not numbered among its Citizens: for these purposes will still be its own, undertaken merely on its own account,—those, namely, to the attainment of which it directs the individual powers of its own Citizens;—and in every case, therefore, it devotes these powers to itself, considered as the Highest, as the Race. It is therefore the: * same thing whether we say, as above, that the State directs | all ‘ndiveduall powers towards the life of the Race; or, as here, that it directs them towards tts own life as the State - only that this latter expression first acquires its true mean- ing through the former, as we shall soon see.
ae 162 LECTURE X.