OF REALITY. 471 



and that in the discovery of this common ground con- 

 sists the progress to a higher conception, which again 

 requires to be subjected to the same process of contrast- 

 ing and harmonising, of going out of and resuming itself 

 in a higher unity. The peculiarity with Hegel is that 

 this process is not only a process of human thought, but 

 is emblematical, a conceivable image, of the development 

 of the highest content itself. This, at the time, novel and 

 fascinating general conception was applied in many par- 

 ticular instances ; the general process being illustrated by 

 an extraordinary wealth of examples drawn from all the 

 existing regions of knowledge. Foremost stood history 

 and, in the large region of history, principally that of 

 society, art, religion, and philosophy. In fact, it may be 

 said that many of the modern branches of the history of 

 culture, civilisation, and the higher manifestations of the 

 human mind were for the first time systematically treated 

 and co-ordinated to a living whole in the writings and 

 lectures of Hegel. 



The extraordinary impression which Hegel's philosophy 28. 



, . 1 1 • T (. T • • Reason of 



made m an age when the mind of the nation was m a Hegeis 



_ success. 



state of ferment, but when it also put forward its greatest 

 creative efforts, is not difficult to understand. For this 

 philosophy came forward in many ways as a realisation 

 of the ideals of that period. It understood the greatness 

 of Goethe and Schiller and the aims of the Eomantic 

 movement, without following the latter into the dreams 

 and vagaries of the purely imaginary. It had at the 

 same time a full appreciation of the strictness of 

 scientific method and of the critical spirit which was 

 then slowly but surely making itself felt in many de- 



