'Vitri ornati di Figure, The Comet, Prayers for Prescott, William H., R M 30 W 331 8 Mohammed, Life and Times of-National Review, 456 - Work and Play, Phenomena of-Fraser's Maga- WE are reminded of the growth of this world of ours by the rise of new sciences, and by the new relations which older sciences are forming with each other. A wide and all-embracing survey of the past, such as only recent research, and the new life which it has infused into the old learning, have enabled our modern scholars to take, is an indispensable preliminary to the discovery of any law (if such there be) affecting the order of human progress. "The science of history," says an acute Vorlesungen über die Philosophie der Geschichte. Herausgegeben von Dr. Eduard Gans; besorgt von Dr. KARL HEGEL.-G. W. F. Hegel's Werke: Vollständige Ausgabe; Neunter Band, Dritte Auflage. Berlin, 1848. Lectures on the Philosophy of History. By G. W. F. HEGEL. Translated from the third German edition by J. SIBREE, M.A. London: Bohm, 1857. J. S. Mill's Ratiocinative and Inductive Logic, vol. ii. p. 615. VOL XLV.-NO. I and thoughtful writer, "has only become possible in our own time." Not that works, and some of very remarkable ability, have not long been before the public in which the succession of events in history has been attempted to be reduced to a principle. But such works have either been written to establish a foregone conclusion, and retrieve the character of some depreciated theory, like Bossuet's Histoire Universelle and Frederic Schlegel's Philosophy of Historyan assumption which necessarily deprived them of all scientific value; or, when they have been really philosophical in their aim, they have endeavored to trace the relations of cause and effect within. a. limited period, and in reference to a particular issue-perhaps have confined themselves to the examination of a single element in the complex working and result of oivilization. Works of this latter kind, 1 ferred to as an absolute rule for the construction of universal history. Released from former restraints, and furnished with new instruments of inquiry, learning has wrought out its results in such abundance, and with such rapidity, that the mind is almost oppressed by the multitude of its materials. Mere accumulation of unrelated facts, however new and curious, fatigues the attention and therefore, are rather contributions to the | even of the earliest periods, must be re- a law, is like a vast almanac of the ages, mere juxtaposition without connection. We want a principle to organize this huge chaos into significance, and tell us what it means. We want to see what all the strife and change which has been incessantly agitating mankind is tending to, and where it is destined to issue. We desire, if possible, for the very relief of our minds, to cast on the darkness and confusion of history the interpreting light of philosophy. England, slow to generalize, and tenacious of obvious practical conclusions, has done little towards this work. Mr. Mill, at the close of his work on Logic, adopting the better elements of the Philosophie Positive of M. Comte, has offered some valuable suggestions on the method in which it should be conducted. The point of main interest turns on the question, whether society revolves in ever-recurring cycles of advance and decline, or is destined to a slow and irregular but still continuous progress. Vico, a century ago, maintained the former of these views. Somewhat later, Herder, whom the Baron Bunsen justly designates "the founder of the Philosophy of History," put forth a well-known work, which treated the history of the human race as a grand organic development, and in which, notwithstanding some indistinctness in his general conclusions, we may consider him as the advocate of the latter. Herder's work, though rich in thought and very suggestive, was loose and desultory in its composition, and can only be regarded as a prolusion to the proper science of history. It was in the more recent philosophical schools of Germany, combining immense erudition with rare powers of abstract reasoning, that this high theme was first encountered with any degreee of scientific exactness. The English, French, and Scotch metaphysi * Christianity and Mankind, vol. iii., p. 16. cians of the last century confined them- One of these, which he calls the geome- Mr. Sibree has executed his task very creditably. To those who are unacquainted with German, we can recommend his version as perspicuous and readable. From constant comparison of it with the original, we can affirm that he has given the sense of his author with great fidelity, though sometimes rather paraphrastically, and with the occasional use of expressions that will strike the English reader as affected. But it is no easy matter, with our ordinary and accepted phraseology, to put the English mind on a level with so novel a range of thought. On the whole, we think the translator has been successful. Mr. Mill observes, that hitherto the science of history has been conducted almost exclusively on two opposite methods. mical, begins by an analysis of facts and their aggregations, and thus ascending by degrees to the recognition of proximate laws, is inductive. These two methods, Mr. Mill has shown, should be combined, and made to verify each other. Hegel declares that he has followed the inductive method, (Einleit. p. 14; Engl. Tr. p. 10;) that his theory is not an assumption, but a result deduced logically from the collective facts of universal history, which he has passed successively in review before him. It is hardly possible, however, to keep assumption and result altogether distinct. Every man sits down to study under some mental influence or prepossession, which unconsciously directs his attention to those facts, and those relations of facts, that are most in harmony with the idea latent in his mind; and he is thus committed to a theory before he is aware of it. It can not be asserted of Hegel, that he has been wholly proof against the snare which besets a speculative genius with such alluring force. Hegel's theory of history is a particular application of his general philosophical system-that the world is the evolution of an idea, the progressive realization of a potential logic wrapped up in its primitive germ. There is something startling in the adventurous effort of a human mind to grasp the fundamental conditions of absolute being, and to draw out of them the grand architectonic plan of the universe. As clearly and briefly as we can, we will endeavor to convey an idea of Hegel's world-theory, if we may so call it; and to show how it is applied by him, or is itself applicable, to the successive phases of social development. According to Hegel, the simplest and most elementary possibilities which thought can entertain are existence and non-existence, and these are absolutely contradictory to each other. A contradiction or antithesis, therefore, is involved in the fundamental idea of the universe; which antithesis is harmonized or solved by the origination of individual finite existences, passing from non-existence into existence, (Werden,) and so bridging over the chasm between them. Such, he supposes, was the commencement of the great process of the world's development, expressing in that primary act the law of |