gnty of the people replaces
the sovereignty of one; but not all have yet the consciousness of freedom,
the slaves have no share in the government. The principle of the Greek
world, with its fresh life and delight in beauty, is individuality; hence
the plurality of small states, in which Sparta is an anticipation of
the Roman spirit. The Roman Republic is internally characterized by the
constitutional struggle between the patricians and the plebeians, and
externally by the policy of world conquest. Out of the repellent relations
between the universal and the individual, which oppose one another as
the abstract state and abstract personality, the unhappy imperial period
develops. In the Roman Empire and Judaism the conditions were given for the
appearance of Christianity. This brings with it the idea of humanity: every
man is free as man, as a rational being. In the beginning this emancipation
was religious; through the Germans it became political as well. The
remaining divisions cannot here be detailed. Their captions run: The
Elements of the Germanic Spirit (the Migrations; Mohammedanism; the
Frankish Empire of Charlemagne); the Middle Ages (the Feudal System and the
Hierarchy; the Crusades; the Transition from Feudal Rule to Monarchy,
or the Cities); Modern Times (the Reformation; its Effect on Political
Development; Illumination and Revolution).

The philosophy of history[1] is Hegel's most brilliant and most lasting
achievement. His view of the state as the absolute end, the complete
realization of the good, is dominated, no doubt, by the antique ideal,
which cannot take root again in the humanity of modern times. But his
splendid endeavor to "comprehend" history, to bring to light the laws of
historical development and the interaction between the different spheres of
national life, will remain an example for all time. The leading ideas of
his philosophy of history have so rapidly found their way into the general
scientific consciousness that the view of history which obtained in
the period of the Illumination is well nigh incomprehensible to the
investigator of to-day.

[Footnote 1: A well-chosen collection of aphorisms from the philosophy of
history is given by M. Schasler under the title _Hegel: Populaere Gedanken
aus seinen Werken_, 2d. ed., 1873.]

%(e) Absolute Spirit% is the unity of subjective and objective spirit.
As such, spirit becomes perfectly free (from all contradictions)
and reconciled with itself.