an world appears to be a continuation of the
Roman. But there dwelt in it an entirely new spirit--the free spirit
which reposes on itself.

The three periods of this world will have to be treated accordingly.

The first period begins with the appearance of the German nations in the
Roman Empire. The Christian world presents itself as Christendom--one
mass of which, the spiritual and the secular, form only different
aspects. This epoch extends to Charlemagne. In the second period the
Church develops for itself a theocracy and the state a feudal monarchy.
Charlemagne had formed an alliance with the Holy See against the
Lombards and the factions of the nobles in Rome. A union thus arose
between the spiritual and the secular power, and a kingdom of heaven on
earth promised to follow in the wake of this conciliation. But just at
this time, instead of a spiritual kingdom of heaven, the inwardness of
the Christian principle wears the appearance of being altogether
directed outwards, and leaving its proper sphere.

Christian freedom is perverted to its very opposite, both in a religious
and secular respect; on the one hand to the severest bondage, on the
other to the most immoral excess--a barbarous intensity of every
passion. The first half of the sixteenth century marks the beginning of
the third period. Secularity appears now as gaining a consciousness of
its intrinsic worth; it becomes aware that it possesses a value of its
own in the morality, rectitude, probity, and activity of man. The
consciousness of independent validity is aroused through the restoration
of Christian freedom.

The Christian principle has now passed through the terrible discipline
of culture, and it first attains truth and reality through the
Reformation. This third period extends to our own times. The principle
of free spirit is here made the banner of the world, and from this
principle are evolved the universal axioms of reason. Formal
thought--the understanding--had been already developed, but thought
received its true material first with the Reformation. From that Epoch
thought began to gain a culture properly its' own; principles were
derived from it which were to be the norm for the constitution of the
state. Political life was now to be consciously regulated by reason.
Customary morality, traditional usage, lost their validity; the various
claims insisted upon must prove their legitimacy as based on rational
principles.

These epochs may b