formula--these and other problems should arouse an interest in Hegel's
writings. The following selections may give some glimpse of their
spirit.

In conclusion, some bare suggestions must suffice to indicate the reason
for Hegel's great influence. Hegel has partly, if not wholly, created
the modern historical spirit. Reality for him, as even this inadequate
sketch has shown, is not static, but is essentially a process. Thus
until the history of a thing is known, the thing is not understood at
all. It is the becoming and not the being of the world that constitutes
its reality. And thus in emphasizing the fact that everything has a
"past," the insight into which alone reveals its significant meaning,
Hegel has given metaphysical expression and impetus to the awakening
modern historical sense. His idea of evolution also epitomizes the
spirit of the nineteenth century with its search everywhere for geneses
and transformations--in religion, philology, geology, biology. Closely
connected with the predominance of the historical in Hegel's philosophy
is its explicit critique of individualism and particularism. According
to his doctrine, the individual as individual is meaningless. The
particular--independent and unrelated--is an abstraction. The isolation
of anything results in contradiction. It is only the whole that animates
and gives meaning to the individual and the particular. This idea of
subordinating the individual to universal ends, as embodied particularly
in Hegel's theory of the State, has left its impress upon political,
social, and economic theories of his century. Not less significant is
the glorification of reason of which Hegel's complete philosophy is an
expression. Reason never spoke with so much self-confidence and
authority as it did in Hegel. To the clear vision of reason the universe
presents no dark or mysterious corners, nay, the very negations and
contradictions in it are marks of its inherent rationality. But Hegel's