Introduction to The Philosophy of History

MP3 Audio CD. INTRODUCTION TO THE PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY


The subject of this course of lectures is the Philosophical History of
the World. And by this must be understood, not a collection of general
observations respecting it, suggested by the study of its records and
proposed to be illustrated by its facts, but universal history itself.
To gain a clear idea, at the outset, of the nature of our task, it seems
necessary to begin with an examination of the other methods of treating
history. The various methods may be ranged under three heads:

I. Original History.
II. Reflective History.
III. Philosophical History.

I. Of the first kind, the mention of one or two distinguished names will
furnish a definite type. To this category belong Herodotus, Thucydides,
and other historians of the same order, whose descriptions are for the
most part limited to deeds, events, and states of society, which they
had before their eyes and whose spirit they shared. They simply
transferred what was passing in the world around them to the realm of
re-presentative intellect; an external phenomenon was thus translated
into an internal conception. In the same way the poet operates upon the
material supplied him by his emotions, projecting it into an image for
the conceptive faculty.