This philosophy also has a history. Before examining this, it might be well to take stock, since we have been through a number of histories which are intricated into each other.

In fact there is only one history, that of Spirit, whose different aspects we have been following in examining the development of political society, art, religion and now philosophy. Any given stage in history is a totality in which the same spirit manifests itself in all these different modes. All the different forms (Gestaltungen) of an age belong together.

Philosophy is one side of this. It is a reflection of the spirit of the times. It cannot thus stand over its time. Or rather, in a sense it does, since philosophy always has the same basic insight. So that it can sometimes be thought afterwards to have shown the world the way it had to go – as Neo-Platonic philosophy foreshadowed the reconciliation which Christianity would achieve (GPhil, 150). But on its own level of development, rather than seen in the light of the eternal truths it points to, a philosophy cannot step over its time.