Answer the following questions as completely as possible. Your answers to these questions should be, in total, at least two paragraphs in length (approx. 250 words):
Hegel is a notoriously difficult philosopher to read and understand. I want you to take a look at a passage from the Introduction to the Philosophy of History and try to interpret it as best you can. Don’t worry if you don’t fully understand it — struggling to understand is a part of Hegel’s plan. Do your best and write up what you can glean from the text:
“The only Thought which Philosophy brings with it to the contemplation of History, is the simple conception of Reason; that Reason is the Sovereign of the World; that the history of the world, therefore, presents us with a rational process. This conviction and intuition is a hypothesis in the domain of history as such. In that of Philosophy it is no hypothesis. It is there proved by speculative cognition, that Reason and this term may here suffice us, without investigating the relation sustained by the Universe to the Divine Being is Substance, as well as Infinite Power; its own Infinite Material underlying all the natural and spiritual life which it originates, as also the Infinite Form that which sets this Material in motion.”