Filozofija povijesti

Philosophical consideration of history assumes that the mind rules the world, i.e. that even in world history, events are always mental. History therefore represents the mental and therefore necessary flow of the world spirit, whose nature is always the same and is explained in the world battle.

"For those of you, my lords, who do not yet know philosophy, I could perhaps now ask that they approach this lecture on world history with faith in the mind, with a desire, with a thirst for its knowledge. In every way, the desire to mental insight, for knowledge, which should be assumed as a subjective need in the study of science, and not a desire only to collect knowledge. Namely, if for world history one does not already bring thought, knowledge of the mind, then one should at least have a firm, insurmountable faith, that the mind rules in it, and that faith, that the world of intelligence and self-conscious will is not left to chance, but that it must show itself in the light of an idea that knows for itself. In fact, I do not need to demand such faith in advance what I've said so far and what I'm going to say should not - even in terms of our science - be taken as an assumption, but as an overview of the whole, as a result of the consideration that we need to make, a result that is known to me because I already know the whole therefore, it must follow from the history that the events in it were mental, that it was a mental, necessary flow of the world spirit, a spirit whose nature is admittedly always one and the same, but which explicates its one nature in the world battle. As has been said, it must be the result of history."

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, 1822.