The true, objective ground of thought finds its basis in the real freedom of the subject; the universal or substantial must itself have objectivity. Because thought is this universal, the ground of the substantial and likewise “I”—thought is the implicit and exists as the free subject—the universal has immediate existence and actual presence; it is not only an end or condition to be arrived at, but the absolute character is objective. It is this principle that we find in the Greek world, and the object of our further consideration is its development. The universal first appears as quite abstract, and as such it confronts the concrete world; but its value is both for the ground of the concrete world and for that which is implicit. It is not a beyond, for the value of the present lies in the fact that it exists in the implicit; or that which is implicit, the universal, is the truth of present objects. PART ONE GREEK PHILOSOPHY INTRODUCTION THE name of Greece strikes home to the hearts of men of education in Europe, and more particularly is this so with us Germans. Europeans have taken their religion, the life to come, the far-off land, from a point somewhat further off than Greece—they took it from the East, and more especially from Syria. But the here, the present, art and science, that which in giving liberty to our spiritual life, gives it dignity as it likewise bestows upon it ornament, we know to have proceeded from Greece either directly or indirectly—through the circuitous road of Rome. The latter of these two ways was the earlier form in which this culture came to us; it also came from the formerly universal church which derived its origin as such from Rome, and has retained its speech even until now. The sources of authority in addition to the Latin Gospels have been the Fathers. Our law, too, boasts of deriving its most perfect forms from Rome. Teutonic strength of mind has required to pass through the hard discipline of the church and law which came to us from Rome, and to be kept in check; it is in this way that the European character first obtained its pliability and capacity for freedom. Thus it was after European manhood came to be at home with itself and to look upon the present, that the historical and that which is of foreign derivation was given. When man began to be at home with himself, he turned to the Greeks to find enjoyment in it. Let us leave the Latin and the Roman to the church and to jurisprudence. Higher, freer philosophic science, as also the beauty of our untrammelled art, the taste for, and love of the same, we know to have taken their root in Greek life and to have created therefrom their spirit. If we were to have an aspiration, it would be for such a land and such conditions.