3. The third form of Reflective history is the _Critical_. This deserves mention as preeminently the mode, now current in Germany, of treating history. It is not history itself that is here presented. We might more properly designate it as a History of History--a criticism of historical narratives and an investigation of their truth and credibility. Its peculiarity, in point of fact as well as intention, consists in the acuteness with which the writer extorts from the records something which was not in the matters recorded. The French have given us much that is profound and judicious in this class of composition, but have not endeavored to make a merely critical procedure pass for substantial history; their judgments have been duly presented in the form of critical treatises. Among us, the so-called "higher criticism," which reigns supreme in the domain of philology, has also taken possession of our historical literature; it has been the pretext for introducing all the anti-historical monstrosities that a vain imagination could suggest. Here we have the other method of making the past a living reality; for historical data subjective fancies are substituted, whose merit is measured by their boldness--that is, the scantiness of the particulars on which they are based and the peremptoriness with which they contravene the best established facts of history. 4. The last species of Reflective history announces its fragmentary character on its very face. It adopts an abstract position; yet, since it takes general points of view (such, for instance, as the History of Art, of Law, of Religion), it forms a transition to the Philosophical History of the World. In our time this form of the history of ideas has been especially developed and made prominent. Such branches of national life stand in close relation to the entire complex of a people's annals; and the question of chief importance in relation to our subject is, whether the connection of the whole is exhibited in its truth and reality, or is referred to merely external relations. In the latter case, these important phenomena (art, law, religion, etc.), appear as purely accidental national peculiarities. It must be remarked, if the position taken is a true one, that when Reflective history has advanced to the adoption of general points of view, these are found to constitute not a merely external thread, a superficial series, but are the inward guiding soul of the occurrences and actions that occupy a nation's annals. For, like the soul-conductor, Mercury, the Idea is, in truth, the leader of peoples and of the world; and Spirit, the rational and necessitated will of that conductor, is and has been the director of the events of the world's history. To become acquainted with Spirit in this, its office of guidance, is the object of our present undertaking.