eternal solution and an eternal problem, and its self-consciousness is philosophy, which is its history, or history, which is its philosophy, each substantially identical with the other; and consciousness is identical with self-consciousness--that is to say, distinct and one with it at the same time, as life and thought. This philosophy, which is in us and is ours, enables us to recognize it--that is to say, to recognize ourselves outside of us--in the thought of other men which is also our thought, and to discover it more or less clearly and perfectly in the other forms of contemporary philosophy, and more or less clearly in contemporary historiography. We have frequent opportunities of effecting this recognition, which is productive of much spiritual comfort. Quite lately, for instance, while I was writing these pages, the historical work of a historian, a pure historian, came into my hands (I select this instance among many) where I read words at the very beginning which seemed to be my very own: "My book is based upon the conviction that German historical inquiry must elevate itself to freer movement and contact with the great forces of political life and culture, without renouncing the precious tradition of its method, and that it must plunge into philosophy and politics, without experiencing injury in its end or essence, for thus alone can it develop its intimate essence and be both universal and national."[1] This is the philosophy of our time, which is the initiator of a new philosophical and historiographical period. But it is not possible to write the history of this philosophy and of this historiography, which is subject and not _object_, not for the reason generally adopted, which we have found to be false, since it separates the fact of consciousness from the fact, but for the other reason that the history which we are constructing is a history of 'epochs' or of 'great periods,' and the new period is new, just because it is not a period--that is to say, something closed. Not only are we not able to describe its chronological and geographical outline, because we are ignorant as to what measure of time it will fill (will it develop rapidly in thirty or forty years, or will it encounter obstacles, yet nevertheless continue its course for centuries?), what extent of countries it will include (will it remain for long Italian or German, confined to certain Italian or German circles, or will it diffuse itself rapidly in all countries, both in general culture and in public instruction?), but we are unable to limit _logically_ what may be its value outside these considerations. The reason for this is that in order to be able to describe its limitations, it must necessarily have developed its antitheses--that is to say, the new problems that will infallibly arise from its solutions, and this has not happened: we are ourselves on the waves and we have not furled our sails in port preparatory to a new voyage.