_Bis hierher ist das Bewusstsein gekommen_ (Knowledge has reached this point in its development), said Hegel, at the end of his lectures upon the philosophy of history; and yet he had not the right to say so, because his development, which went from the unconsciousness of liberty to the full consciousness of it in the German world and in the system of absolute idealism, did not admit of prosecution. But we are well able to say so, for we have overcome the abstractness of Hegelianism. [1] Friedrich Meinecke, _Weltbürgerthum und Nationalstaat: Studien zur Genesis des deutschen Nationalstaates,_ second edition, preface, p. vii. (München u. Berlin, Oldenburg, 1911.) End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Theory & History of Historiography, by Benedetto Croce