The bare point of Being and nothing more is the beginning in the process of the Absolute's self-cognition: it is, in other words, our first and rudimentary apprehension of reality,--the narrow edge by which we come in contact with the universe of Reason. For these are two aspects of the same. The process of the self-cognition or manifestation of the Absolute Idea is the very process by which philosophers (not philosophers only) have built up the edifice of thought. What the one statement views from the universal side or the totality, the other views in connexion with the several achievements of individual thinkers. Of course the evolution of the system of thought, as it is brought about by individuals, leaves plenty of room for the play of what is known as Chance. The Natural History of Thought or the History of Philosophers has to regard the action of national character upon individual minds, and the reciprocal action of these minds upon one another. The History of Organic Nature similarly presents the dependence of the species upon their surroundings, and of one species upon another in the medium of its conditions. Gradually Physical Science reduces these conditions to their universal forms, and may try to exhibit the evolution of the animal through its species in all grades of development. So in the Science of the development of this Idea the accidents, as we may call them, disappear: and the temporary and local questions, which once engrossed the deepest attention, fade away into generalised forms of universal application. Philosophy, as it historically presents itself in the world, is not an accidental production, or dependent on the arbitrary choice of men. The accident, if such there be, is that these particular men should have been the philosophers, and not that such should have been their philosophy. They were, according to their several capacity for utterance, only the mouth-pieces of the Spirit of the Times,--of the absolute mind under the superficial limitations of their period. They saw the Idea of their world more clearly and distinctly than other men; and therein lies their title to fame: but really their words were only a reflex,--an almost involuntary and necessary movement, due to the pressure of the cosmical reason. The great philosophers are, like all men in all estates, and according to their measure, the ministers of the Truth,--apostles charged to bring about that consummation of the times in which reality is more fully apprehended and more adequately estimated. Necessity is laid upon them to consecrate themselves to the service of the Idea, and to devote their lives to the noble but austere work of speculation--the work which seeks _sine ira et studio_ to reconstruct that city of God which is the permanent, if it often be the hidden, foundation of human life. [Footnote 1: Cf. p. 90.] [Footnote 2: Augustin. _Soliloq._ i. 7. 'Deum et animam scire cupio. Nihilne plus? Nihil omnino.']