It is obvious that a product of this nature will vary considerably throughout in the degree that the personality and unique flavour of Hegel himself, whether viewed as writer or thinker, asserts itself. The introductions[8] have been, it would appear, taken almost exclusively from Hegel's own MSS.; but even these remained unrevised for the press, owing to the premature and sudden death of their author. Of the greater portion of the work we can merely form our judgment of the nature of its authenticity from the content itself. On the whole I should myself say that the result was more favourable than might under such conditions have been expected. The editor assures us expressly that so far as all illustrations and the substantive content of the work is concerned no attempt has been made whatever to supplement the same. Hegel is throughout here entirely responsible. I think, further, that the endeavour claimed by the editor to preserve the general character and tone (_Kolorit_) of Hegel's own diction has attained a degree of success that could only have been within the reach of devoted pupils and friends of the man himself, who for many years both attended his lectures and studied his published works. Whatever opinion, however, we may arrive at on this head there can hardly be two opinions as to the sources in which the main interest consists for a modern reader. First, I should lay particular stress on the forceful and characteristic manner in which the fundamental philosophical conceptions which underlie the entire fabric are worked into and elaborated explicitly, throughout its detail. The very nature of this unwearied and insistent interfusion (_Durchdringung_) of positive fact, whether historical, scientific, or aesthetic, with the dialectic movement of the Idea is here as essentially the method of Hegel as it is elsewhere. And this is so despite the fact that it is here presented for the most part in a form less repellent to the ordinary reader and less provocative of hostile criticism. Translators therefore, who, following the example of the French translator[9], deliberately seek to lighten the burden of their cargo by throwing overboard what they choose to call the "injurious dialectic," or the "dark labyrinth" of this aspect of our work may reproduce much that is of instruction or interest, but most certainly do not reproduce either the main strength of Hegel as a thinker, or the most characteristic impression--to say nothing of the repetitions--of such style or absence of literary style that he possessed.