Excerpt from In France and Germany IN this volume I have endeavoured to give an account of the principal attempts which have been made in France and Germany philosophically to comprehend and explain the history of mankind, with a reasoned estimate of their value. I have still to describe and criticise the general philosophies of history which have appeared in Italy and England; to indicate what light has been thrown on the course, laws, and significance of human development by the progress of the sciences; and to notice the chief contributions which have been made to the discussion of the special problems of historical speculation. In bibliographical appendices I mean briefly to characterise the large number of writings on the philosophy of history which, from their inferior importance, or other causes, have not been examined in the work itself. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.