it, exactly as it was, and exactly as the old Babylonians

4. The last species of Reflective History announces its fragmentary character on the very face of it.

It adopts an abstract position; yet, since it takes general points of view (e.g. as the History of Art,

of Law, of Religion), it forms a transition to the Philosophical History of the World. In our time this

form of the history of ideas has been more developed and brought into notice. Such branches of

national life stand in close relation to the entire complex of a people's annals; and the question of

chief importance in relation to our subject is, whether the connection of the whole is exhibited in its

truth and reality, or referred to merely external relations. In the latter case, these important

phenomena (Art., Law, Religion, &c.) appear as purely accidental national peculiarities. It must be