In his analysis of history Hegel creates a doctrine of the present. He creates distinction in history, and ultimately turns to the idea that history is fundamentally a rational process. In his Introduction to the Philosophy of History Hegel first outlines the basic forms of history. These being original history, reflective history and philosophic history. For Hegel the latter form of history, philosophic history, is of his main focus. It is that which focuses not so much on the time frame itself, but on the thought before history, bringing pure philosophical thought to bare on history. From his dense philosophical history comes various different concepts, including that of self-consciousness, freedom and reason (all being interdependent). Of these come one all encompassing, unifying and central concept of Hegel’s method of philosophical history; that of the Spirit. As such the Spirit is the general and representative body of the unification of the former concepts (self-consciousness, freedom and reason) as they pass from the abstract to their realization as operative principles of history. The clearest representation of the Spirit on Hegel’s part is his seed (or germ) metaphor. As he puts it “the germ of the plant carries within itself the entire nature of the tree” (Hegel, 21), meaning that like the Spirit the seed contains within itself all that the tree is or will be but also needs to see this content actualized in the world. It is this metaphor which illustrates that the Spirit can be self-sufficient as an abstract concept but still realize itself in the world as its internal goal. Ultimately history is guided by a rational process of self- recognition, in which the people are guided to a greater self- awareness and freedom by a rational force that transcends them, ...