He also took issue with G. W. F. Hegel, whose philosophy showed the world evolving dialectically through a succession of ‘forms of consciousness’, each stage superseding the one before until they all rise up sublimely into ‘Absolute Spirit’. Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit leads us to a climax as grand as that of the biblical Book of Revelation, but instead of ending with everyone divided between heaven and hell, it subsumes us all into cosmic consciousness.
