to perceive the substantial, solid worth of the object in question.  The insight, then, to which—­in contradistinction to those ideals—­philosophy is to lead us, is, that the real world is as it ought to be—­that the truly good, the universal divine Reason, is not a mere abstraction, but a vital principle capable of realizing itself.  This Good, this Reason, in its most concrete form, is God.  God governs the world; the actual working of His government, the carrying out of His plan, is the history of the world.  This plan philosophy strives to comprehend; for only that which has been developed as the result of it possesses bona fide reality.  That which does not accord with it is negative, worthless existence.  Before the pure light of this divine Idea—­which is no mere Ideal—­the phantom of a world whose events are an incoherent concourse of fortuitous circumstances, utterly vanishes.  Philosophy wishes to discover the substantial purport, the real side of the divine idea, and to justify the so much despised reality of things; for Reason is the comprehension of the divine work.  But as to what concerns the perversion, corruption, and ruin of religious, ethical, and moral purposes and states of society generally, it must be affirmed that, in their essence, these are infinite and eternal, but that the forms they assume may be of a limited order, and consequently may belong to the domain of mere nature and be subject to the sway of chance; they are therefore perishable and exposed to decay and corruption.  Religion and morality—­in the same way as inherently universal essences—­have the peculiarity of being present in the individual soul, in the full extent of their Idea, and therefore truly and really; although they may not manifest themselves in it in extenso and are not applied to fully developed relations.  The religion, the morality of a limited sphere of life, for instance that of a shepherd or a peasant, in its intensive concentration and limitation to a few perfectly simple relations of life has infinite worth—­the same worth as the religion and morality of extensive knowledge and of an existence rich in the compass of its relations and actions.  This inner focus, this simple region of the claims of subjective freedom, the home of volition, resolution, and action, the abstract sphere of conscience—­that which comprises the responsibility and moral value of the individual—­remains untouched and is quite shut out from the noisy din of the world’s history—­including not merely external and temporal changes but also those entailed by the absolute necessity inseparable from the realization of the idea of freedom itself.  But, as a general truth, this must be regarded as settled, that whatever in the world possesses claims as noble and glorious has nevertheless a higher existence above it.  The claim of the World-Spirit rises above all special claims.