Untimely Meditations 121appointment to many of its enthusiasts, and the image of the reason of
history was transformed. It was crucial for the older Hegel to do every-
thing in his power to avoid being disappointed ever again. The betrayed
lover consoled himself by becoming complicit in the tricks of reason.
He focused squarely on designing a system of the reason of history that
would be impervious to disappointment. Reason comes into history, and
history ultimately passes on to reason by way of a series of painful con-
tradictions. In Hegel's system, this process is described and imprinted on
human self-awareness. The mysteries of history are thus revealed in the
consciousness of Hegelian philosophy.
In Nietzsche's view, Hegel had pulled off a remarkable trick. Hegel
had taken lamentations about the end of heroic history—represented by
the fight for freedom as well as the consciousness of a 'latecomer^7 ' who
only remembers but does not act—and transformed them into marks of
distinction. Evidendy, it should have been the purpose of history to lead
into knowledge of such latecomers. Consciousness of misery is equated
with the fulfillment of world history. Since that time, Germans have
come to view things in terms of the "historical process," and they see
the present as its inevitable result Nietzsche noted: 'This way of view-
ing things has put history in the place of the other powers of the mind,
namely art and religion, making it the sole sovereign power, inasmuch as
it is 'the self-realizing concept' and also the 'dialectic of the spirit of
nations' and the 'Last Judgment'" (1,308; HL § 8).
Hegel not only ennobled history in philosophical terms but also con-
ferred philosophical dignity on diagnosing the current events of an era.
He encouraged further philosophizing for the political fray and for the
future as well. Thus, his famous and infamous proposition "What is
rational is actual, and what is actual is rational" had direct political impli-
cations—in contrary directions. Some interpreted his statement as a jus-
tification of existing conditions; others, like Arnold Ruge, Bruno Bauer,
Friedrich Engels, and Karl Marx, took it as a challenge to make what
merely existed into reality to bring it into accord with a rational con-