Gans’s Preface to Hegel’s Philosophy of Law (1833)

Abstract

The extraordinary gap that has arisen between the true value of the present book, on the one hand, and its recognition and acceptance by the public, on the other hand, impels me to touch on the issue in this enlarged edition. I would have preferred to leave this point to the progress of philosophical thinking. And I do not mean to address these comments either to the group which has long applied itself so earnestly to science. Nor do I mean to address that honorable group that feels drawn directly and instinctively rather than by pure consciousness to the grand form of the Hegelian system — a group that gladly and willingly subsists in the orbit of Hegel’s system without bothering further with it.