EDITOR'S PREFACE
The first German edition of the "Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion" was published at Berlin in 1832, the year after Hegel's death, and was the earliest instalment of the collected edition of his printed and unprinted works, undertaken by a number of his friends. The book was rather hastily put together, mainly from students' copies of lectures on the subject delivered during different sessions, though it also contained matter taken from notes and outlines in Hegel's own handwriting. A second edition, in an enlarged and very much altered form, appeared in 1840. In the preparation of this second edition, from which the present translation has been made, the editor, Marheineke, drew largely on several important papers found amongst Hegel's MSS., in which his ideas were developed in much greater detail than in any of the sketches previously used; and he had also at his disposal fresh and very complete copies of the Lectures made by some of Hegel's most distinguished pupils. It will thus be seen that the book in the form in which we have it, is mainly an editorial compilation. With the exception of the "Lectures on the Proofs of the Existence of God," which were printed as an appendix in the German edition, and which Hegel was revising for the press when he was suddenly carried off by cholera in the November of 1831, no part of it, not even the part which is Hegel's actual composition, was intended for publication. It is only fair to Hegel's memory that this fact should be taken into consideration, since it accounts for what may seem the rather ragged
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