In the relation of states a huge drama takes place. Passions, interests and purposes. Talents and virtues. Violence, wrong and vice. And outer accidents, on the largest scale. Even the independence of a state lies open to chance here.

What lies behind it?

Every nation has a spirit of its own. This spirit is limited. The fates and deeds of the nations show that they are finite.

Out of this play the universal spirit emerges, the world spirit. It is unlimited. It exercises its right over the nations. And its right is the highest of all.

Where does this happen?

In world history. It is the court of the world.

Summary: The relation of states is a play of passions and accidents. The nations in it are finite. The world spirit judges them in world history.

§ 548. The determinate spirit of a people, since it is actual and its freedom is as nature, has, on this side of nature, the moment of geographical and climatic determinacy; it is in time and has, as regards its content, essentially a particular principle, and has to run through a development of its consciousness and its actuality determined by it; – it has a history within itself. As a limited spirit, its independence is something subordinate; it passes over into universal world history — the world court — whose events present the dialectic of the particular spirits of peoples.

§ 548. The determinate spirit of a people, since it is actual and its freedom is as nature, is accordingly of a particular geographical and climatic determinacy; it is also in time and has to run through a development of its consciousness and its actuality determined by its particular principle; – it has a history. As a limited spirit, its independence is, on this second side, something subordinate; it passes over into universal world history — the world court — whose events present the dialectic of the particular spirits of peoples.