Each time, one nation holds a stage of the world spirit in trust. Its task is to make this stage real.

What does this mean?

For its epoch, this nation is the dominant one in world history. It can make an epoch only once. Against its absolute right, the spirits of the other nations are without rights. They no longer count in world history, just like those whose time is over.

The path of a nation:

First its principle develops from a childlike state up to its flowering. Then the nation steps into history, free and self-confident. After that comes a time of decline. In it a higher principle already shows itself. This principle passes over to another nation.

And then?

The old nation loses the highest interest. It takes on the new, but without freshness of its own. Perhaps it loses its independence. Perhaps it drags itself on as a state and struggles with inner experiments and outer fights.

Summary: Every epoch has a dominant nation. Against its right the others are without rights. After its flowering it declines, and the world spirit passes to another nation.

§ 550. This liberation of spirit, in which it proceeds to come to itself and to actualize its truth, and its business, is the highest and absolute right. The self-consciousness of a particular people is the bearer of the present stage of development of the universal spirit in its existence, and the objective actuality into which it places its will. Against this absolute will the will of the other particular spirits of peoples is without right; that people is the one ruling the world; but likewise it passes beyond its own respective property at any given time as beyond a particular stage and then hands it over to its contingency and judgment.

§ 550. This liberation of spirit, in which it comes to itself and actualizes itself, and its business, is the highest and absolute right. The self-consciousness of a particular people is the bearer of the present stage of development of the universal spirit in its existence, and the objective actuality into which it places its will. Against this absolute will the will of the other particular spirits of peoples is without right; that people is the one ruling the world; but likewise it passes beyond its own respective property at any given time as beyond a particular stage, and then hands it over to its contingency and judgment.

§ 450. This freedom and its business is the highest and absolute right. The self-consciousness of a particular people is the bearer of the present stage of development of the universal spirit in its existence, and the objective actuality into which it places its will. Against this absolute will the will of the other particular spirits of peoples is without right; but likewise it passes beyond its own respective property at any given time as beyond a particular stage, and then hands it over to its contingency and judgment.