[19th Paragraph]
One more word on whether philosophy can tell the world how it ought to be. For that, it always comes too late.
Philosophy is the thought of the world. It appears only when actuality has completed its development and is finished. History shows this too. Only when an age is ripe can one gather it up in thought.
Hegel puts it in an image. When philosophy paints its gray in gray, then a form of life has grown old. With gray in gray one cannot make it young again. One can only understand it.
Then comes the second image, the most famous one. The owl of Minerva begins its flight only with the falling of dusk. For the Romans, Minerva is the goddess of wisdom, and the owl is her bird. Wisdom only takes off when the day is over. Only in the evening does one understand what the day was.
Hegel’s text: Preface, paragraph 19 →