Note 25 — Chapter III · (continued 6)

Hegel may mean that Klopstock was unable to see the real benefits which would result from the French Revolution despite its apparent failure. The sentence which follows would, however, suggest an alternative interpretation that the poet was unable to see the higher demand which the facts of Revolution made upon the French people, and which from the first, that is, even when Klopstock admired them, they did not either frankly face or successfully respond to. I think, indeed, this latter is most probable.