In this paper I shall be concerned with two problems in Hegel which are usually considered separately : the significance of the history of philosophy for the Phenomenology of Spirit and the question of the proper beginning of Hegel's system. The first problem has traditionally been approached by either interpreting the Phenomenology in terms of the history of philosophy, or indicating passages or sections in which an argument of some one of Hegel's predecessors is to be found. For the most part it has been a question of articulating how the history of philosophy, as an external form of the development of philosophy, is reflected in and reflects the Phenomenology of Spirit, the internally coherent organization of the same development. I shall be concerned with these aspects of the problem only in so far as they might contribute to an understanding of the beginning of Hegel's system.