Hegel makes some interesting comments, distinctions and criticisms with respect to the respective domains of history and philosophy in the Introduction to the Philosophy of Right:
s3. Montesquieu proclaimed the true historical view, the genuinely philosophical position, namely that legislation both in general and in its particular provisions is to be treated not as something isolated and abstract but rather as a subordinate moment in a whole, interconnected with all the other features which make up the character of a nation and an epoch. It is in being so connected that the various laws acquire their true meaning and therewith their justification. To consider particular laws as they appear and develop in time is a purely historical task. … this task is appreciated and rewarded in its own sphere and has no relation whatever to the philosophical study of the subject—unless of course the derivation of particular laws from historical events is confused with their derivation from the concept, and the historical explanation and justification is stretched to become an absolutely valid justification. [...]
By dint of obscuring the difference between the historical and the philosophical study of law, it becomes possible to shift the point of view and slip over from the problem of the true justification of a thing to a justification by appeal to circumstances, to deductions from presupposed conditions which in themselves may have no higher validity, and so forth. To generalise, by this means the relative is put in place of the absolute and the external appearance in place of the true nature of the thing. [...]
Now that the historical meaning of coming to be–the historical method of portraying it and making it comprehensible–is at home in a different sphere from the philosophical survey of the concept of the thing and of a thing’s coming to be too, philosophy and history are able to that extent to preserve an attitude of mutual indifference.
(Trans. T.M. Knox, Oxford 1952)
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