mainly expressing itself through art. The spirit was "in itself" (an sich) in Hegelian jargon. The existence represented the apotheosis and supreme manifestation of this period of history. The third period of history was the "post-Hegelian" era in which the dualisms of the last were overcome and superseded. The one-sided emphasis on thought in the Christian era would be overcome and the spirit would assimilate nature to itself as well. Thus philosophy would come to an end as the synthesising and self-actualising activity of the spirit now took the form of creative practical activity. This final stage of the development of spirit represents the ultimate synthesis of opposites: God and world, necessity and freedom, desire and duty, Heaven and Earth are all as one. Cieszkowski's later works, Gott und Paligenesie (God and Palingenesis) (1842) and Ojcze Nasz (Our Father, 1848–1906, four volumes), reformulate his triad in much more explicitly religious terms. The three eras are expressed as those of God the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. He stresses the role of the Catholic Church and accords a significant world-transforming role to the Slavs (a common theme in the Messianistic philosophy current in Poland at the time) in the process through which the Holy Spirit would emerge. Cieszkowski's belief in a personal God, it has been argued, disqualifies him as one of the Left Hegelians, differentiated from Hegel's more orthodox followers by their generally critical attitude to religion and Christianity. The Left certainly did not count him as one of their own, even though some of its members soon took up the idea of the unity of philosophy of action. On the other hand, Cieszkowski did incorporate an elaborate system of social reforms into his philosophy and was strongly influenced by the French socialist tradition, which was often overtly religious, and thus did not share the characteristic political conservatism of the "Right Hegelians". Legacy Cieszkowski exerted a significant (and reciprocated) influence on Polish Romantic poet, playwright and Gothic novelist Zygmunt Krasinski, whom he met in Milan in 1839 and became close friends with (Józef Kallenbach published (in Polish) two volumes of their correspondence in 1912). He also influenced the poet Cyprian Norwid, philosopher Bronisław Trentowski and philosopher, art historian and proto-psychologist Józef Kremer. He is arguably the creator of the "philosophy of action." His most important philosophical legacy is probably his influence on the young Karl Marx, via German