This article locates Hegel’s understanding of the nature ofknowledge in various contexts (Hegel’s logical system, Kantianidealism, the Enlightenment ideal ofencyclopaedia) and applies itspecifically to his systematic classification of histories. Here Hegellabels Herodotus an“original”historian, and hence incapable ofthe broader vision and self-reflexive method of a“philosophical”historian like Hegel himself. This theoretical classification is notquite in accord with Hegel’s actual appropriation of material fromHerodotus’s narrative for his own purposes. These appropriationspoint in complex ways to dimensions of the“Father of History”which are proto-Hegelian, as well as to other dimensions whichare not.