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June 6, 2005
the great individuals of world history
...Such are the great men of history: the substance of their particular ends is the will of the world spirit. Their true power resides in the inner content, which is present in the universal unconscious instinct of mankind. All men are driven on by an inward compulsion, and they are incapable of resisting the individual who has taken it upon himself to execute one of the ends of history in the course of furthering his own personal interests.
The great individuals of world history, therefore, are those who seize upon this higher universal and make it their own end. It is they who realize the end appropriate to the higher concept of the spirit. To this extent, they may be called heroes. They do not find their aims and vocation in the calm and regular system of the present, in the hollowed order of things as they are. Indeed, their justification does not lie in the prevailing situation, for they draw their inspiration from another source, from that hidden spirit whose hour is near but which still lies beneath the surface and seeks to break out without yet having attained an existence in the present. For this spirit, the present world is but a shell which contains the wrong kind of kernel. The only true ends are those whose content has been produced by the absolute power of the inner spirit itself in the course of its development; and world historical-individuals are those who have willed and accomplished not just the ends of their own imagination or personal opinions, but only those which were appropriate and necessary. Such individuals know what is necessary and timely, and have an inner vision of what it is.
They drive the universal principle whose realization they accomplish from within themselves; it is not however their own invention, but it is eternally present and is merely put into practice by them and honored in their person.
Their words and deeds are the best that could be said and done in their time. Thus the great individuals of history can be understood within their own context; and they are admirable simply because they have made themselves the instruments of the substantial spirit.
There is a power within them which is stronger than they are, even if it appears to them as something external and alien and runs counter to what they consciously believe they want.
But as individual subjects, they also have an existence distinct from that of the universal substance, an existence in which they can not be said to have enjoyed what is commonly called happiness. They did not wish to be happy in any case, but only to attain their end, and they succeeded in doing so only by dint of arduous labors. Thus it was not happiness that they chose, but exertion, conflict, and labor in the service of their end.
Their actions are their entire being, and their whole nature and character are determined by their ruling passion. Of course, they were men of passion, for they were passionately dedicated to their ends, which they served with their whole character, genius and nature. Passion is simply the energy of their ego, and without this, they could not have accomplished anything. In this respect, the aim of passion and that of the Idea are one and the same; passion is the absolute unity of individual character and the universal.
Hegel
Posted by amin at June 6, 2005 1:16 PM
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