bursts it in pieces because it is another kernel than that which belonged to the shell in question. They are men, therefore, who appear to draw the impulse of their life from themselves….
Such individuals had no consciousness of the general Idea they were unfolding, while prosecuting those aims of theirs; on the contrary, they were practical, political men. But at the same time, they were thinking men, who had an insight into the requirements of the time—what was ripe for development. This was the very Truth of their age, for their world; the species next in order, so to speak, and which was already formed in the womb of time…. World historical men—the Heroes of an epoch—must, therefore, be recognized as its clear-sighted ones; their deeds, their words are the best of that time.[1]
We can now understand why Hegel refuses to allow ordinary mortals to apply their moral yardsticks to the work of great men and the chosen nations to whom they belong. For these heroes are not responsible for their ruthless deeds. They are the instruments of the morality of to-morrow—unhappy instruments discarded by the historical process when their work is done. “Their whole life is labour and trouble…. They die early, like Alexander; they are murdered like Cæsar; transported to St. Helena like Napoleon.” This is the price of greatness. The hero may die or appear to suffer defeat, but “history” will always vindicate him.
But we are not deceived by Hegel’s plea. His whole philosophy is an elaborate attempt to shift moral responsibility from the individual acts of individual men to the impersonal whole of nature and history. His heroes, he would have us believe, cannot help themselves. Their acts are necessitated by the same logic that necessitates their times. He commits the double blasphemy of asserting whatever is, is right and whatever is, is divinely ordained. The chosen heroic few like the unchosen many do not initiate anything; they play out roles distributed in advance. World history would have been the same even if all the world heroes, per impossible, had never existed.
A careful study of the passage cited from Hegel will show, once we strip it of its spiritualism, that it contains all the
- ↑ Lectures on the Philosophy of History, Introduction, English translation by Sibree, p. 30, New York, 1900.
