File spoon-archives/bhaskar.archive/bhaskar_2000/bhaskar.0010, message 46


Date: Tue, 10 Oct 2000 23:04:19 +0100
From: Mervyn Hartwig <mh-AT-jaspere.demon.co.uk>
Subject: BHA: GWF and Roy; Great Individuals


Hi all, Phil

I've been looking again - partly to do battle with Phil on World
Historical Individuals, and partly out of sheer mesmerised interest - at
Hegel's 'Lectures on the Philosophy of World History, Introduction', and
have been struck by the direct parallels with EW re the essential Self
and indeed the (in effect) 'Buddha-nature' of everything (etc), which OK
shouldn't surprise us, but you might be interested:

 - 'God's wisdom is... active in everything' p38 (in 'plants and
insects' etc)
 - 'man is free...' 52
 - 'the divine being [is] the essence of man...' 53
 - 'the spirit or man as such are free in themselves' [sic] 54
 - 'all men as such are free',  'man is by nature free' 54
 - 'World history travels from east to west' 197 !! (admittedly in a
different sense and epoch from EW, Roy's is the next feedback loop: from
east to west and back; from east to west...).

And, Phil, I think I've found the clincher re Heroes:

'If we wish to treat history philosophically, we must avoid such
expressions as 'this state would not have collapsed if there had been
someone who...' etc. Individuals fade into insignificance beside the
universal substance, and *it creates for itself the individuals it
requires to carry out its ends*' (52)

 - my emphasis; ie if not Napoleon, then someone else; if not Hegel,
etc. There are other passages to similar effect.
-- 
Mervyn Hartwig
13 Spenser Road
Herne Hill
London SE24 ONS
United Kingdom
Tel: 020 7 737 2892
Email: mh-AT-jaspere.demon.co.uk


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