Hegel's Theory of History and Napoleon Bonaparte

Napoleon Bonaparte's breathtaking career has remained a fiercely attractive object of speculation, imagination, and psychological and historical theorizing. It was even more wondrous to his contemporaries, and as he monopolized the world's attention he did much to change how Europeans saw history and politics. It was evident that he acted principally as an individual, not as the tool, champion or founder of a faction or any known force. He so combined attributes and programs of various past factions and politicians, and introduced so much that appeared quite new, that only the most insular, hidebound or biased observers could fit him into established categories.

The slaughter and dislocations which accompanied Napoleon prompted some to question whether any purpose at all was served by his goings and comings, and indeed whether human history follows any knowable laws to any meaningful ends. His achievements gave some people reason to hope that history was headed upward towards greater perfection, glory and order, but others wondered if they proved that we were spinning aimlessly off into the void.

To G. W. F. Hegel, as Napoleon broke old molds and was himself cast off like an "empty hull" after conquering most of the world, it appeared that the process and direction in which history progresses were becoming clearer.

An understanding of Hegel's terms, and the larger framework upon which he saw Napoleon as a unique remaker of the world, is provided by George Mure's "Introduction to Hegel". In the big picture, according to Mure, "spirit" had created "matter" and was continually re-working it, adding more and more form, expressing more and more of itself. 1

To Hegel, man was the highest part of nature because he was conscious of all the nature below him. To understand something thoroughly was to transcend it and be able to act on it, thus doing the work of the spirit. The only true freedom, for Hegel, belonged to one who was not himself being acted on, and who understood and worked on other matter; to one who could "posit his own will." 2

In an upwardly "striving" progression like the building of a coral reef, yesterday's actor, or subject, would be built on today and become the material object of a new subject. Each new actor, Hegel thought, has a "fresh attitude" and builds something new out of the old. 3

Reason worked its changes on mankind in a constant process of "development," with no static points at which the whole could be coldly sorted into its components. 4 In fact, Hegel saw change as an oscillating, unpredictable path by which spirit drew matter toward itself. An outworn state of things produced visions of its antithesis, and when the antithesis was put into practice its inadequacies would cry out for some synthesis optimally combining the best of the two conditions. In the case of France, he saw that many Frenchmen's minds developed to the point where a "new Spirit" pointed out to them obvious wrongs in the social order, and formed abstract, universal ideas which they determined to impose. As their national character was not precisely fitted to reform, this imposition of virtue produced new tensions, including terror and mutual suspicion. 5
So all previous developments, including what could only appear to be "essential accidents" (such as France's Catholicism), combined to form the unsatisfactory climate of the late revolutionary period, in which basic needs of the French people vied with one another instead of being resolved or compromised. Finally the particular "disposition of the people precipitated this colossus." 6

Napoleon provided Hegel with the model of a "worldhistorical soul." These people were like seed pods, carrying and knowing the "germ" of the "necessary next stage" into which the spirit would reshape mankind and other matter. They were the first to perceive the need for, and nature of, the required synthesis, and act on it. They were driven by a host of private reasons to uphold only one goal: bringing out the new, higher form and imposing it on human society. 7

Since laws and institutions are only prior works of the spirit, the hero can ignore them as he imposes a higher "form" on the raw material around him. As Mure puts it, "spirit gradually appropriates the world." The concept of appropriating, taking something for one's higher purpose without a thought towards where it came from, or who it used to belong to, expresses the essence of the world-historical soul's apparent lawlessness. 8 In fact, the most highlydeveloped actors recognized everything and everyone lessdeveloped as "dead" parts of themselves, material to be used at will. 9 Hegel conceded that such traits did not make the world-historical soul a good citizen, or a safe person to have in society. The hero uncomfortably transcended both society and citizenship. 10 "So mighty a figure must trample down many an innocent flower," Hegel warned, explaining that the hero could not be analyzed only in relation to his own time, and to other men, but should be judged by the progress of the Idea which he effects. 11

Though not bound by the rules of an "ethical community," Hegel's hero is not independent of the people. He must act in relation to the people and their current state of development. Without the matter that he works on, he is nothing. Thus the common people, and their development, do play a crucial role in the progress of history, in Hegel's view. It is wrong to see his version of Napoleon as a "great man" acting in a vacuum. Neither does he invent himself, or his role. He strives do do what he was created for, in the situation in which he finds himself. 12

Hegel claims no interest in the development of the spirit itself, apart from action, since it does not depend on human effort and so is "necessary," or predestined. It is the imposition of the Idea, which the world-historical soul works out, which Hegel sees as unique and relevant and worthy of study. To take part in this, even though his personal aims may not be what one would call noble, the hero must, it seems, have a burning "abstract volition" to enact the synthesis, a will no longer tied to any particular human aim. This might explain the impressive energy with which Napoleon did all kinds of things for which his reasons were not immediately apparent. 13

Napoleon was not the perfect embodiment of "the idea", and so a contradiction remained between his energetic drive to extend his conquests to the fringes of Europe, and what Europe was ready for at the time. Hegel's hero was not seen as all-powerful, and in Spain, especially, he overstepped the bounds of the possible in a country that could not be subdued. 14

Hegel explained that Napoleon was not, any more than any other man, "an end in himself," whether he thought so or not. His only relevant actions or worth were those which furthered the Idea. The particular, he concluded, is destroyed, and only the universal remains. 15

It is maddening to find oneself deprecating Hegel in terms which he would enthusiastically approve, sorting out the genuine "progress" in understanding which he has made, and upon which later writers build, from the chaff of his now-apparent excess. Nevertheless, his ideas of what is not significant, and of how history does not work, are of fundamental importance for those who came after him. Assuming that major outcomes are usually "what no one wills," that we should not reason immediately between events and intentions, is still a useful place from which to begin. Hegel pointed out such paradoxes as "the powerlessness of victory," and indeed made room for the appreciation of contradictions. Napoleon's "emergence," "rise," "fall" etcetera at least reminded the world of the recurrent eruption of apparently new things into its consciousness. 16 Mostly, though, Hegel's ideas have produced immense mischief. They have cut us off from everything useful that people have learned in the past. Our smug elites' mystical faith in the future gives them contempt for the laws, constitutions and morality of the past and the present, because they really think that people on the cutting edge cannot be judged by any standards except those of the future, which they themselves create. Most of our professors of law and political science glorify politicians and judges who "break a few eggs" of their country's constitution and laws to make the "omlette" of their visionary dreams -- and their lessons are absorbed by our future leaders, would-be leaders, and average people.