Kyle’s Reviews > Hegel: Lectures on the Philosophy of World History, Volume I: Manuscripts of the Introduction and the Lectures of 1822-1823 > Status Update

I found his description of the state management of rivers in China interesting and very relevant. Among the reasons there needs to be a state: the management of the regular maintenance of the dykes which hold their annually overflowing rivers in check. Otherwise, millions will die and starve. Already in the early nineteenth century Europeans were aware of death on that scale.

“Thinking is knowledge of the universal.” (148)

Interesting that world historical individuals are more Spirit than they are their own person…this reminds me of his description of the constitutional monarch in Philosophy of Right, who isn’t really an individual, but a vehicle for the state to express its will.