Such individuals had no consciousness of the general Idea they were unfolding, while prosecuting their aims; 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 for their age, for their world—­the species next in order, so to speak, and which was already formed in the womb of time.  It was theirs to know this nascent principle, the necessary, directly sequent step in progress, which their world was to take, to make this their aim, and to expend their energy in promoting it.  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.  Great men have formed purposes to satisfy themselves, not others.  Whatever prudent designs and counsels they might have learned from others would be the more limited and inconsistent features in their career; for it was they who best understood affairs, from whom others learned, and approved, or at least acquiesced in, their policy.  For that Spirit which had taken this fresh step in history is the inmost soul of all individuals, but in a state of unconsciousness which the great men in question aroused.  Their fellows, therefore, follow these soul-leaders; for they feel the irresistible power of their own inner Spirit thus embodied.  If we go on to cast a look at the fate of these world-historical persons, whose vocation it was to be the agents of the World-Spirit, we shall find it to have been no happy one.  They attained no calm enjoyment; their whole life was labor and trouble; their whole nature was naught else but their master-passion.  When their object is attained they fall off like empty husks from the kernel.  They die early, like Alexander; they are murdered, like Caesar; transported to St. Helena, like Napoleon.  This fearful consolation—­that historical men have not enjoyed what is called happiness, and of which only private life (and this may be passed under various external circumstances) is capable—­this consolation those may draw from history who stand in need of it; and it is craved by envy, vexed at what is great and transcendent, striving, therefore, to depreciate it and to find some flaw in it.  Thus in modern times it has been demonstrated ad nauseam that princes are generally unhappy on their thrones; in consideration of which the possession of a throne is tolerated, and men acquiesce in the fact that not themselves but the personages in question are its occupants.  The free man, we may observe, is not envious, but gladly recognizes what is great and exalted, and rejoices that it exists.