And the happiness of the individual on earth? Hegel replies that “world history is no empire of happiness. The periods of happiness,” he declares, “are the empty pages of history because they are the periods of agreement, without conflict.” War is the great purifier. In Hegel’s view, it makes for “the ethical health of peoples corrupted by a long peace, as the blowing of the winds preserves the sea from the foulness which would be the result of a prolonged calm.”
