Friedrich_Nietzsche - Untimely_Meditations_(Cambridge_Texts_in_the_History_of_Philosophy__1997)

Untimely Meditationsthe destruction of which it must vanish. It is true that only by imposinglimits on this unhistorical element by thinking, reflecting, comparing,distinguishing, drawing conclusions, only through theappearance within that encompassing cloud of a vivid flash oflightthusonly through the power of employing the past for the purposesoflife and of again introducing into history that which has been doneand is gone - did man become man: but with an excess of historyman again ceases to exist, and without that envelope of the unhistoricalhe would never have begun or dared to begin. What deedwould man be capable of if he had not first entered into thatvaporous region of the unhistorical? Or, to desert this imagery andillustrate by example: imagine a man seized by a vehement passion,for a woman or for a great idea: how different the world has becometo him! Looking behind him he seems to himself as though blind,listening around him he hears only a dull, meaningless noise;whatever he does perceive, however, he perceives as he has neverperceived before - all is so palpable, close, highly coloured,resounding, as though he apprehended if with all his senses at once.All his valuations are altered and disvalued; there are so many thingshe is no longer capable of evaluating at all because he can hardly feelthem any more: he asks himself why he was fo r so long the fo ol of thephrases and opinions of others; he is amazed that his memoryrevolves unwearyingly in a circle and yet is too weak and weary totake even a single leap out of this circle. It is the condition in whichone is the least capable of being just; narrow-minded, ungrateful tothe past, blind to dangers, deaf to warnings, one is a little vortex oflife in a dead sea of darkness and oblivion: and yet this condition ­unhistorical, anti-historical through and through is the womb notonly of the unjust but of every just deed too; and no painter will painthis picture, no general achieve his victory, no people attain itsfreedom without having first desired and striven for it in an unhistoricalcondition such as that described. As he who acts is, inGoethe's words, always without a conscience, so is he also alwayswithout knowledge; he forgets most things so as to do one thing, heis unjust towards what lies behind him, and he recognizes the rightsonly of that which is now to come into being and no other rightswhatever. Thus he who acts loves his deed infinitely more than itdeserves to be loved: and the finest deeds take place in such asuperabundance oflove that, even if their worth were incalculable inother respects, they must still be unworthy of this love.If, in a sufficient number of cases, one could scent out and retro-64