Friedrich_Nietzsche - Untimely_Meditations_(Cambridge_Texts_in_the_History_of_Philosophy__1997)

Untimely Meditationsbringing it befo re the tribunal, scrupulously examining i' t and finallycondemning it; every past, however, is worthy to be condemned ­for that is the nature of human things: human violence and weaknesshave always played a mighty role in them. It is not justice which heresits in judgment; it is even less mercy which pronounces the verdict:it is life alone, that dark, driving power that insatiably thirsts fo ritself. Its sentence is always unmerciful, always unjust, because it hasnever proceeded out of a pure well of knowledge; but in most casesthe sentence would be the same even ifitwere pronounced by justiceitself. 'For all that exists is worthy of perishing. So it would be better ifnothing existed.' It requires a great deal of strength to be able to liveand to forget the extent to which to live and to be unjust is one andthe same thing. Luther himself once opined that the world existedonly through a piece of forgetful negligence on God's part: for if Godhad fo reseen 'heavy artillery' he would not have created the world.Sometimes, however, this same life that requires forgetting demandsa temporary suspension of this forgetfulness; it wants to be clear as tohow unjust the existence of any thing- a privilege, a caste, a dynasty,for example - is, and how greatly this thing deserves to perish. Thenits past is regarded critically, then one takes the knife to its roots thenone cruelly tramples over every kind of piety. It is always adangerous process, especially so for life itself: and men and ageswhich serve life by judging and destroying a past are alwaysdangerous and endangered men and ages. For since we are the outcomeof earlier generations, we are also the outcome of their aberrations,passions and errors, and indeed of their crimes; it is notpossible wholly to free oneself from this chain. If we condemn theseaberrations and regard ourselves as free of them, this does not alterthe fact that we originate in them. The best we can do is to confrontour inherited and hereditary nature with our knowledge, andthrough a new, stern discipline combat our inborn heritage andinplant in ourselves a new habit, a new instinct, a second nature, sothat our first nature withers away. It is an attempt to give oneself, as itwere a posteriori, a past in which one would like to originate in oppositionto that in which one did originate: - always a dangerousattempt because it is so hard to know the limit to denial of the pastand because second natures are usually weaker than first. What happensall too often is that we know the good but do not do it, becausewe also know the better but cannot do it. But here and there a victoryis nonetheless achieved, and for the combatants, fo r those who76