Friedrich_Nietzsche - Untimely_Meditations_(Cambridge_Texts_in_the_History_of_Philosophy__1997)

On the uses and disadvantages of history Jor lifeemploy critical history fo r th e sake of life, there is even a noteworthyconsolation: that of knowing that this first nature was once a secondnature and that every victorious second nature will become afirst.4These are the services history is capable of performing fo r life; everyman and every nation requires, in accordance with its goals, energiesand needs, a certain kind of knowledge of the past, now in the formof monumental, now of antiquarian, now of critical history: but itdoes not require it as a host of pure thinkers who only look on at life,of knowledge-thirsty individuals whom knowledge alone will satisfyand to whom the accumulation of knowledge is itself the goal, butalways and only fo r the ends of life and thus also under the dominationand supreme direction of these ends. That this is the naturalrelationship of an age, a culture, a nation with its history - evoked byhunger, regulated by the extent of its need, held in bounds by itsinherent plastic powers - that knowledge of the past has at all timesbeen desired only in the service of the fu ture and the present and notfor the weakening of the present or for depriving a vigorous fu ture ofits roots: all this is simple, as the truth is simple, and will at once beobvious even to him who has not had it demonstrated byhistorical proof.And' now let us quickly take a look at our own time! We are startled,we shy away: where has all the clarity, all the naturalness and purityof this relationship between life and history gone? in what restlessand exaggerated confusion does this problem now swell before oureyes! Does the fault lie with us, who observe it? Or has the constellationof life and history really altered through the interpositionof a mighty, hostile star between them? Let others show that we haveseen falsely: fo r our part we shall say what we th ink we see. And whatwe see is certainly a star, a gleaming and glorious star interposingitself, the constellation really has been altered - by science, by thedemand that history should be a science. Now the demands oflife alone nolonger reign and exercise co nstraint on knowledge of the past: nowall the frontiers have been torn down and all that has ever beenrushes upon mankind. All perspectives have been shifted back to thebeginning of all becoming, back into infinity. Such an immensespectacle as the science of universal becoming, history, now displays77