Friedrich_Nietzsche - Untimely_Meditations_(Cambridge_Texts_in_the_History_of_Philosophy__1997)

On the uses and disadvantages of history for lifecompletely historical, that is to say just treatment resolves it intopure knowledge about Christianity and thereby destroys it - can bestudied in everything else that possesses life : that it ceases to livewhen it is dissected completely, and lives a painful and morbid lifewhen one begins to practise historical dissection upon it. There arepeople who believe that German music could have a transformingand reforming effect on th e Germans: they are angered, and considerit an injustice against the most vigorous part of our culture,when they see such men as Mozart and Beethoven already engulfedby all the learned dust of biography and compelled by the tortureinstrumentsof historical criticism to answer a thousand impertinentquestions. Does it not mean its premature dea t h, or at least paralysis,when that, the living effects of which are not yet exhausted, is subjectedto curious investigation of the countless minutiae of its life andworks, and when problems of knowledge are sought where oneought to learn to live and fo rget all problems? Imagine a couple ofthese modern biographers transported to the birthplace of Christianityor of the Lutheran Reformation; their sober, pragmaticcuriosity would have exactly sufficed to render any actio in distansimpossible: just as the most wretched little animal can prevent themightiest oak-tree from coming into existence by eating the acorn.All living things require an atmosphere around them, a mysteriousmisty vapour; if they are deprived of this envelope, if a religion, anart, a genius is condemned to revolve as a star without atmosphere,we should no longer be surprised if they quickly wither and growhard and unfruitfuL It is the same with all great things, 'which neversucceed without some illusion',Meistersinger .as Hans Sachs says in theBut every nation, too, indeed every human being that wants tobecome mature requires a similar enveloping illusion, a similar protectiveand veiling cloud; nowadays, however, maturity as such ishated because history is held in greater honour than life. There is,indeed, rejoicing that now 'science is beginning to dominate life':that condition may, possibly, be attained; but life thus dominated isnot of much value because it is far less living and guarantees far lesslife for the fu ture than did a former life dominated not by knowledgebut by instinct and powerfu l illusions. But the present age is, asaforesaid, supposed to be an age, not of whole, mature and harmoniouspersonalities, but of labour of the greatest possible commonutility. That means, however, that men have to be adjusted to thepurposes of the age so as to be ready fo r employment as soon as97