Friedrich_Nietzsche - Untimely_Meditations_(Cambridge_Texts_in_the_History_of_Philosophy__1997)

On the uses and disadvantages of history fo r lifeation thoroughly leavened by him that admiration for the 'power ofhistory' which in practice transforms every moment into a nakedadmiration fo r success and leads to an idolatry of the factual: whichidolatry is now generally described by the very mythological yetquite idiomatic expression 'to accommodate oneself to the facts'.But he who has once learned to bend his back and bow his headbefore the 'power of history' at last nods 'Yes' like a Chinesemechanical doll to every power, whether it be a government orpublic opinion or a numerical majority, and moves his limbs to theprecise rhythm at which any 'power' whatever pulls the strings. Ifevery success is a rational necessity, ifevery event is a victory of thelogical or the 'idea' - then down on your knees quickly and doreverence to the whole stepladder of 'success'! What, are there nolonger any living mythologies? What, the religions are dying out?Just behold th e religion of the power of history, regard the priests ofthe mythology of the idea and their battered knees! Is it too much tosay that all th e virtues now attend on this new faith ? Or is 'it notselflessness when the historical man lets himself be emptied until heis no more than an objective sheet of plate glass? Is it notmagnanimity when, by worshipping in every fo rce the force itself,one renounces all fo rce of one's own in Heaven and upon earth? Is itnot justice always to hold the scales of the powers in one's hands andto watch carefully to see which tends to be the stronger and heavier?And what a school of decorum is such a way of contemplating history!To take everything objectively, to grow angry at nothing, to lovenothing, to understand everything, how soft and pliable that makesone; and even if someone raised in this school should for once getpublicly angry, that is still cause for rejoicing, for one realizes it isintended only for artistic effe ct, it is ira and studium and yet altogethersine ira et studio.:';How obsolete and old-fashioned my objections to this complex ofmythology and virtue are! But I must out with them, even thoughthey excite laughter. I would say therefore: history always inculcates:'there was once', morality: 'you ought not to' or 'you ought not tohave' . Thus history amounts to a compendium of factual immorality.How far astray he would go who regarded history as being at thesame time the judge of this factual immorality! Morality is offended,for example, by the fact that a Raphael had to die at thirty-six: such abeing ought not to die. If, in the face of this, you wanted to come to"Tacitus described his own manner of writing history as 'sina ira et studio' ('withoutanger and without partisan zeal'). Studium means 'course of study'.105