Friedrich_Nietzsche - Untimely_Meditations_(Cambridge_Texts_in_the_History_of_Philosophy__1997)

Untimely Meditationsgreatness though he had no success. The purest and truest adherentsof Christianity have always hindered and called into question itsworldly success and so-called 'power in history' rather than promotedthem; for they were accustomed to place themselves outsidethe 'world' and had no regard for the 'process of the Christian idea';for which reason they have as a rule remained wholly unknown andanonymous to history. Expressed in Christian terms: the Devil is theregent of this world and the lord of success and progress: in all thepowers in history he is the actual power, and that is essentially how itwill always remain - even though the fact may be painful to the earsof an age accustomed to the idolization of success and power in history.For it is an age that is practised in bestowing new names on thingsand has even rebaptized the Devil. I t is indeed the hour of a greatperil: mankind seems near to discovering that the egoism ofindividuals, groups or the masses has at all times been the lever ofthe movements of history; at the same time, however, this discoveryhas caused no perturbation of any kind, but on the contrary it hasnow been decreed: egoism shall be our iod. In this new faith one isnow setting to work with the clearest deliberation to erect the historyof the future on the foundation of egoism: only it is to be a more prudentegoism than heretofore, an egoism which imposes certain re'"straints upon itself so as to ensure its endurance, an egoism whichstudies history precisely so as to become acquainted with that earlierimprudent egoism. In the course of this study it has been learnedthat a quite special role in the founding of the world-system ofegoism devolves upon the state: it has to be the patron of all the prudentego isms so as to protect them with its military and police forcesagainst the terrifying outbreaks to which imprudent egoism is liable.I t is to the same end that history - the evolutionary history of animaland man - is carefully inculcated into the dangerous, becauseimprudent, masses and working classes: one knows that a grain ofhistorical culture is capable of breaking down dull and rude instinctsand desires or of leading them into the path of a refined egoism. Insumma: mankind is now, in the words of E. von Hartmann, 'with athoughtful eye to the future taking into consideration a practicaldomestic establishment in the earthly homeland'. The same writercalls this period the 'manhood of mankind', and thereby mocks atthat which is now called 'man' as though what is understood by thisword were simply the sober self-seeker; just as he likewise prophesiesan old-age to follow this period of manhood, though again heclearly means only to mock at our contemporary grey-beards: for he114