Friedrich_Nietzsche - Untimely_Meditations_(Cambridge_Texts_in_the_History_of_Philosophy__1997)

On the uses and disadvantages of history for lifespeaks of the mature contemplativeness with which they 'review allthe dissolute sufferings of their life's course and grasp how vain werethe goals fo r which they had hitherto supposed they were striving' .No, a manhood of cunning and historically cultivated egoism isfollowed by an old-age which clings to life with repulsive greed andlack of dignity, and then by a final act in which theLast scene of all,That ends this strange, eventful history,Is second childishness, and mere oblivion,Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans every thing. *Whether our lives and culture are threatened by these dissolute,toothless and tasteless greybeards or by Hartmann's so-called 'men',let us in the face of both of them hold on with our teeth to the rightsof our youth and never weary in our youth of defending the fu tureagainst these iconoclasts who would wreck it. In this struggle,however, we shall have to discover a particularly unpleasant fact: thatthe excesses of the historical sense from which the present day suffers aredeliberately furthered, encouraged and - employed.They are employed, however, against youth, so as to train themup to that mature manhood which is striven for everywhere; theyare employed to combat the natural aversion of youth to suchmanly-unmanly egoism by transfiguring the latter in the magiclight of science. We know, indeed, what history can do when itgains a certain ascendancy, we know it only too well: it can cutoff the strongest instincts of youth, its fire, defiance, unselfishnessand love, at the roots, damp down the heat of its sense ofjustice, suppress or regress its desire to mature slowly with thecounter-desire to be ready, useful, fruitful as quickly as possible,cast morbid doubt on its honesty and boldness of fe eling; indeed,it can even deprive youth of its fairest privilege, of its power toimplant in itself the belief in a great idea and then let it grow toan even greater one. A certain excess of history can do all this, w.ehave seen it do it: and it does it by continually shifting horizonsand removing a protective atmosphere and thus preventing manfrom feeling and acting unhistarically. From an infinite horizon hethen returns to himself, to the smallest egoistic enclosure, andthere he must grow withered and dry: probably he attains tocleverness, never to wisdom. He 'listens to reason', calculatesand accommodates himself to the facts, keeps calm, blinks and*From As You Like It, Act II Scene vii.115