Friedrich_Nietzsche - Untimely_Meditations_(Cambridge_Texts_in_the_History_of_Philosophy__1997)

On the uses and disadvantages of history for liferobs man of the foundation of all his rest and security, his belief inthe enduring and eternal. Is life to dominate knowledge and science,or is knowledge to dominate life? Which of these two forces is thehigher and more decisive? There can be no doubt: life is the higher,the dominating fo rce, for knowledge which annihilated life wouldhave annihilated itself with it. Knowledge presupposes life and thushas in the preservation oflife the same interest as any creature has inits own continued existence. Thus science requires superintendenceand supervision; a hygiene of life belongs close beside science and oneof the clauses of this hygiene would read: the unhistorical and thesuprahistorical are the natural antidotes to the stifling of life by thehistorical, by the malady of history. It is probable that we who suffe rfrom the malady of history will also have to suffer from the antidotes.But that we suffer from them is no evidence against the correctnessof the chosen treatment.And here I recognize the mission of that youth I have spoken of,that first generation of fighters and dragon-slayers which will precedea happier and fairer culture and humanity without itself havingmore than a presentiment of this fu ture happiness and beauty. Thisyouth will suffer from both the sickness and the antidotes: and nonethelessit will believe itself entitled to boast of a more robust healthand in general a more natural nature than its predecessors, thecultivated 'man' and 'greybeard' of the present. Its mission,however, is to undermine the concepts this present has of 'health'and 'culture' and to excite mockery and hatred against these hybridmonsters of concepts; and the sign that guarantees the superiorrobustness of its own health shall be that this youth can itself discoverno concept or slogan in the contemporary currency of wordsand concepts to describe its own nature, but is only aware of theexistence within it of an active power that fights, excludes anddivides and of an ever more intense feeling of life. One may assenthat this youth does not yet possess culture but for what youthwould this constitute a reproach? One may point to its coarsenessand immoderation - but it is not yet old or wise enough to moderateits claims; above all, it does not need hypocritically to defend afinished culture and it enjoys all the consolations and privileges thatgo with youth, especially the privilege of courageous, unreflectinghonesty and the inspiring consolation of hope.Of these hopeful young people I know that they understand allthese generalities from close personal experience and will translatethem into a teaching intended for themselves; the others may for the121