Friedrich_Nietzsche - Untimely_Meditations_(Cambridge_Texts_in_the_History_of_Philosophy__1997)

Schopenhauer as educatorthose named perhaps no longer offer any guarantee whatever thatsuch energies as theirs still exist in the German mind and spirit? Arethey themselves exceptions, as it were the last tendrils of qualitiesfo rmerly regarded as German? I admit I am here nonplussed, andthus I return to the path of more general reflection from which myanxious doubts often seek to divert me. I have not yet numbered allthose powers which, though they demand culture, do so withoutrecognizing the goal of culture, the production of the genius; threehave been named: the greed of the money-makers, the greed of thestate, and the greed of all those who have reason to disguise themselvesbehind form. I name fourthly the greed of the sciences and thecharacteristic qualities of their servants, the men of learning.Science is related to wisdom as virtuousness is related to holiness;it is cold and dry, it has not love and knows nothing of a deep feelingof inadequacy and longing. It is as useful to itself as it is hannfulto its servants, insofar as it transfers its own character to them andthereby ossifies their humanity. As long as what is meant by cultureis essentially the promotion of science, culture will pass thegreat suffering human being by with pitiless coldness, because sciencesees everywhere only problems of knowledge and becausewithin the world of the sciences suffering is really something improperand incomprehensible, thus at best only one more problem.But if one accustoms oneself to translating every experience into adialectical question-and-answer game and into an affair purely ofthe head, it is astonishing in how short a time such an occupationwill wither a man up, how soon he becomes almost nothing butbones. Everyone knows and perceives this fact: so how is it nonethelesspossible for young men not to start back at the sight of suchskeletons, but on the contrary again and again blindly to give themselvesover to the sciences without restraint or selectivity? It can hardlyoriginate in any supposed 'desire fo r truth': for how could there existany desire at all for cold, pure, inconsequential knowledge! What itreally is that impels the servants of science is only too obvious to theunprejudiced eye: and it is very advisable to examine and dissect themen of learning themselves for once, since they for their part arequite accustomed to laying bold hands on everything in the world,even the most venerable things, and taking them to pieces. If I am tospeak out, I would say this: the man of learning consists of a confusednetwork of very various impulses and stimuli, he is analtogether impure metal. First of all there is a strong and ever moreintense curiosity, the search for adventures in the domain of169