We Philologists · Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
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Up to the present time all history has been written from the standpoint of success, and, indeed, with the assumption of a certain reason in this success. This remark applies also to Greek history: so far we do not possess any. It is the same all round, however: where are the historians who can survey things and events without being humbugged by stupid theories? I know of only one, Burckhardt. Everywhere the widest possible optimism prevails in science. The question: "What would have been the consequence if so and so had not happened?" is almost unanimously thrust aside, and yet it is the cardinal question. Thus everything becomes ironical. Let us only consider our own lives. If we examine history in accordance with a preconceived plan, let this plan be sought in the purposes of a great man, or perhaps in those of a sex, or of a party. Everything else is a chaos.--Even in natural science we find this deification of the necessary. Germany has become the breeding-place of this historical optimism; Hegel is perhaps to blame for this. Nothing, however, is more responsible for the fatal influence of German culture. Everything that has been kept down by success gradually rears itself up: history as the scorn of the conqueror; a servile sentiment and a kneeling down before the actual fact--"a sense for the State," they now call it, as if _that_ had still to be propagated! He who does not understand how brutal and unintelligent history is will never understand the stimulus to make it intelligent. Just think how rare it is to find a man with as great an intelligent knowledge of his own life as Goethe had . what amount of rationality can we expect to find arising out of these other veiled and blind existences as they work chaotically with and in opposition to each other?
And it is especially naive when Hellwald, the author of a history of culture, warns us away from all "ideals," simply because history has killed them off one after the other. To bring to light without reserve the stupidity and the want of reason in human things · that is the aim of _our_ brethren and colleagues. People will then have to distinguish what is essential in them, what is incorrigible, and what is still susceptible of further improvement. But "Providence" must be kept out of the question, for it is a conception that enables people to take things too easily. I wish to breathe the breath of _this_ purpose into science. Let us advance our knowledge of mankind! The good and rational in man is accidental or apparent, or the contrary of something very irrational. There will come a time when _training_ will be the only thought. Surrender to necessity is exactly what I do not teach--for one must first know this necessity to be necessary. There may perhaps be many necessities; but in general this inclination is simply a bed of idleness.
Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain in the United States.