On The Advantage And Disadvantage Of History For Life

“I hate everything which merely instructs me without increasing or directly quickening my activity.”

It is with this citation from the influential German philosopher Goethe that Nietzsche begins his discourse on the value of history in its application to life. Goethe is symbolic of the kind of jurisprudence, action, and German-ness for which Nietzsche advocates in his diatribe on the role of history for life. In restoring the “truth-in-need” and natural impulses, Nietzsche sets out an ambition for his essay of invigorating or engendering new life in its readers, “quickening” them in the old sense of the word.

“Superfluous excess is the enemy of the necessary.”

Nietzsche is clear at the opening of his discourse that the value of history may be judged by its pertinence to life. He contextualizes his analysis in the contemporary German superfluity of historical education and scholarship. Nietzsche asserts that his role as a philologist is to critique the assumptions of his age in order to positively influence its growth.

“Man says ‘I remember’ and envies the animal which immediately forgets.”

Memory is used by Nietzsche to differentiate human beings from animals, and therefore is a defining characteristic of mankind. Humans, insofar as they remember, stand in opposition to nature, which is envisioned as a bucolic herd of cows in a field, and is inherently “unhistorical.” Since by Nietzsche’s reasoning memory prevents man from truly living in the moment, and afflicts him or her with ruminations on the past and awareness of mortality, history for Nietzsche is intrinsic to the fundamental philosophical questions.