History 1
“[Hegel] … planted in the generations leavened by him that admiration for the ‘Power of History’, which transforms practically every moment into a naked admiration of success and leads to idolatrous worship of the factual. For this service people nowadays commonly repeat the very mythological and, in addition, the truly German expression ‘to carry the bill of facts‘
But the person who has first learned to stoop down and to bow his head before the ‘Power of History’, finally nods his agreement mechanically, in the Chinese fashion, to that power, whether it is a government or public opinion or a numerical majority, and moves his limbs precisely to the beat of strings plucked by some ‘power’ or other. …
Create in yourselves a picture to which the future is to correspond, and forget the myth that you are epigones. You have enough to plan and to invent when you imagine that future life for yourselves. But in considering history do not ask that she show you the ‘How?’ and the ‘With what?'”
aus: Friedrich Nietzsche: On the Use and Abuse of History for Life (1874). translated by Ian C. Johnston 1998, Volltext im Internet.