Scientific History v/s Heroic History: A difference you need to understand

Only by being great, or striving towards it, will you notice - and begin to understand the greatness of the past. Nietzsche: “Only when you put forth your noblest qualities in all their strength will you divine what is worth knowing and preserving in the past. Like to like!”

You cannot get close to history - or extract anything valuable from it - by mastering mere information about it. You can only meaningfully borrow from history by embodying the energy and attitude of the men who shaped it. Nietzsche's full quote below is worth re-reading:

He who has not experienced greater & more exalted things than others won't know how to interpret the great & exalted things of the past. When the past speaks it always speaks as an oracle: only if you are an architect of the future and know the present will you understand it.

For Nietzsche, "If the purpose of destroying and clearing is not to allow a future already alive in anticipation to raise its house on the ground thus liberated," we are then destroyers for nothing. The drive to critique should be superseded by the "drive to construct."

Our approach to life, the world, and our destiny must be shot through with love. Nietzsche: " It is only in love, only when shaded by the illusion produced by love, that is to say in the unconditional faith in right and perfection, that man is creative."

A warning: "Anything that constrains a man to love less than unconditionally has severed the roots of his strength: he will wither away." Here Nietzsche blames the study of history for corrupting man's unconditional faith in himself, undermining his confidence, making him scared.

Nietzsche: "All living things require an atmosphere around them, a mysterious misty vapour; if they are deprived of this envelope, if a genius is condemned to revolve as a star without atmosphere, we should no longer be surprised if they quickly wither and grow unfruitful."

A history that is overly scientific, exclusively focused on accurate timelines, and intent on letting "the facts speak," is denying the human mind of the "mysterious misty vapour" of faith and heroism from which all true greatness comes. History can fulfill a grander task.

Nietzsche on how scientific history dulls ambition: The young man has become homeless and doubts all concepts and all customs. He now knows: every age is different, it does not matter what you are like. In melancholy indifference he lets opinion after opinion pass him by."

Nietzsche on modern scholars: “One needs only to shake him and wisdom comes clattering down into one's lap; but the wisdom is rotten and there is a worm in every apple.” Beware of rotten knowledge. Information, like food, must nourish us.

Keep reading: Nietzsche on History