124 NietzscheHartmann's work, this zeal for labor on the part of the pessimistic world
spirit comes across as comical, as does the optimistic eagerness with
which he hastens to achieve his denial, and the simple pedantic precision
with which men's illusions are shattered on the path from yes to no. And
when this author has finally arrived at the great denial and makes the his-
torical process end there, an oddly conventional contentment takes over.
All this talk about "historical process" is distorted beyond recognition.
Hartmann makes the world process culminate in a void and thereby
demonstrates, with unintended humor, that the "historical process" is a
meaningless cliché.
Nietzsche kept returning to his central idea of how knowledge of and
belief in the power of the past had worked to the detriment of vitality.
His antidote lay in inversion, turning the principle of history against his-
tory and breaking the power of history through historical knowledge. In
Nietzsche's words: "history must itself resolve the problem of history"
(1,306; HL§ 8).
Nietzsche turned history against itself by going back to Greek antiq-
uity to seek an era that had not yet begun to think in historical terms, and
from there adopting his criteria for an art of living that would know how
to protect itself from being overwhelmed by history. He reminded us
that the Greeks were also exposed to the chaos of history; Semitic,
Babylonian, Lydian, and Egyptian cultures and traditions made inroads
into Greek traditions, and the Greek religion was a "veritable batde of
the gods throughout the East" (1,333; HL § 10). All the more remark-
able is the vigor with which Greek culture learned "to organize the
chaos" (1,333) and achieve its true richness. Greek culture succeeded in
forming a spacious, yet delimited, horizon. The Greeks described a cir-
cle that life could fulfill and in which it could fulfill itself.
When Nietzsche wrote that "history must itself resolve the problem
of history," it dawned on him that he had found a formula applicable not
only to history but to the problem of knowledge as a whole. How can
we avoid being overwhelmed by the momentum of knowledge and sup-
posed truths? How can life be protected from being smothered by