Nietzsche the thinker/Chapter XIV

by William Mackintire Salter

 

CHAPTER XIV

THE IDEA OF ETERNAL RECURRENCE

I

Allusion was made in the preceding chapter to the idea of recurrence as a part of Nietzsche's general view of the world; I shall now treat it with some particularity.^[1] It is sometimes regarded as fanciful or mystical. Professor Ziegler calls it "a phantastic hypothesis."^[2] Professor Riehl relegates it to the childhood of science—it cannot be proved or even made probable.^[3] A distinguished German physician and psychiatrist even thinks that when a conceit, which might have been pardonable in the times of Pythagoras, unhinges a man who has read Kant, something is the matter with him.^[4] Professor Pringle-Pattison can only say, "So long as it remained a real possibility which might be established on scientific grounds, it haunted him like a nightmare; so soon as it receded into the realm of speculative fantasy, he began hymns to eternity as to a bride, and to the marriage ring of recurrence"^[5]—that is, he was attracted to it in inverse proportion to its scientific character. Even Dr. Dolson speaks of this "half-mystic doctrine."^[6] It must be admitted that Nietzsche is himself partly responsible for views of this sort. He once speaks of the idea as if it had come to him suddenly—the day and place are specified.^[7] There is a description of it that is weird and uncanny—the details are almost like those of a nightmare.^[8] And yet if we look into Nietzsche's general psychological world, we see that the idea arose with something like logical necessity, that it has broad theoretic grounds.

First, we must remember that to Nietzsche the world was a finite quantity (as explained in the last chapter). Undulations in the amount of existence, now more and now less, were to him unthinkable. He believed that the modern doctrine of the conservation of energy pointed that way. Fixed or definite, and infinite were contradictory terms. A refusal to speak of infinite force he regarded as one of the marks of scientific, in contrast with the old religious habits of thought.^[9] Second, he refused to admit the idea of empty space around the world. The notion of infinite space was gratuitous; he thought it based on the conception of empty space, which is an abstraction and unreal, all space being full of force of some kind. Space itself, as a separate category from matter or force, was an unreality, a subjective form.^[10] But on the other hand (thirdly), he had come by this time to believe in the reality of time; there was a before and after irrespective of our thought or experience of it—and to this before and after no limits could be set, it was infinite.^{[11] a} We have then so far a finite sum of force working in infinite time. And now, following ordinary ideas of causality, he argues that there can have been no beginning to the activity of the force (this a fourth point), that change of some kind must have been forever going on. But, the question may be asked, Granting all this, may not the activity at some time come to an end? May not an equilibrium be finally reached—a state in which, activity having played its part, becoming passes into being, a changeless goal of all preceding change? Nietzsche does not deny that this is conceivable, but he argues that if it were really possible, the goal would have been already reached, since time extends infinitely backwards as well as forwards and in absolutely unlimited time everything that could have happened must have happened. The simple fact then that an equilibrium does not exist now (for once reached, it would last forever), proves that there never was an equilibrium, and never could be—that the world is eternally in process of change. The mechanical view, as sometimes expounded, leads one to anticipate a final state in which heat and all forms of energy are evenly dispersed through space, so that transformations become thereafter impossible (save by a miracle of some kind); but Nietzsche goes so far as to say that if the mechanical theory cannot escape the consequences of a final stationary state, such as Sir William Thomson describes, the theory is ipso facto disproved. If any such state were really possible, it would have been attained in the limitless stretches of past time, and we (if there were any sense in speaking of "we" in such a connection, being ourselves changeable beings) should be in it.^{[12] b}

Fifthly, so far as the special cosmic order now existing is concerned, Nietzsche thinks, agreeably to current views, that it had a beginning sometime in the past. There was some relatively simple state of forces, from which the present more or less organized world has gradually evolved. Moreover, all the processes of this evolution, even the minutest details of it, hang together—so much so, that if any least thing were different from what it is, all other things would have to be different too, and if we approve any one thing we have to approve everything else, each being bound up with the others, whether as condition or consequence. And as this cosmic order began, so it will in the course of time end, the forces relapsing into some such unorganized state as they had at the start.^[13] This view of a relative beginning and end of things is a common one, and it is at least not uncommon to think that after one ending there will in time be another beginning—so that, if we go far enough along this line, we gain the idea of a succession of worlds or cosmic orders.

So far as there is any novelty in Nietzsche's speculation, it is from this point on. It by no means follows, he thinks, that because these worlds follow one another they will be like one another, save under certain extremely general aspects. They may differ widely. Mechanical laws as we know them may not be strictly necessary, and so it may be with chemical affinity and cohesion—they may be simply temporary habits of things, holding while the present cosmic order lasts, and perhaps not universally or permanently even here. All depends on the initial state of things, the way forces happen to have been collocated there. With one combination or constellation of forces one kind of world will result, and with another, another. There may be as many different kinds of worlds as there can be different arrangements and collocations of the primitive forces. To our world may then succeed a totally different kind of world, just as one totally different may have preceded it. There is no ordering of these things, no controlling design regulating them—it is all chance and accident.^[14] But—and here is the real turning-point of Nietzsche's thought—in the course of time, supposing that it goes on indefinitely, the different possible combinations of forces will have all been made. If the total amount of force, however vast and practicably incalculable, is definite, fixed, the number of combinations which its constituent parts can make is not limitless; the number may be myriad, but it cannot be infinite. If then the limit is reached, there can thereafter only be repetitions of the combinations that have already occurred—new ones are impossible (sixth point).^[15]

I may offer a very simple—seemingly too simple—illustration on my own account. Suppose that we—the reader and I—are playing dice. We throw various numbers, various combinations of numbers. There is no regularity in the succession—it is all haphazard (if we play a fair game and let chance be chance absolutely). Some time may elapse before either of us reaches any special combination, say double sixes. And yet, sooner or later we do reach it, both of us do—not because we will it, but because chance itself in the course of time is bound to give it to us. If we play on and on and do not reach it, we inevitably suspect that something is the matter with the dice, i.e., that they have been loaded, that pure chance does not rule. So of each and every combination—we are bound to throw them all, if we take sufficient time, and there has been no tampering with the dice. But after we have thrown all the combinations, what else is there for us to do, if we go on playing, but to throw the old ones over again? The recurrence of the old ones is of strict necessity—it is chance and necessity in one. The order of the throws may be different, is likely to be different—but the repetitions themselves are unavoidable. Nor if there were numbers running into the thousands, or millions, or tens of millions, would it make any difference; if we played long enough, all possible combinations would in time be exhausted, and then, if we continued to play, the old combinations would be repeated. Moreover, if we or others had been playing before, there would have been, however great the number of combinations, the same exhaustion of them in course of time, and thereafter a repetition of previous ones. Repetition, repetition without end, is the law in conditions like these. Grant the suppositions, finite numbers, infinite time, and pure chance (i.e., no interference from an arbitrary will outside, whether in forming the dice to start with or in influencing our muscles in throwing), and the result is inevitable.

The illustration is ridiculously simple—but I think it covers the nerve of Nietzsche's argument. Assuming his preliminary data, the same initial combination of the forces of existence would recur again and again, and each time there would ensue from that combination according to ordinary laws of cause and effect the same identical cosmic evolution, with exactly the same result at any given instant of the process. Indeed, Nietzsche argues that only in this way is there such a thing as strict identity. In our existing world, no two things can be exactly alike, if only because they are differently located in space and outside forces impinge differently upon them, and no one thing can be identical with itself at different times for similar reasons. Whenever then in the distant ranges of the future, after our present world has relapsed into the simple and relatively chaotic state from which it once emerged, the fortuitous course of things shall again bring about a combination of forces like that of which our world is the result, a world precisely similar to ours will again develope and the whole secular process of evolution be repeated: at a certain point everything will be like what it is now, the stars, the sea, the land, the peoples, the philosophies, the arguments, you and I, down to the last detail of our existence.^[16] Grant chance (i.e., the absence of any set will controlling things), grant a finite sum of forces which never began and never will cease to act, grant infinite time, grant the negation of infinite empty space in which forces might be dissipated, grant the determinist view of the connection of events, and the result is apparently unescapable.^c It also follows that to such a recurrence of the world, another recurrence will be added later on, and to that, still another,—and so on ad infinitum. With equal necessity it follows that earlier editions of the world have existed—in this direction too, ad infinitum.

As stated, there may be many kinds of worlds, and varying orders of succession between them. When our world passes away, it does not follow that at once or at any definite time it will be recomposed. Nietzsche especially warns us against the analogies of recurring planetary courses, or the ebb and flow of the sea, or day and night, or the seasons—all of which succeed one another regularly.^[17] The point is not when or in what order recurrence takes place, but that it takes place. In one place he says that between each combination and its recurrence, all other possible combinations will have had their turn;^[18] this might be so, but it does not appear to be necessary—the repetition of the combination might come soon; the only certainty is that it will come sometime, even if the whole gamut of combinations has to be swept. But though no regular order of succession can be predicated, existence comes in general to have a cyclic or circular character in this way. The same things are ever and anon recurring. Things do not simply cease to be as we commonly imagine—in time they come back to themselves. The flow of existence is not straight on—it bends and returns on itself. Hence Nietzsche's simile of the ring. "Krumm—bent, curved-is the path of eternity," says Zarathustra.^[19] No geometer makes the ring; it is nowise inconsistent with the "chaos" of things; it is a simple "irrational necessity, apart from any kind of formal, ethical, or æsthetic considerations."^[20] For all that, it is necessary, eternal, involved in the very nature of things, an eternal law of things. The course of the stars, the succession of seasons, day and night, may arise and pass away—the ring never. What is will come again—a breath of eternity touches things, all things; no thing so slight or so insignificant or so fleeting, but is in a sense eternalized. "Everything goes, everything returns, eternally does the wheel of being roll; everything dies, everything blossoms again, eternally does the year of being run its course; everything breaks, everything is put together again, eternally does the house of being build itself anew; all things separate, all things greet one another again, eternally is the ring of being true."^[21]

 

II

The reader may detect a note of joy in the quotation just made, but if so, I am anticipating, for the first effect of the view was depressing. There are plain intimations of Nietzsche's struggle with it in his writings, and we have also the testimony of one who for a while was in close contact with him—Fräulein von Salomé, now Frau Professor Andreas-Salomé of Göttingen. The idea was no more welcome at the start than some others to which his thinking had conducted him. He communicated it to few, dreading a possible confirmation of it.^[22] Those who think that a man believes what he wishes to believe, should observe this case. He says, for instance, "If a demon should slip into your loneliest solitude some day or night and should say to you: This life, as you are now living and have lived it, you will have to live once more and innumerable times, and nothing new will arise in it … should you not fling yourself down and gnash your teeth, and curse the demon that so spoke?"^[23] He makes Zarathustra say, "Ah, man comes back again, ever comes back! the small man ever comes back! All too small even the greatest—and unceasing return even of the smallest! Ah, horror, horror, horror!"^[24] The idea is like a serpent, which crawls into a shepherd's throat unawares as he lies on the ground and threatens to choke him.^[25] The first-quoted passage continues, "every pain and every pleasure, and every thought and sigh, and everything unspeakably small and great in your life must come back to you, and in the same order and succession—and even so this spider and this moonlight between the trees, even so this moment and I myself. The eternal hour-glass of existence is ever again turned, and you with it—dust of dust." It is an almost "spectral" impression we get (to use Professor Riehl's adjective),^[26] and the undertone of feeling is manifest. If this is to be called immortality, it is immortality of a new kind, as Riehl observes,^[27] for it is only this present life, petty and pitiable as it may be, over again. It is possible to despair at such a prospect. We know that a future life has sometimes been dreaded rather than welcomed—for example, among the Buddhists; and this would seem to be another instance. Mr. Henry L. Mencken pronounces Nietzsche's idea "the most hopeless idea, perhaps, ever formulated by man."^[28]

And yet Nietzsche learned how to right himself in this as in other emergencies. Amor fati! If something had to be, it could be endured—and must be made endurable. And much, he saw, depends upon the nature and character of our life. If the recurrence of it is a forbidding thought, is it not because our life has failed to satisfy us, has been unworthy, or full of pain, or at best commonplace—so that we want no more of it? But if it has been a happy life, or at least if there have been supreme moments of happiness in it, if we have known for however brief a time some great measureless satisfaction of our whole being, the situation changes. While suffering we do not wish again (at least for its own sake), not so with joy. Nietzsche puts the thought in poetic form—it is Zarathustra's song:

"O man! mark well!
What saith deep midnight with its knell?
'I've slept my sleep—
And wakened from the dream's deep spell:
The world is deep
And deeper than the day can tell.

Deep is its woe—
But joy's more deep than misery;
Woe saith: "O, go!"
But all joy seeks eternity—
Seeks the deep, deep eternity.'"^{[29] d}

That in this human life of ours there may be joy and that it may transcend woe, is Nietzsche's faith. But it is a joy which he conceives after his own fashion. The root of his misery lay in a sense of the lack of the great, the Divine in the world. It was the commonplaceness, the smallness, the meaninglessness of life that preyed on him. In the decay of ancient religion, heaven and hell are no longer felt as supreme issues among us; and aims of comfort, pleasure, and success, such as most men lose themselves in, could not satisfy him. But the question arose, granting that the great and Divine do not exist, whether now or by any necessity in the future, might they not exist—might they not be created? Might not life then get a meaning even if of itself it had none—with a sublime possibility like this before it? Even to turn one's thought that way, even only to expect the outcome, though the consummation itself was far away, could give joy. Such at least was his experience, and with this thought and joy he could confront a recurrence of his life, dreaded as it might otherwise be. The day and hour when all this stood luminously before him became memorable—even the particular spot he was in, near a boulder in the woods of the Upper Engadine, "6000 ft. above the sea, and far higher above all human things";^[30] it was an "immortal" moment, as he afterward noted down.^{[31] e}

In other words, the thought of recurrence gives rise to a practical ethical problem. The task being to "endure our immortality," the problem is, how to live so that we shall "wish to live again." "When thou incorporatest the thought of thoughts within thee, it will transform thee. The question in connection with all thou doest, 'is it something that I wish to do innumerable times?' is the greatest determinant."^[32] "Not to look for distant, unknown bliss and blessing and mercy, but so to live that we shall wish to live again and to live in the same way eternally!—our task comes to us in every instant."^[33] The sort of life which made Nietzsche wish to live again we have just seen. Life was welcome, would be ad infinitum, when lit up with a thought like that described—when a vision of the Divine opened out to it. "God," in the permissible sense of that term, was just the maximal epoch or state of the developmental process, and the general course of existence was a making and unmaking of the Divine.^[34] He particularly notes, in speaking of propagating the idea of "recurrence," that the outlook on the superman and the ethical legislation which naturally accompanies it, must come first—and then the doctrine of recurrence, "now endurable!"^[35]

This thought of a possible sublime result compensated for all that was untoward, pitiful, or commonplace in life—yes, compensated for its recurrence also. For such is the connection and reciprocal dependence of things, that the great and the little, the good and the bad, must go together—as now, so in the future. If one moment of a man's life returns, the others must too. If we wish a single experience over again, we must wish all the rest.^[36] "It is absolutely not the first question whether we are content with ourselves, but rather whether we are content with anything. For if we consent to a single moment, we have thereby consented not only to ourselves, but to all existence. For nothing stands by itself, whether in ourselves or in the world at large; and if only once our soul has trembled like a harp with happiness, all eternities were needed as a condition of this one happening—and all eternity was in this single moment of our consent approved, redeemed, justified, and affirmed."^[37] From this point of view Zarathustra stretches out his hands, so to speak, in blessing on all existence. "Pain is also a joy, curse is also a blessing, night is also a sun. … Say also to woe: go, but come again … joy wills the eternity of all things."^[38] It is a kind of theodicy. Nietzsche thinks that the doctrine of recurrence redeems us from a sense of the transitoriness of life: "I teach you redemption from the eternal flux."^[39] "Let us impress the image of eternity on our life," he says;^[40] and he quotes Dante's line,

"Come l'uom s'eterna …" (Inf. XV, 85).^[41]

But the eternalization which comes to man comes finally to all things. Affirm as he might against Schopenhauer the reality of time and change, he felt the poignant elements in those conceptions, the tears in perishing things, and once gives a moving expression of his mood. "That Emperor [referring doubtless to Marcus Aurelius] kept continually before his mind the perishability of all things, so that he might not attach too much importance to them and be able to remain at rest. On me this perishability has a quite different effect—to me everything appears of too much value to be so fleeting: it is as if the most precious wines and ointments were poured into the sea."^[42] In repeating the paragraph later, he adds, "My consolation is, that everything that was, is eternal:—the sea washes it up again."^[43] The theodicy, if I may so speak of it, covers the whole world, and the eternal repetition of it. Yes, in the eternal repetition of things he finds an approximation to the old idea of being, which, as opposed to change, he had felt obliged to renounce. "That everything comes again is the nearest approach of a world of becoming to a world of being—summit of the view."^[44] If time and numerical difference are left out of account, the world in its totality—the different successions of the same world and also the successions of different worlds—is the same identical changeless thing.

 

III

I have already referred to the contrast between Nietzsche's view and the ordinary idea of immortality. The latter presupposes a different life from this one—happier, better. It implies too the idea that the soul is something distinct and separate from the body. But Nietzsche has a physiological, if not materialistic view of man—"souls are as mortal as bodies," he says, and may even perish "quicker."^[45] His "other life" is this life over again—a course of evolution exactly like that which has produced this life producing it a second time. The very solemnity of Nietzsche's ethical injunctions rests on this thought of identity. Make this life over, he in effect says, for as you make it, it will be eternally. And he thinks that after all there are deep instincts binding us to this life. He describes an experience which cannot be altogether strange to any of us. "You feel that you must take farewell—perhaps soon—and the sunset colors of this feeling strike in upon your happiness. Note this witness: it signifies that you love life and yourself, and indeed life as you have hitherto found it and been shaped by it—and that you long for an eternalizing of the same. Non alia sed haec vita, sempiterna." Hence the fortifying influence which he accredits to his doctrine—for change and death "are ever singing their brief song, and with the bearing of the first strophe we almost perish of longing at the thought that things may be gone forever."^[46] When a man has nothing with which to offset this experience—the old religion had its way of meeting it—he is inwardly lamed, weakened; he no longer schools himself in striving and enduring, wants present enjoyment, makes things easy for himself. Here is part-explanation, Nietzsche thinks, of the secularist tendency (Verweltlichung) of our time and of the political and socialistic illusions growing out of it—the object is the welfare of the fleeting individual, who has no reason for waiting, as men with eternal souls and eternal possibilities for growing better had in the pasta.^[47] Against this whole weakening, laming tendency Nietzsche thinks that his doctrine is a counterpoise—it gives weight, dignity, yes eternity to life. "This life—thy eternal life."^[48] "This thought contains more than all religions, which have despised this life as something fleeting and have directed men's attention to an undetermined other life."^[49] Nietzsche holds that the old Alexandrian culture went to pieces, because with all its discoveries and love of knowledge, it did not know how to give supreme weight to this life, but regarded the beyond as more important.^[50]f He even thinks that his doctrine is the turning-point of history.^[51]

The difficulty of course arises (and it is urged by several critics), ^g that if our action now fixes so far the character of our future existence, it must also be true, according to the terms of the theory, that this action is itself determined by what we (or our counterparts) have done in an earlier existence, so that real self-determination is out of the question. It is a difficulty not unlike at bottom that which the Calvinist has in reconciling free-will with Divine predestination. Indeed, since the influence of our past existence is not direct, but through the medium of a set of causes which have been operating through untold intervals of time and are now at last the immediate antecedents of our present action, the difficulty is the same as that which is connected with any kind of determinist view of human conduct. How can I really decide what my action shall be, when it is but a link in the general causal chain? Nietzsche does not solve the problem, nor does he specially discuss it—but he was perhaps not unaware of it, and once makes a remark, which, I think, shows how he would have approached it. To the question, "But when all is necessary, how can I decide (verfügen) about my actions?" he answers, "Thought and belief are a determining influence along with all the other influences that press upon you, and are more of an influence than they. You say that food, place, air, society change and determine you Now your opinions do it still more, for they determine you to this food, place, air, society. When you incorporate in yourself the thought of thoughts [eternal recurrence], it will transform you."^[52] That is, the thought or belief (with which the "I" is practically identical) is itself a part of the deterministic chain; the causal law is not violated by the seemingly free act. In any case Nietzsche is entirely undisturbed by the determinist difficulty when it comes to deciding how he is to act, and as little by the remoter difficulty of a predetermination ages on ages ago—and probably Calvinists and determinists in general are quite like the rest of us in acting as if they were free from day to day now. ^h

That the doctrine of recurrence can withstand criticism, I by no means assert. Writers on the whole friendly to Nietzsche have criticised it. ⁱ I am simply endeavoring to set it forth as he held it. But it is tolerably evident that it is not an entirely fantastic or mystical doctrine. Nietzsche himself was not dogmatic about it. One of his critics notes that he simply called it "the most scientific of all possible hypotheses"^[53]—hypothesis then still. He speaks of recurrence as "more probable" than non-recurrence.^[54] He is even willing to say, "Perhaps it is not true; let others wrestle with it."^{[55] j} Still he was aware that practically speaking, as Bishop Butler has told us, probability is the guide of life. Remarking on the effect which repetitions in general have (e.g., the seasons, periodic illnesses, waking and sleeping), he says, "If the circular repetition of things is only a probability or possibility, even the thought of a possibility can agitate and refashion us, not merely actual sensations or definite expectations. How has the possibility of eternal damnation worked on men!"^[56] And yet Nietzsche wanted as much proof for his ideas as he could get. Not for nothing was he the child of a scientific and experimental age. He even said once that he no longer wished to hear of things and questions about which experiment was impossible,^[57] and we have his sister's testimony that he mistrusted all those enraptured and extreme states in which people fancy that they "grasp truth with their hands."^[58] We know that in the winter before the thought of eternal recurrence crystalized, he had been reading with lively agreement Helmholtz, Wundt (his earlier writings), and the mathematician Riemann.^[59] Professor Richter even says that he worked out his doctrine with the help of three mathematical and scientific books, which he specifies.^[60] We know also that a year after he had made his first fragmentary formulation of it, he wished to test and criticise it afresh, and proposed an extended course of study at Vienna (or Paris or Munich)—he would stop writing for several years, he declared, and begin student-life over again. Unhappily (or happily) the plan could not be carried out, because of poor health, and particularly the state of his eyes. ^k And yet it must be doubted whether scientific and physical studies such as he looked forward to, however careful and extended they might be, could ever dispose of questions of this far-reaching nature. Professor Fouillée called speculations like Nietzsche's "toutes subjectives."^[61] The element of truth in the reproach is that in the nature of the case they are incapable of scientific verification. How can one by experimental investigation decide whether the sum-total of force in the universe is finite or infinite? How can there be a scientific demonstration of the state of the cosmos billions of years ago, or billions of years to come? How can one get objective evidence that time is unending or that empty space is unreal! How at the very best can we get beyond certain necessities of thought, which it is open to any one to pronounce "toutes subjectives"? The fact is that probabilities or possibilities are all we can have in regions like these—and yet must we not proceed on probabilities and possibilities in our concrete (as opposed to formal) thinking almost everywhere! However this may be, Nietzsche never had his years of projected study, and never got beyond such fragmentary formulations of his doctrine as we have, and the lyrical expression of it in Zarathustra.

 

IV

Nietzsche is commonly taxed with error in claiming to be the first to teach the doctrine. Indeed he himself says that it might have been taught by Heraclitus—that at least the Stoa, which inherited nearly all its fundamental conceptions from Heraclitus, has traces of it.^{[62] l} Something like it appears in Hölderlin's "Empedokles," in Heine's Voyage de Munich à Génes, in Blanqui's Éternité par les Astres—and, to speak of more strictly scientific or philosophical writers, in Julius Bahnsen's Zur Philosophie der Geschichte, in Guyau's Vers d'un Philosophe, in von Nägeli's address before the Congress of German Naturalists in Munich, 1878, in Gustave Le Bon's L'Homme et les Sociétés.^[63] Professor Meyer even refers to Nietzsche's old enemy, von Wilamowitz-Möllendorf, as having expressed belief in similar "cosmic periods" (in a lecture, "Weltperioden"),^[64] and Professor Saintsbury would turn the idea into ridicule by calling it "only an echo of the carpenter in 'Peter Simple.'"^[65] Nietzsche had early referred to the Pythagorean view (that under the same constellation of the heavenly bodies, the same things would happen on earth), but he thought that it savored of astrology and did not take it seriously."^[66] The basis for the charge of error against him is a certain passage in Zarathustra—at least I can find nothing beyond this. In this passage the animals who attend the prophet, and are joyfully welcoming him back to life after an illness, divine the meaning of the illness and exclaim, "Sing and bubble over, O Zarathustra, heal thy soul with new songs, that thou mayest endure thy destiny, which was that of no one yet. For thy animals know well, O Zarathustra, who thou art and must become: behold, thou art the teacher of eternal recurrence—that is now thy destiny! That thou must be the first to teach this doctrine—how should this great destiny not be also thy greatest danger and illness!"^[67] The natural interpretation here is that Zarathustra is to be the first of a line to proclaim the doctrine, with then the dangers and risks of an initiator—the thought is rather of the future, than of exclusion in relation to the past. But if "first" is taken otherwise and implies what the critics assume, the question is, whether in the form in which Nietzsche taught the doctrine, it is not new. For to him it is bound up with the idea of something superhuman to come—only in this shape would he have published it: unrelieved, unrelated in this way, he would probably have allowed it to remain in the dark chambers of his own mind. Zarathustra is made to say, "I come again, with this sun, with this earth, with this eagle, with this serpent—not to a new life or a better life or a similar life; I come again eternally to this identical and selfsame life, in its greatest and also in its smallest, to teach again the eternal return of all things—to announce to men the superman."^[68] The italics are mine. The two things—eternal return and superman—are interwoven in Nietzsche's mind; and no one, I imagine, will claim that this full-orbed view had ever been taught before.

On another point, however, it is difficult to acquit Nietzsche of error, and even of a certain naïveté. He entertained the idea—nay, appears to have been convinced of it—that the doctrine would make a veritable selection among men. The weaker, he believed, would not be able to stand it, they would be undone at the thought of an unending repetition of their pitiful lives, and not knowing how, or being without the energy, to transform them, they would be driven to despair and suicide. Only the strong, the brave, those capable of great things could face the doctrine with equanimity, and with this type of men surviving and occupying the earth, things would be possible, of which no utopist has as yet dreamed.^[69] "It is the great disciplinary (züchtende) thought: the races that cannot endure it are doomed, those that feel it as the greatest benefit are chosen for dominion."^[70] But that the relatively unreflecting and unimaginative mass of men are going to be deeply affected by something that is to happen to them ages on ages to come is most improbable; if they are not driven to suicide now by the character of their lot, a prospective renewal of it at some unknown time in the future will hardly disturb them much more deeply. In truth, Nietzsche, in thinking as he does, transfers to others quite different from himself his own imaginative intelligence; because he would suffer to despair in their place, he infers that they must—while it is just because he is so different from them that he does so suffer. Unquestionably the view is very real to him. He says, "You fancy that you would have long repose before rebirth—but do not deceive yourselves. Between the last moment of consciousness and the first appearance of the new life, 'no time' intervenes—it is as quickly by as a lightning-flash, even if living creatures measure it by billions of years or cannot measure it at all. When the mind is away, timelessness and succession are compatible with one another."^[71] He even fancies that the mass may look approvingly on his doctrine at the start, since it means immortality of a certain kind and the most ordinary impulses of self-preservation will respond to it.^{[72] m} Equally, he suspects, the finer, nobler spirits will be at first depressed and in danger of extirpation (even as he had been), leaving the commoner, less sensitive nature to survive^[73]—a probability the reverse of the view first stated, and, I should say, likelier. He is thus not really certain as to what the popular effect of his doctrine will be—now he suspects one consequence and now another. The only thing we or he can speak with real assurance about is its effect on himself—for to him the doctrine became something like a religion.

But if a religion, it is one without the gestures that often accompany religion. It is "mild to those who do not believe it; it has no hell and no threats—the only result is that one is left with a fleeting life in his consciousness."^[74] It were horrible to think of sin in such a connection; whatever we do, even if we repeat it innumerable times, is innocent, and if the thought of eternal recurrence does not convince us, there is no blame, as there is no merit, if it does.^[75] He has no desire that the doctrine should become a religion suddenly—it must sink into men's minds slowly; whole generations must work on it—long, long must it be small and weak. What are the two millenniums during which Christianity has existed—the greatest thought will require many millenniums!^[76] He wishes the doctrine stated "simply and almost dryly"—it "must not need eloquence to commend it."^[77] He wards off followers who believe easily and get enthusiastic—they must have passed through every grade of skepticism, must have bathed with pleasure in waters icy–cold, otherwise they have no inner right to the thought.^[78]

The idea of eternal recurrence was very vital to Nietzsche for a time; but, though still held, it seems to have receded somewhat into the background in his latest years—at least his ethical and social views develope quite independently of it, and have whatever validity they possess irrespective of it.

1. The relevant passages are Werke, XII, 51-69 (or, pocket ed. VI, 3-21), 369-71; Joyful Science, § 341; Zarathustra, III, ii, § 2; xiii; xvi; IV, xix; Beyond Good and Evil, § 56; Will to Power, §§ 55, 417, 617, 1053-67. The reference to the allied Pythagorean speculation is in "The Use and Harm of History, etc.," sect. 2.
2. Op. cit., p. 133.
3. Op. cit., pp. 137-8.
4. P. J. Möbius, op. cit., p. 103.
5. Op. cit., p. 291.
6. Grace N. Dolson, The Philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche, p. 83.
7. Ecce Homo, III, vi, § 1.
8. Joyful Science, § 341.
9. Werke, XIV, 52-3; Will to Power, §§ 1063, 1066.
10. Werke, XII, 54, §§ 97-8; Will to Power, § 1067.
11. Werke, XII, 51, § 90; 54, § 98.
12. See Werke, XII, 53, § 95; 55-6, §§ 100, 103; 62, § 114; Will to Power, §§ 1062, 1066.
13. Werke, XII, 54, § 97; Will to Power, § 1032.
14. Werke, XII, 58-60; Will to Power, § 1066.
15. Werke, XII, 51, § 90; 61, § 109; Will to Power, § 1066.
16. Cf. the picture in Joyful Science, § 341.
17. Werke, XII, 61, § 109.
18. Will to Power, § 1066.
19. Zarathustra, III, xiii, § 2.
20. Werke, XII, 61, § 110.
21. Zarathustra, III, xiii, § 2.
22. See Lou Andreas-Salomé, op. cit., p. 222; Drews, op. cit., p. 325.
23. Joyful Science, § 341.
24. Zarathustra, III, xiii, § 2.
25. Ibid., III, ii, § 2.
26. Cf. another description no less spectral in Zarathustra, III, ii, § 2.
27. Op. cit., pp. 136-7.
28. The Philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche (2d ed.), p. 260.
29. Zarathustra, III, xv, § 3; IV, xix, § 12 (the translation is by Thomas Common).
30. Werke, XII, 425; cf. Ecce Homo, III, vi, § 1.
31. Werke, XII, 371, § 731; Ecce Homo, III, vi, § 1.
32. Werke, XII, 369, § 721; 64-5, §§ 116, 117.
33. Ibid., XII, 67, § 125.
34. Will to Power, §§ 639, 712; cf. Werke, XI, 309, § 396.
35. Werke, XIV, 265, § 21; cf. Werke (pocket ed.), VII, 487.
36. Werke, XII, 370, §§ 724-5.
37. Will to Power, § 1032.
38. Zarathustra, IV, xix, §§ 10, 11.
39. Werke, XII, 369, § 723.
40. Ibid., XII, 66, § 124.
41. Will to Power, § 1002.
42. Werke, XII, 162, § 327.
43. Will to Power, § 1065.
44. Ibid., § 617.
45. Zarathustra, III, xiii, 2; prologue, § 6.
46. Both this and the preceding quotations are from Werke, XII, 66, § 123.
47. Will to Power, § 417; Werke, XII, 63-4, §§ 115-6.
48. Werke, XII, 67, § 126.
49. Ibid., XII, 66-7, § 124.
50. Ibid., XIV, 14; XII, 65, § 120.
51. Ibid., XII, 67-8, § 127.
52. Ibid., XII, 64, § 117.
53. Friedrich Rittelmeyer, Friedrich Nietzsche und die Religion, p. 64, quoting Werke (Ist ed.), XV, 21.
54. Werke, XII, 56.
55. Ibid., XIV, 295.
56. Werke, XU, 65, § 119.
57. Joyful Science, § 51.
58. Werke (pocket ed.), VI, xvl.
59. Ibid., VI, xii.
60. Schmitz-Dumont's Mathematische Elemente der Erkenntnisstheorie, the same writer's Die Einheit der Naturkraft, and O. Caspari's Der Zusammenhang der Dinge (Richter, op. cit., p. 278).
61. Nietzsche et l'Immoralisme, p. 217.
62. Ecce Homo, III, i, § 3.
63. See Drews, op. cit., pp. 334-5; Fouillée, op. cit., pp. 207-10; Meyer, op. cit., p. 464.
64. Meyer, op. cit., p. 62.
65. History of Criticism, Vol. III, p. 584 n.
66. "The Use and Harm of History, etc.," sect. 2.
67. Zarathustra, III, xiii, § 2.
68. Ibid., III, xiii, § 2. The italics are mine.
69. Werke, XII, 65-6, § 121; Will to Power, § 55.
70. Will to Power, § 1053.
71. Werke, XII, 66, § 122.
72. Ibid., XII, 371, § 730.
73. Ibid., XII, 370, § 729; XIV, 264, § 15.
74. Ibid., XII, 68, § 128.
75. Ibid., XII, 68, § 129.
76. Ibid., XII, 68-9, § 130.
77. Ibid., XII, 69, § 131.
78. Ibid., XII, 69, § 132.