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
- ↑ 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.
- ↑ Op. cit., p. 133.
- ↑ Op. cit., pp. 137-8.
- ↑ P. J. Möbius, op. cit., p. 103.
- ↑ Op. cit., p. 291.
- ↑ Grace N. Dolson, The Philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche, p. 83.
- ↑ Ecce Homo, III, vi, § 1.
- ↑ Joyful Science, § 341.
