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."[1]
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.[2] 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?"[3] 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!"[4] 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.[5] The first-
