I
The extent of universal energy is limited; it is not
“infinite”: we should beware of such excesses in
our concepts!
The extent of universal energy is limited; it is not
“infinite”: we should beware of such excesses in
our concepts!
Nietzsche - v16 - Twilight of the Idols
223 (#243) ############################################
A CRITICISM OF CHRISTIANITY
223
secrecy of the conventicle, concepts as black as hell
such as the sacrifice of the innocent, the unio
mystica in the drinking of blood, above all the
slowly kindled fire of revenge, of Chandala revenge
—such things became master of Rome, the same
kind of religion on the pre-existent form of which
Epicurus had waged war. One has only to read
Lucretius in order to understand what Epicurus
combated, not Paganism, but“ Christianity,” that is
to say the corruption of souls through the concept
of guilt, through the concept of punishment and
immortality. He combated the subterranean cults,
the whole of latent Christianity—to deny immor-
tality was at that time a genuine deliverance. And
Epicurus had triumphed, every respectable thinker
in the Roman Empire was an Epicurean : then St
Paul appeared . . . St Paul, the Chandala hatred
against Rome, against “the world,” the Jew, the
eternal Jew par excellence, become flesh and genius.
What he divined was, how, by the help of the
small sectarian Christian movement, independent of
Judaism, a universal conflagration could be kindled ;
how, with the symbol of the “God on the Cross,”
everything submerged, everything secretly insurrec-
tionary, the whole offspring of anàrchical intrigues
could be gathered together to constitute an enor-
mous power. “For salvation is of the Jews. ”—
“
Christianity is the formula for the supersession, and
epitomising of all kinds of subterranean cults, that
of Osiris, of the Great Mother, of Mithras for
example: St Paul's genius consisted in his discovery
of this. In this matter his instinct was so certain,
that, regardless of doing violence to truth, he laid the
.
## p. 224 (#244) ############################################
224
THE ANTICHRIST
ideas by means of which those Chandala religions
fascinated, upon the very lips of the “ Saviour” he
had invented, and not only upon his lips,—that he
made out of him something which even a Mithras
priest could understand. . .
. . . This was his moment
of Damascus : he saw that he had need of the belief
in immortality in order to depreciate “the world,”
that the notion of “hell ” would become master of
Rome, that with a "Beyond” this life can be killed.
Nihilist and Christian,—they rhyme in German,
and they do not only rhyme.
59
The whole labour of the ancient world in vain :
I am at a loss for a word which could express my
feelings at something so atrocious. —And in view
of the fact that its labour was only preparatory,
that with adamantine self-consciousness it laid the
substructure, alone, to a work which was to last
millenniums, the whole significance of the ancient
world was certainly in vain! . . . What was the use
of the Greeks? what was the use of the Romans ?
-All the prerequisites of a learned culture, all the
scientific methods already existed, the great and
peerless art of reading well had already been
established—that indispensable condition to tradi-
tion, to culture and to scientific unity; natural
science hand in hand with mathematics and
mechanics was on the best possible road,--the
sense for facts, the last and most valuable of all
senses, had its schools, and its tradition was already
centuries old! Is this understood ? Everything
essential had been discovered to make it possible
## p. 225 (#245) ############################################
A CRITICISM OF CHRISTIANITY
225
for work to be begun :-methods, and this cannot
be said too often, are the essential thing, also the
most difficult thing, while they moreover have to
wage the longest war against custom and indo-
lence. That which to-day we have successfully
reconquered for ourselves, by dint of unspeakable
self-discipline—for in some way or other all of us
still have the bad instincts, the Christian instincts,
in our body,—the impartial eye for reality, the
cautious hand, patience and seriousness in the
smallest details, complete uprightness in know-
ledge,—all this was already there; it had been
there over two thousand years before! And in
addition to this there was also that excellent and
subtle tact and taste! Not in the form of brain
drilling! Not in the form of “German” culture
with the manners of a boor! But incarnate, mani-
festing itself in men's bearing and in their instinct,
-in short constituting reality. . . . All this in
vain! In one night it became merely a memory!
-The Greeks! The Romans! Instinctive nobility,
instinctive taste, methodic research, the genius of
organisation and administration, faith, the w to
the future of mankind, the great yea to all things
materialised in the imperium Romanum, become
visible to all the senses, grand style no longer
manifested in mere art, but in reality, in truth, in
life. —And buried in a night, not by a natural
catastrophe! Not stamped to death by Teutons
and other heavy-footed vandals! But destroyed
by crafty, stealthy, invisible anæmic vampires !
Not conquered, -- but only drained of blood! . . .
The concealed lust of revenge, miserable envy
.
.
-
15
## p. 226 (#246) ############################################
226
THE ANTICHRIST
1
become master! Everything wretched, inwardly
ailing, and full of ignoble feelings, the whole
Ghetto-world of souls, was in a trice uppermost !
-One only needs to read any one of the Christian
agitators-St Augustine, for instance,-in order to
realise, in order to sinell, what filthy fellows came
to the top in this movement. You would deceive
yourselves utterly if you supposed that the leaders
of the Christian agitation showed any lack of under-
standing :-Ah! they were shrewd, shrewd to the
point of holiness were these dear old Fathers of
the Church! What they lack is something quite
different. Nature neglected them,-it forgot to
give them a modest dowry of decent, of respectable
and of cleanly instincts. Between ourselves,
they are not even men. If Islam despises Christi-
anity, it is justified a thousand times over; for
Islam presupposes men.
-
60
Christianity destroyed the harvest we might
have reaped from the culture of antiquity, later it
also destroyed our harvest of the culture of Islam.
The wonderful Moorish world of Spanish culture,
which in its essence is more closely related to us,
and which appeals more to our sense and taste
than Rome and Greece, was trampled to death (-I
do not say by what kind of feet), why? —because it
owed its origin to noble, to manly instincts, because
it said yea to life, even that life so full of the rare
and refined luxuries of the Moors! . . . Later on
the Crusaders waged war upon something before
which it would have been more seemly in them to
## p. 227 (#247) ############################################
A CRITICISM OF CHRISTIANITY
227
grovel in the dust,-a culture, beside which even
our Nineteenth Century would seem very poor and
very “senile. ”—OL. course they wanted booty: the
Orient was rich. For goodness' sake let us
forget our prejudices ! Crusades—superior piracy,
that is all ! German nobility—that is to say, a
Viking nobility at bottom, was in its element in
such wars: the Church was only too well aware of
how German nobility is to be won.
German
nobility was always the “Swiss Guard” of the
Church, always at the service of all the bad instincts
of the Church ; but it was well paid for it all. . . .
Fancy the Church having waged its deadly war
upon everything noble on earth, precisely with the
help of German swords, German blood and courage !
A host of painful questions might be raised on this
point. German nobility scarcely takes a place in
the history of higher culture: the reason of this
is obvious Christianity, alcohol—the two great
means of corruption. As a matter of fact, choice
ought to be just as much out of the question between
Islam and Christianity, as between an Arab and a
Jew. The decision is already self-evident; nobody
is at liberty to exercise a choice in this matter. A
man is either of the Chandala or he is not.
“War with Rome to the knife! Peace and friend-
ship with Islam”: this is what that great free
spirit, that genius among German emperors,-
Frederick the Second, not only felt but also did.
What? Must a German in the first place be a
?
genius, a free-spirit, in order to have decent feelings?
I cannot understand how a German was ever able
to have Christian feelings.
## p. 228 (#248) ############################################
228
THE ANTICHRIST
61
.
Here it is necessary to revive a memory which
will be a hundred times more painful to Germans.
The Germans have destroyed the last great harvest
of culture which was to be garnered for Europe,
it destroyed the Renaissance. Does anybody at
last understand, will anybody understand what the
Renaissance was? The transvaluation of Christian
values, the attempt undertaken with all means, an
instincts and all genius to make the opposite values,
the noble values triumph. . Hitherto there has
been only this great war : there has never yet been
a more decisive question than the Renaissance,-my
question is the question of the Renaissance :—there
has never been a more fundamental, a more direct
and a more severe attack, delivered with a whole
front upon the centre of the foe. To attack at the
decisive quarter, at the very seat of Christianity,
and there to place noble values on the throne,—that
is to say, to introduce them into the instincts, into
the most fundamental needs and desires of those
sitting there. . . . I see before me a possibility
perfectly magic in its charm and glorious colouring
-it seems to me to scintillate with all the quiver-
ing grandeur of refined beauty, that there is an art
at work within it which is so divine, so infernally
divine, that one might seek through millenniums in
vain for another such possibility; I see a spectacle
so rich in meaning and so wonderfully paradoxical
to boot, that it would be enough to make all the
gods of Olympus rock with immortal laughter,
Cæsar Borgia as Pope. . . . Do you understand me?
O
## p. 229 (#249) ############################################
A CRITICISM OF CHRISTIANITY
229
Very well then, this would have been the
triumph which I alone am longing for to-day :
this would have swept Christianity away! —What
happened? A German monk, Luther, came to
Rome. This monk, with all the vindictive instincts
of an abortive priest in his body, foamed with rage
over the Renaissance in Rome. . . . Instead of, with
the profoundest gratitude, understanding the vast
miracle that had taken place, the overcoming of
Christianity at its headquarters,—the fire of his hate
knew only how to draw fresh fuel from this spectacle.
A religious man thinks only of himself. —Luther
saw the corruption of the Papacy when the very
reverse stared him in the face: the old corruption,
the peccatum originale, Christianity no longer sat
upon the Papal chair! But Life! The triumph
of Life! The great yea to all lofty, beautiful and
daring things! And Luther reinstated the
Church; he attacked it. The Renaissance thus
became an event without meaning, a great in vain
-Ah these Germans, what have they not cost us
already! In vain—this has always been the achieve-
ment of the Germans. —The Reformation, Leibniz,
Kant and so-called German philosophy, the Wars
of Liberation, the Empire—in each case are in vain
for something which had already existed, for some-
thing which cannot be recovered. . . . I confess it,
these Germans are my enemies : I. despise every
sort of uncleanliness in concepts and valuations in
them, every kind of cowardice in the face of every
honest yea or nay. For almost one thousand years,
now, they have tangled and confused everything
they have laid their hands on; they have on their
.
.
## p. 230 (#250) ############################################
230
THE ANTICHRIST
conscience all the half-measures, all the three-eighth
measures of which Europe is sick ; they also have
the most unclean, the most incurable, and the most
irrefutable kind of Christianity-Protestantism--on
their conscience. . . . If we shall never be able to
get rid of Christianity, the Germans will be to blame.
62
-With this I will now conclude and pronounce
my judgment. I condemn Christianity and confront
it with the most terrible accusation that an accuser
has ever had in his mouth. To my mind it is the
greatest of all conceivable corruptions, it has had
the will to the last imaginable corruption. The
Christian Church allowed nothing to escape from
its corruption; it converted every value into its
opposite, every truth into a lie, and every honest
impulse into an ignominy of the soul. Let anyone
dare to speak to me of its humanitarian blessings !
To abolish any sort of distress was opposed to its
profoundest interests; its very existence depended
on states of distress; it created states of distress in
order to make itself immortal. . . . The cancer germ
of sin, for instance: the Church was the first to en-
rich mankind with this misery! —The “equality of
souls before God,” this falsehood, this pretext for the
rancunes of all the base-minded, this anarchist bomb
of a concept, which has ultimately become the re-
volution, the modern idea, the principle of decay of
the whole of social order,—this is Christian dyna-
mite. . . . The “humanitarian" blessings of Chris-
tianity! To breed a self-contradiction, an art of
self-profanation, a will to lie at any price, an aversion,
-
## p. 231 (#251) ############################################
A CRITICISM OF CHRISTIANITY
231
1
a contempt of all good and honest instincts out of
humanitas! Is this what you call the blessings of
Christianity ? —Parasitism as the only method of the
Church; sucking all the blood, all the love, all the
hope of life out of mankind with anæmic and sacred
ideals. A “Beyond” as the will to deny all reality;
the cross as the trade-mark of the most subterranean
form of conspiracy that has ever existed,-against
health, beauty, well-constitutedness, bravery, intel-
lect, kindliness of soul, against Life itself. .
This eternal accusation against Christianity I
would fain write on all walls, wherever there are
walls,- I have letters with which I can make even
the blind see. . . . I call Christianity the one great
curse, the one enormous and innermost perversion,
the one great instinct of revenge, for which no means
are too venomous, too underhand, too underground
and too petty,–I call it the one immortal blemish
of mankind.
And time is reckoned from the dies nefastus
upon which this fatality came into being—from the
first day of Christianity ! -why not rather from its
last day? -From to-day? -Transvaluation of all
Values ! . .
## p. 232 (#252) ############################################
## p. 233 (#253) ############################################
THE ETERNAL RECURRENCE
AND
EXPLANATORY NOTES TO
THUS SPAKE ZARATHUSTRA. ”
## p. 234 (#254) ############################################
## p. 235 (#255) ############################################
TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE
THE notes concerning the Eternal Recurrence, in
this volume, are said by Mrs Foerster-Nietzsche to
have been the first that Nietzsche ever wrote on the
subject of his great doctrine. This being so, they
must have been composed towards the autumn of
the year 1881.
I have already pointed out elsewhere (Will to
Power, vol. ii. , Translator's Preface) how much im-
portance Nietzsche himself ascribed to this doctrine,
and how, until the end, he regarded it as the inspira-
tion which had led to his chief work, Thus Spake
Zarathustra. For the details relating to its incep-
tion, however, I would refer the reader to Mrs
Foerster-Nietzsche's Introduction to her brother's
chief work, which was translated for the eleventh
volume of this Edition of the Complete Works.
In reading these notes it would be well to refer
to Nietzsche's other utterances on the subject which
are to be found at the end of vol. ii. of the Will to
Power, and also, if possible, to have recourse to the
original German text. Despite the greatest care, I
confess that in some instances, I have felt a little
doubt as to the precise English equivalent for the
thoughts expressed under the heading Eternal Re-
currence; and, though I have attributed this difficulty
to the extreme novelty of the manner in which the
335
## p. 236 (#256) ############################################
236
THE ETERNAL RECURRENCE
subject is presented, it is well that the reader should
be aware that such doubt has been entertained.
For I disbelieve utterly in mere verbal translation,
however accurate, and would question anybody's
right to convert a German sentence into English-
even though he were so perfect in both languages as
to be almost absolutely bilingual, if he did not
completely grasp the thought behind the sentence.
The writing of the collected Explanatory Notes to
Thus Spake Zarathustra, cannot be given any exact
date. Some of them consist of comments, written
down by Nietzsche after the completion of the book,
and kept as the nucleus of an actual commentary
to Zarathustra, which it seems to have been his in-
tention, one day, to write; while others are merely
memoranda and rough sketches, probably written
before the completion of the work, and which served
the purpose of a draft of his original plan. The
reader who knows Thus Spake Zarathustra will be
able to tell wherein the book ultimately differed
from the plan visible in these preliminary notes.
As an authoritative, though alas! all too frag-
mentary elucidation of a few of the more obscure
passages of Zarathustra, some of these notes are of
the greatest value; and, in paragraph 73, for in-
stance, there is an interpretation of the Fourth and
Last Part, which I myself would have welcomed
with great enthusiasm, at the time when I was
having my first struggles with the spirit of this
great German sage's life work.
ANTHONY M. LUDOVICI.
## p. 237 (#257) ############################################
I. ETERNAL RECURRENCE
1. THE DOCTRINE EXPOUNDED AND
SUBSTANTIATED.
I
The extent of universal energy is limited; it is not
“infinite”: we should beware of such excesses in
our concepts! Consequently the number of states,
changes, combinations, and evolutions of this energy,
although it may be enormous and practically incal-
culable, is at any rate_definite and not unlimited.
The time, however, in which this universal energy
works its changes is infinite—that is to say, energy
remains eternally the same and is eternally active:-
at this moment an infinity has already elapsed, that
is to say, every possible evolution must already have
taken place. Consequently the present process of
evolution must be a repetition, as was also the one
before it, as will also be the one which will follow.
And so on forwards and backwards! Inasmuch as
the entire state of all forces continually returns,
Xeverything has existed an infinite number of times.
Whether, apart from this, anything exactly like
something that formerly existed has ever appeared,
is completely beyond proof. It would seem that
each complete state of energy forms all qualities
afresh even to the smallest degree, so that two dif-
ferentcompletestates could have nothing in common.
237
## p. 238 (#258) ############################################
238
THE ETERNAL RECURRENCE
Is it to be supposed that in one and the same com-
plete states two precisely similar things could appear
-for instance two leaves ? I doubt it: it would
take for granted that they had both had an abso-
lutely similar origin, and in that case we should have
to assume that right back in infinity two similar
things had also existed despite all the changes in the
complete states and their creation of new qualities
-an impossible assumption.
2
Formerly it was thought that unlimited energy
was a necessary corollary to unlimited activity in
time, and that this energy could be exhausted by
no form of consumption. Now it is thought that
energy remains constant and does not require to
be infinite. It is eternally active but it is no longer
able eternally to create new forms, it must repeat
itself: that is my conclusion.
3
Anincalculablenumber ofcompletestatesofenergy
have existed, but these have not been infinitely dif-
ferent: for if they had been, unlimited energy would
have been necessary. The energy of the universe
can only have a given number of possible qualities.
4
The endless evolution of new forms is a contra-
diction, for it would implyeternallyincreasing energy.
But whence would it grow? Whence would it de-
rive its nourishment and its surplus of nourishment?
## p. 239 (#259) ############################################
THE ETERNAL RECURRENCE
239
The assumption that the universe is an organism
contradicts the very essence of the organic.
5
In what principle and belief is that decisive turn-
ing point in philosophical thought best expressed
which has come into being thanks to the preponder-
ance of the scientific spirit over the religious and
God-creating one? We insist upon the fact that
the world as a sum of energy must not be regarded
as unlimited—we forbid ourselves the concept in-
finite energy, because it seems incompatible with
the concept energy.
6
An unlimited number of new changes and states
on the part of limited energy is a contradiction,
however extensive one may imagine it to be, and
however economical the changes may be, provided
it is infinite. We are therefore, forced to conclude:
(1) either that the universe began its activity at a
given moment of time and will end in a similar
fashion,—but the beginning of activity is absurd;
if a state of equilibrium had been reached it would
have persisted to all eternity ;(2) Or there is no such
thing as an endless number of changes, but a circle
consisting of a definite number of them which con-
a
tinually recurs : activity is eternal, the number of
the products and states of energy is limited.
1
7
If all the possible combinations and relations of
forces had not already been exhausted, then an
infinity would not yet lie behind us. Now since
## p. 240 (#260) ############################################
240
THE ETERNAL RECURRENCE
infinite time must be assumed, no fresh possibility can
exist and everything must have appeared already,
and moreover an infinite number of times.
a
8
The present world of forces leads back to a state
of greatest simplicity in these forces: it likewise
leads forwards to such a state,—cannot and must
not both states be identical? No incalculable
number of states can evolve out of a system of
limited forces, that is to say, out of a given quantity
of energy which may be precisely measured. Only
when we falsely assume that space is unlimited,
and that therefore energy gradually becomes dissi-
pated, can the final state be an unproductive and
lifeless one.
9
First principles. —The last physical state of energy
which we can imagine must necessarily be the first
also. The absorption of energy in latent energy
must be the cause of the production of the most
vital energy
For a highly positive state must
follow a negative state. Space like matter is a
subjective form, time is not. The notion of
space
first arose from the assumption that space could be
empty. But there is no such thing as empty space.
Everything is energy.
We cannot think of that which moves and that
which is moved together, but both these things
constitute matter and space. We isolate.
IO
Concerning the resurrection of the world. -Out
## p. 241 (#261) ############################################
THE ETERNAL RECURRENCE
241
of two negatives, when they are forces, a positive
arises. (Darkness comes of light opposed to light,
cold arises from warmth opposed to warmth, &c. ,
&c. )
II
An uncertain state of equilibrium occurs just as
seldom in nature as two absolutely equal triangles.
Consequently anything like a static state of energy
in general is impossible. If stability were possible
it would already have been reached.
I2
Either complete equilibrium must in itself be an
impossibility, or the changes of energy introduce
themselves in the circular process before that equi-
librium which is in itself possible has appeared. -
But it would be madness to ascribe a feeling of
self-preservation to existence ! And the same
applies to the conception of a contest of pain and
pleasure among atoms.
13
Physics supposes that energy may be divided
up: but every one of its possibilities must first be
adjusted to reality. There can therefore be no
question of dividing energy into equal parts; in
every one of its states it manifests a certain quality,
and qualities cannot be subdivided : hence a state
of equilibrium in energy is impossible.
14
If energy had ever reached a stage of equilibrium
that stage would have persisted: it has therefore
16
## p. 242 (#262) ############################################
242
THE ETERNAL RECURRENCE
never reached such a stage. The present condition
of things contradicts this assumption. If we assume
that there has ever been a state absolutely like the
present one this assumption is in no wise refuted
by the present state. For, among all the endless
possibilities, this case must already have occurred,
as an infinity is already behind us. If equilibrium
were possible it would already have been reached. -
And if this momentary state has already existed
then that which bore it and the previous one also
would likewise have existed and so on backwards,
-and from this it follows that it has already existed
not only twice but three times, just as it will exist
again not only twice but three times,-in fact an
infinite number of times backwards and forwards.
That is to say, the whole process of Becoming con-
sists of a repetition of a definite number of precisely
similar states. —Clearly the human brain cannot be
left to imagine the whole series of possibilities: but
in any case, quite apart from our ability to judge or
our inability to conceive the whole range of possi-
bilities, the present state at least is a possible one-
because it is a real one.
We should therefore say:
in the event of the number of possibilities not being
infinite, and assuming that in the course of unlimited
time a limited number of these must appear, all real
states must have been preceded by similar states ?
Because from every given moment a whole infinity is
to be calculated backwards ? The stability of forces
and their equilibrium is a possible alternative: but
it has not been reached ; consequently the number
of possibilities is greater than the number of real
states. The fact that nothing similar recurs could
## p. 243 (#263) ############################################
THE ETERNAL RECURRENCE
243
a
not be explained by appealing to accident, but only
by supposing that a certain intention, that no similar
things should recur, were actually inherent in the
essence of energy: for, if we grant that the number
of cases is enormous, the occurrence of like cases is
more probable than absolute disparity.
15
Let us think backwards a moment. If the world
had a goal, this goal must have been reached : if a
certain (unintentional) final state existed for the
world, this state also would have been reached. If
it were in any way capable of a stationary or stable
condition, and if in the whole course of its existence
only one second of Being, in the strict sense of the
word, had been possible, then there could no longer
be such a process as evolution, and therefore no
thinking and no observing of such a process. If on
the other hand the world were something which con-
tinually renovated itself, it would then be understood
to be something miraculous and free to create itself
-in fact something divine. Eternal renovation pre-
supposes that energy voluntarily increases itself, that
it not only has the intention, but also the power, to
avoid repeating itself or to avoid returning into a
previous form, and that every instant it adjusts itself
in every one of its movements to prevent such a con-
tingency,—or that it was incapable of returning to
a state it had already passed through. That would
mean that the whole sum of energy was not constant,
any more than its attributes were. But a sum of
energy which would be inconstant and which would
fluctuate is quite unthinkable. Let us not indulge
1
## p. 244 (#264) ############################################
244
THE ETERNAL RECURRENCE
our fancy any longer with unthinkable things in
order to fall once more before the concept of a
Creator (multiplication out of nothing, reduction out
of nothing, absolute arbitrariness and freedom in
growth and in qualities) :-
16
He who does not believe in the circular process
of the universe must pin his faith to an arbitrary
God—thus my doctrine becomes necessary as op-
posed to all that has been said hitherto in matters
of Theism.
17
The hypothesis which I would oppose to that of
the eternal circular process :—Would it be just as
possible to explain the laws of the mechanical world
as exceptions and seemingly as accidents among the
things of the universe, as one possibility only among
an incalculable number of possibilities? Would it
be possible to regard ourselves as accidentally thrust
into this corner of the mechanical universal arrange-
ment? —That all chemical philosophy is likewise an
exception and an accident in the world's economy,
and finally that organic life is a mere exception and
accident in the chemical world? Should we have
to assume as the most general form of existence
a world which was not yet mechanical, which was
outside all mechanical laws (although accessible to
them)? —and that as a matter of fact this world
would be the most general now and for evermore,
so that the origin of the mechanical world would be
a lawless game which would ultimately acquire such
consistency as the organic laws seem to have now
## p. 245 (#265) ############################################
THE ETERNAL RECURRENCE
245
from our point of view ? So that all our mechanical
laws would be not eternal, but evolved, and would
havesurvived innumerable different mechanical laws,
or that they had attained supremacy in isolated
corners of the world and not in others ? _It would
seem that we need caprice, actual lawlessness, and
only a capacity for law, a primeval state of stupidity
which is not even able to concern itself with
mechanics ? The origin of qualities presupposes the
existence of quantities, and these, for their part,
might arise from a thousand kinds of mechanical
processes.
Is not the existence of some sort of irregularity
and incomplete circular form in the world about us,
a sufficient refutation of the regular circularity of
everything that exists? Whence comes this variety
within the circular process ? Is not everything far
too complicated to have been the outcome of unity?
And are not the many chemical laws and likewise
the organic species and forms inexplicable as the
result of homogeneity? or of duality ? —Supposing
there were such a thing as a regular contracting
energy in all the centres of force in the universe,
the question would be, whence could the most in-
significant difference spring? For then the whole
world would have to be resolved into innumerable
completely equal rings and spheres of existence and
we should have an incalculable number of exactly
equal worlds side by side. Is it necessary for me
to assume this? Must I suppose that an eternal
sequence of like worlds also involves eternal juxta-
position of like worlds ? But the multifariousness
and disorder in the world which we have known
1
## p. 246 (#266) ############################################
246
THE ETERNAL RECURRENCE
hitherto contradicts this; no such universal similarity
has existed in evolution, for in that case even for
our part of the cosmos a regular spherical form
must have been formed. Should the production of
qualities not be subject to any strict laws ? Can it
be possible that different things have been derived
from “energy”? Arbitrarily? Is the conformity
to law which we observe perhaps only a deception ?
Is it possible that it is not a primeval law? Is it
possible that the multifariousness of qualities even
in our part of the world is the result of the absolute
occurrence of arbitrary characteristics ? But that
these characteristics no longer appear in our corner
of the globe? Or that our corner of existence has
adopted a rule which we call cause and effect when
all the while it is no such thing (an arbitrary pheno-
menon become a rule, as for instance oxygen and
hydrogen in chemistry)? ? ? Is this rule simply a
protracted kind of mood ?
18
a
If the universe had been able to become an organ-
ism it would have become one already. As a whole
we must try and regard it in the light of a thing as
remote as possible from the organic. I believe that
even our chemical affinity and coherence may be
perhaps recently evolved and that these appearances
only occur in certain corners of the universe at cer-
tain epochs. Let us believe in absolute necessity
in the universe but let us guard against postulat-
ing any sort of law, even if it be a primitive and
mechanical one of our own experience, as ruling
over the whole and constituting one of its eternal
## p. 247 (#267) ############################################
THE ETERNAL RECURRENCE
247
characteristics. -All chemical qualities might have
been evolved and might disappear and return.
In-
numerablecharacteristics might have been developed
which for us,—from our limited point of view in
time and space, defy observation. The transfor-
mation of a chemical quality may perhaps now be
taking place, but so slowly that it escapes our most
delicate calculations,
19
Inorganic matter, even though in most cases it
may once have been organic, can have stored up no
experience,—it is always without a past! If the
reverse were the case a repetition would be impos-
sible—for then matter would for ever be producing
new qualities with new pasts.
20
We must guard against ascribing any aspiration
or any goal to this circular process: Likewise we
must not, from the point of view of our own needs,
regard it as either monotonous or foolish, &c. We
may grant that the greatest possible irrationality, as
also its reverse, may be an essential feature of it :
but we must not value it according to this hypo-
thesis. Rationality or irrationality cannot stand as
attributes of the universe. We must not think of
the law of this circular process as a thing evolved,
by drawing false analogies with the circular motions
occurring within the circle. There was no primitive
chaos followed gradually by a more harmonious and
finally definite circular motion of all forces : On
the contrary everything is eternal and unevolved.
If there ever was a chaos of forces, then that chaos
## p. 248 (#268) ############################################
248
THE ETERNAL RECURRENCE
itself was eternal and was repeated at its particular
moment of time in the turn of the world wheel. The
circular process is not the outcome of evolution, it
is a primitive principle like the quantum of energy,
and allows of no exception or violation. All Be-
coming takes place within the circular process and
the quantum of energy which constitutes it: there-
fore we must not apply ephemeral processes like
those for instance of heavenly bodies, of the ebb and
flow of tides, of day and night, of the seasons, to the
drawing of analogies for characterising the eternal
circular process.
21
The “chaos of the universe,” inasmuch as it ex-
cludes any aspiration to a goal, does not oppose the
thought of the circular process: the latter is simply
an irrational necessity, absolutely free from any
formal ethical or ästhetical significance. Arbi-
trariness in small things as in great is completely
lacking here.
22
Let us guard against believing that the universe
has a tendency to attain to certain forms, or that
it aims at becoming more beautiful, more perfect,
more complicated! All that is anthropomorphism !
Anarchy, ugliness, form - are unrelated concepts.
There is no such thing as imperfection in the realm
of mechanics.
Everything has returned : Sirius, and the spider,
and thy thoughts at this moment, and this last
thought of thine that all these things will return.
## p. 249 (#269) ############################################
THE ETERNAL RECURRENCE
249
23
Our whole world consists of the ashes of an incal-
culable number of living creatures: and even if
living matter is ever so little compared with the
whole, everything has already been transformed
into life once before and thus the process goes on.
If we grant eternal time we must assume the eternal
change of matter.
24
Whoever thou mayest be, beloved stranger, whom
I meet here for the first time, avail thyself of this
happy hour and of the stillness around us, and above
us, and let me tell thee something of the thought
which has suddenly risen before me like a star which
would fain shed down its rays upon thee and every
one, as befits the nature of light. -
a
25
The world of energy suffers no diminution : other-
:
wise with eternal time it would have grown weak
and finally have perished altogether. The world of
energy suffers no stationary state, otherwise this
would already have been reached, and the clock of
the universe would be at a standstill. The world
of energy does not therefore reach a state of equi-
librium; for no instant in its career has it had rest;
its energy and its movement have been the same
for all time. Whatever state this world could have
reached must ere now have been attained, and not
only once but an incalculable number of times. This
applies to this very moment. It has already been
here once before, and several times, and will recur
1
## p. 250 (#270) ############################################
250
THE ETERNAL RECURRENCE
in the same way, with all forces distributed as they
are to-day: and the same holds good of the moment
of time which bore the present and of that which
shall be the child of the present. Fellow-man!
Your whole life, like a sandglass, will always be re-
versed and will ever run out again,-a long minute
of time will elapse until all those conditions out of
which you were evolved return in the wheel of the
cosmic process. And then you will find every pain
and every pleasure, every friend and every enemy,
every hope and every error, every
blade of
grass
and
every ray of sunshine once more, and the whole
fabric of things that makes up your life. This ring
in which you are but a grain will glitter afresh for
And in every one of these cycles of human
life there will be one hour where for the first time
one man, and then many, will perceive the mighty
thought of the eternal recurrence of all things :
and for mankind this is always the hour of Noon.
ever.
2. THE EFFECTS OF THE DOCTRINE UPON
MANKIND
26
How can we give weight to our inner life without
making it evil and fanatical towards people who
think otherwise. Religious belief is declining and
man is beginning to regard himself as ephemeral
and unessential, a point of view which is making
him weak; he does not exercise so much effort in
striving or enduring. What he wants is momentary
enjoyment. He would make things light for him-
self,—and a good deal of his spirit gets squandered
in this endeavour.
## p. 251 (#271) ############################################
THE ETERNAL RECURRENCE
- 251
1
27
The political mania at which I smile just as
į
merrily as my contemporaries smile at the religious
mania of former times is above all Materialism, a
belief in the world, and in the repudiation of a “Be-
yond,” of a "back-world. ” The object of those who
believe in the latter is the well-being of the ephemeral
individual: that is why Socialism is its fruit; for
with Socialism ephemeral individuals wish to secure
their happiness by means of socialisation. They
have no reason to wait, as those men had who
believed in eternal souls, in eternal development les mans
and eternal amelioration. My doctrine is : Live so
44
that thou mayest desire to live againsthat is thy
duty,—for in any case thou wilt live again! He
unto whom striving is the greatest happiness, let
him strive; he unto whom peace is the greatest
happiness, let him rest; he unto whom subordina-
tion, following, obedience, is the greatest happiness,
let him obey. All that is necessary is that he should
know what it is that gives him the highest happi-
ness, and to fight shy of no means! Eternity is at
stake!
28
“But if everything is necessary, what control have
I over my actions ? ” Thought and faith are a
form of ballast which burden thee in addition to other
burdens thou mayest have, and which are even more
weighty than the latter. Sayest thou that nutrition,
the land of thy birth, air, and society change thee
and deterinine thee? Well, thy opinions do this
to a much greater degree, for they even prescribe
end
ع۔
## p. 252 (#272) ############################################
252
THE ETERNAL RECURRENCE
thy nourishment, thy land of adoption, thy atmo-
sphere, and thy society for thee. —If thou ever
assimilatest the thought of thoughts it will also alter
thee. The question which thou wilt have to answer
before every deed that thou doest : “is this such a
deed as I am prepared to perform an incalculable
number of times? " is the best ballast.
29
The mightiest of all thoughts absorbs a good deal
of energy which formerly stood at the disposal of
other aspirations, and in this way it exercises a
modifying influence; it creates new laws of motion
in energy, though no new energy. But it is precisely
in this respect that there lies some possibility of
determining new emotions and new desires in men.
30
Let us try and discover how the thought that
something gets repeated has affected mankind
hitherto (the year, for instance, or periodical illnesses,
waking and sleeping, &c. ). Even supposing the re-
currence of the cycle is only a probability or a
possibility, even a thought, even a possibility, can
shatter us and transform us. It is not only feelings
and definite expectations that do this! See what
effect the thought of eternal damnation has had !
31
From the moment when this thought begins to
prevail all colours will change their hue and a new
history will begin.
## p. 253 (#273) ############################################
THE ETERNAL RECURRENCE
253
32
The history of the future: this thought will tend
to triumph ever more and more, and those who dis-
believe in it will be forced, according to their nature,
ultimately to die out.
He, alone, who will regard his existence as cap-
able of eternal recurrence will remain over : but
among such as these a state will be possible of which
the imagination of no utopist has ever dreamt!
-
33
Ye fancy that ye
will have a long rest ere your
second birth takes place,—but do not deceive your-
selves ! 'Twixt your last moment of consciousness
and the first ray of the dawn of your new life no
time will elapse,—as a flash of lightning will the
space go by, even though living creatures think it
is billions of years, and are not even able to reckon
it. Timelessness and immediate re-birth arc com-
patible, once intellect is eliminated!
34
Thou feelest that thou must soon take thy leave
perhaps—and the sunset glow of this feeling pierces
through thy happiness. Give heed to this sign : it
means that thou lovest life and thyself, and life as
it has hitherto affected thee and moulded thee,
and that thou cravest for its eternity-Non alia sed
hæc vita sempiterna !
Know also, that transiency singeth its short song
for ever afresh and that at the sound of the first
verse thou wilt almost die of longing when thou
thinkest that it might be for the last time.
## p. 254 (#274) ############################################
254
THE ETERNAL RECURRENCE
35
وشه
Let us stamp the impress of eternity upon our
lives! This thought contains more than all the
religions which taught us to contemn this life as a
thing ephemeral, which bade us squint upwards to
another and indefinite existence.
L!
hi
36
We must not strive after distant and unknown
states of bliss and blessings and acts of grace, but
we must live so that we would fain live again and
live for ever so, to all eternity ! Our duty is present
with us every instant.
!
37
The leading tendencies :(1) We must implant the
love of life, the love of every man's own life in
every conceivable way! However each individual
may understand this love of self his neighbour will
acquiesce, and will have to learn great tolerance
towards it : however much it may often run counter
to his taste,-provided the individual in question
really helps to increase his joy in his own life!
(2. ) We must all be one in our hostility towards
everything and everybody who tends to cast a slur
upon the value of life: towards all gloomy, dissatis-
fied and brooding natures. We must prevent these
from procreating! But our hostility itself must be
a means to our joy! Thus we shall laugh; we shall
mock and we shall exterminate without bitterness!
Let this be our mortal combat.
A CRITICISM OF CHRISTIANITY
223
secrecy of the conventicle, concepts as black as hell
such as the sacrifice of the innocent, the unio
mystica in the drinking of blood, above all the
slowly kindled fire of revenge, of Chandala revenge
—such things became master of Rome, the same
kind of religion on the pre-existent form of which
Epicurus had waged war. One has only to read
Lucretius in order to understand what Epicurus
combated, not Paganism, but“ Christianity,” that is
to say the corruption of souls through the concept
of guilt, through the concept of punishment and
immortality. He combated the subterranean cults,
the whole of latent Christianity—to deny immor-
tality was at that time a genuine deliverance. And
Epicurus had triumphed, every respectable thinker
in the Roman Empire was an Epicurean : then St
Paul appeared . . . St Paul, the Chandala hatred
against Rome, against “the world,” the Jew, the
eternal Jew par excellence, become flesh and genius.
What he divined was, how, by the help of the
small sectarian Christian movement, independent of
Judaism, a universal conflagration could be kindled ;
how, with the symbol of the “God on the Cross,”
everything submerged, everything secretly insurrec-
tionary, the whole offspring of anàrchical intrigues
could be gathered together to constitute an enor-
mous power. “For salvation is of the Jews. ”—
“
Christianity is the formula for the supersession, and
epitomising of all kinds of subterranean cults, that
of Osiris, of the Great Mother, of Mithras for
example: St Paul's genius consisted in his discovery
of this. In this matter his instinct was so certain,
that, regardless of doing violence to truth, he laid the
.
## p. 224 (#244) ############################################
224
THE ANTICHRIST
ideas by means of which those Chandala religions
fascinated, upon the very lips of the “ Saviour” he
had invented, and not only upon his lips,—that he
made out of him something which even a Mithras
priest could understand. . .
. . . This was his moment
of Damascus : he saw that he had need of the belief
in immortality in order to depreciate “the world,”
that the notion of “hell ” would become master of
Rome, that with a "Beyond” this life can be killed.
Nihilist and Christian,—they rhyme in German,
and they do not only rhyme.
59
The whole labour of the ancient world in vain :
I am at a loss for a word which could express my
feelings at something so atrocious. —And in view
of the fact that its labour was only preparatory,
that with adamantine self-consciousness it laid the
substructure, alone, to a work which was to last
millenniums, the whole significance of the ancient
world was certainly in vain! . . . What was the use
of the Greeks? what was the use of the Romans ?
-All the prerequisites of a learned culture, all the
scientific methods already existed, the great and
peerless art of reading well had already been
established—that indispensable condition to tradi-
tion, to culture and to scientific unity; natural
science hand in hand with mathematics and
mechanics was on the best possible road,--the
sense for facts, the last and most valuable of all
senses, had its schools, and its tradition was already
centuries old! Is this understood ? Everything
essential had been discovered to make it possible
## p. 225 (#245) ############################################
A CRITICISM OF CHRISTIANITY
225
for work to be begun :-methods, and this cannot
be said too often, are the essential thing, also the
most difficult thing, while they moreover have to
wage the longest war against custom and indo-
lence. That which to-day we have successfully
reconquered for ourselves, by dint of unspeakable
self-discipline—for in some way or other all of us
still have the bad instincts, the Christian instincts,
in our body,—the impartial eye for reality, the
cautious hand, patience and seriousness in the
smallest details, complete uprightness in know-
ledge,—all this was already there; it had been
there over two thousand years before! And in
addition to this there was also that excellent and
subtle tact and taste! Not in the form of brain
drilling! Not in the form of “German” culture
with the manners of a boor! But incarnate, mani-
festing itself in men's bearing and in their instinct,
-in short constituting reality. . . . All this in
vain! In one night it became merely a memory!
-The Greeks! The Romans! Instinctive nobility,
instinctive taste, methodic research, the genius of
organisation and administration, faith, the w to
the future of mankind, the great yea to all things
materialised in the imperium Romanum, become
visible to all the senses, grand style no longer
manifested in mere art, but in reality, in truth, in
life. —And buried in a night, not by a natural
catastrophe! Not stamped to death by Teutons
and other heavy-footed vandals! But destroyed
by crafty, stealthy, invisible anæmic vampires !
Not conquered, -- but only drained of blood! . . .
The concealed lust of revenge, miserable envy
.
.
-
15
## p. 226 (#246) ############################################
226
THE ANTICHRIST
1
become master! Everything wretched, inwardly
ailing, and full of ignoble feelings, the whole
Ghetto-world of souls, was in a trice uppermost !
-One only needs to read any one of the Christian
agitators-St Augustine, for instance,-in order to
realise, in order to sinell, what filthy fellows came
to the top in this movement. You would deceive
yourselves utterly if you supposed that the leaders
of the Christian agitation showed any lack of under-
standing :-Ah! they were shrewd, shrewd to the
point of holiness were these dear old Fathers of
the Church! What they lack is something quite
different. Nature neglected them,-it forgot to
give them a modest dowry of decent, of respectable
and of cleanly instincts. Between ourselves,
they are not even men. If Islam despises Christi-
anity, it is justified a thousand times over; for
Islam presupposes men.
-
60
Christianity destroyed the harvest we might
have reaped from the culture of antiquity, later it
also destroyed our harvest of the culture of Islam.
The wonderful Moorish world of Spanish culture,
which in its essence is more closely related to us,
and which appeals more to our sense and taste
than Rome and Greece, was trampled to death (-I
do not say by what kind of feet), why? —because it
owed its origin to noble, to manly instincts, because
it said yea to life, even that life so full of the rare
and refined luxuries of the Moors! . . . Later on
the Crusaders waged war upon something before
which it would have been more seemly in them to
## p. 227 (#247) ############################################
A CRITICISM OF CHRISTIANITY
227
grovel in the dust,-a culture, beside which even
our Nineteenth Century would seem very poor and
very “senile. ”—OL. course they wanted booty: the
Orient was rich. For goodness' sake let us
forget our prejudices ! Crusades—superior piracy,
that is all ! German nobility—that is to say, a
Viking nobility at bottom, was in its element in
such wars: the Church was only too well aware of
how German nobility is to be won.
German
nobility was always the “Swiss Guard” of the
Church, always at the service of all the bad instincts
of the Church ; but it was well paid for it all. . . .
Fancy the Church having waged its deadly war
upon everything noble on earth, precisely with the
help of German swords, German blood and courage !
A host of painful questions might be raised on this
point. German nobility scarcely takes a place in
the history of higher culture: the reason of this
is obvious Christianity, alcohol—the two great
means of corruption. As a matter of fact, choice
ought to be just as much out of the question between
Islam and Christianity, as between an Arab and a
Jew. The decision is already self-evident; nobody
is at liberty to exercise a choice in this matter. A
man is either of the Chandala or he is not.
“War with Rome to the knife! Peace and friend-
ship with Islam”: this is what that great free
spirit, that genius among German emperors,-
Frederick the Second, not only felt but also did.
What? Must a German in the first place be a
?
genius, a free-spirit, in order to have decent feelings?
I cannot understand how a German was ever able
to have Christian feelings.
## p. 228 (#248) ############################################
228
THE ANTICHRIST
61
.
Here it is necessary to revive a memory which
will be a hundred times more painful to Germans.
The Germans have destroyed the last great harvest
of culture which was to be garnered for Europe,
it destroyed the Renaissance. Does anybody at
last understand, will anybody understand what the
Renaissance was? The transvaluation of Christian
values, the attempt undertaken with all means, an
instincts and all genius to make the opposite values,
the noble values triumph. . Hitherto there has
been only this great war : there has never yet been
a more decisive question than the Renaissance,-my
question is the question of the Renaissance :—there
has never been a more fundamental, a more direct
and a more severe attack, delivered with a whole
front upon the centre of the foe. To attack at the
decisive quarter, at the very seat of Christianity,
and there to place noble values on the throne,—that
is to say, to introduce them into the instincts, into
the most fundamental needs and desires of those
sitting there. . . . I see before me a possibility
perfectly magic in its charm and glorious colouring
-it seems to me to scintillate with all the quiver-
ing grandeur of refined beauty, that there is an art
at work within it which is so divine, so infernally
divine, that one might seek through millenniums in
vain for another such possibility; I see a spectacle
so rich in meaning and so wonderfully paradoxical
to boot, that it would be enough to make all the
gods of Olympus rock with immortal laughter,
Cæsar Borgia as Pope. . . . Do you understand me?
O
## p. 229 (#249) ############################################
A CRITICISM OF CHRISTIANITY
229
Very well then, this would have been the
triumph which I alone am longing for to-day :
this would have swept Christianity away! —What
happened? A German monk, Luther, came to
Rome. This monk, with all the vindictive instincts
of an abortive priest in his body, foamed with rage
over the Renaissance in Rome. . . . Instead of, with
the profoundest gratitude, understanding the vast
miracle that had taken place, the overcoming of
Christianity at its headquarters,—the fire of his hate
knew only how to draw fresh fuel from this spectacle.
A religious man thinks only of himself. —Luther
saw the corruption of the Papacy when the very
reverse stared him in the face: the old corruption,
the peccatum originale, Christianity no longer sat
upon the Papal chair! But Life! The triumph
of Life! The great yea to all lofty, beautiful and
daring things! And Luther reinstated the
Church; he attacked it. The Renaissance thus
became an event without meaning, a great in vain
-Ah these Germans, what have they not cost us
already! In vain—this has always been the achieve-
ment of the Germans. —The Reformation, Leibniz,
Kant and so-called German philosophy, the Wars
of Liberation, the Empire—in each case are in vain
for something which had already existed, for some-
thing which cannot be recovered. . . . I confess it,
these Germans are my enemies : I. despise every
sort of uncleanliness in concepts and valuations in
them, every kind of cowardice in the face of every
honest yea or nay. For almost one thousand years,
now, they have tangled and confused everything
they have laid their hands on; they have on their
.
.
## p. 230 (#250) ############################################
230
THE ANTICHRIST
conscience all the half-measures, all the three-eighth
measures of which Europe is sick ; they also have
the most unclean, the most incurable, and the most
irrefutable kind of Christianity-Protestantism--on
their conscience. . . . If we shall never be able to
get rid of Christianity, the Germans will be to blame.
62
-With this I will now conclude and pronounce
my judgment. I condemn Christianity and confront
it with the most terrible accusation that an accuser
has ever had in his mouth. To my mind it is the
greatest of all conceivable corruptions, it has had
the will to the last imaginable corruption. The
Christian Church allowed nothing to escape from
its corruption; it converted every value into its
opposite, every truth into a lie, and every honest
impulse into an ignominy of the soul. Let anyone
dare to speak to me of its humanitarian blessings !
To abolish any sort of distress was opposed to its
profoundest interests; its very existence depended
on states of distress; it created states of distress in
order to make itself immortal. . . . The cancer germ
of sin, for instance: the Church was the first to en-
rich mankind with this misery! —The “equality of
souls before God,” this falsehood, this pretext for the
rancunes of all the base-minded, this anarchist bomb
of a concept, which has ultimately become the re-
volution, the modern idea, the principle of decay of
the whole of social order,—this is Christian dyna-
mite. . . . The “humanitarian" blessings of Chris-
tianity! To breed a self-contradiction, an art of
self-profanation, a will to lie at any price, an aversion,
-
## p. 231 (#251) ############################################
A CRITICISM OF CHRISTIANITY
231
1
a contempt of all good and honest instincts out of
humanitas! Is this what you call the blessings of
Christianity ? —Parasitism as the only method of the
Church; sucking all the blood, all the love, all the
hope of life out of mankind with anæmic and sacred
ideals. A “Beyond” as the will to deny all reality;
the cross as the trade-mark of the most subterranean
form of conspiracy that has ever existed,-against
health, beauty, well-constitutedness, bravery, intel-
lect, kindliness of soul, against Life itself. .
This eternal accusation against Christianity I
would fain write on all walls, wherever there are
walls,- I have letters with which I can make even
the blind see. . . . I call Christianity the one great
curse, the one enormous and innermost perversion,
the one great instinct of revenge, for which no means
are too venomous, too underhand, too underground
and too petty,–I call it the one immortal blemish
of mankind.
And time is reckoned from the dies nefastus
upon which this fatality came into being—from the
first day of Christianity ! -why not rather from its
last day? -From to-day? -Transvaluation of all
Values ! . .
## p. 232 (#252) ############################################
## p. 233 (#253) ############################################
THE ETERNAL RECURRENCE
AND
EXPLANATORY NOTES TO
THUS SPAKE ZARATHUSTRA. ”
## p. 234 (#254) ############################################
## p. 235 (#255) ############################################
TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE
THE notes concerning the Eternal Recurrence, in
this volume, are said by Mrs Foerster-Nietzsche to
have been the first that Nietzsche ever wrote on the
subject of his great doctrine. This being so, they
must have been composed towards the autumn of
the year 1881.
I have already pointed out elsewhere (Will to
Power, vol. ii. , Translator's Preface) how much im-
portance Nietzsche himself ascribed to this doctrine,
and how, until the end, he regarded it as the inspira-
tion which had led to his chief work, Thus Spake
Zarathustra. For the details relating to its incep-
tion, however, I would refer the reader to Mrs
Foerster-Nietzsche's Introduction to her brother's
chief work, which was translated for the eleventh
volume of this Edition of the Complete Works.
In reading these notes it would be well to refer
to Nietzsche's other utterances on the subject which
are to be found at the end of vol. ii. of the Will to
Power, and also, if possible, to have recourse to the
original German text. Despite the greatest care, I
confess that in some instances, I have felt a little
doubt as to the precise English equivalent for the
thoughts expressed under the heading Eternal Re-
currence; and, though I have attributed this difficulty
to the extreme novelty of the manner in which the
335
## p. 236 (#256) ############################################
236
THE ETERNAL RECURRENCE
subject is presented, it is well that the reader should
be aware that such doubt has been entertained.
For I disbelieve utterly in mere verbal translation,
however accurate, and would question anybody's
right to convert a German sentence into English-
even though he were so perfect in both languages as
to be almost absolutely bilingual, if he did not
completely grasp the thought behind the sentence.
The writing of the collected Explanatory Notes to
Thus Spake Zarathustra, cannot be given any exact
date. Some of them consist of comments, written
down by Nietzsche after the completion of the book,
and kept as the nucleus of an actual commentary
to Zarathustra, which it seems to have been his in-
tention, one day, to write; while others are merely
memoranda and rough sketches, probably written
before the completion of the work, and which served
the purpose of a draft of his original plan. The
reader who knows Thus Spake Zarathustra will be
able to tell wherein the book ultimately differed
from the plan visible in these preliminary notes.
As an authoritative, though alas! all too frag-
mentary elucidation of a few of the more obscure
passages of Zarathustra, some of these notes are of
the greatest value; and, in paragraph 73, for in-
stance, there is an interpretation of the Fourth and
Last Part, which I myself would have welcomed
with great enthusiasm, at the time when I was
having my first struggles with the spirit of this
great German sage's life work.
ANTHONY M. LUDOVICI.
## p. 237 (#257) ############################################
I. ETERNAL RECURRENCE
1. THE DOCTRINE EXPOUNDED AND
SUBSTANTIATED.
I
The extent of universal energy is limited; it is not
“infinite”: we should beware of such excesses in
our concepts! Consequently the number of states,
changes, combinations, and evolutions of this energy,
although it may be enormous and practically incal-
culable, is at any rate_definite and not unlimited.
The time, however, in which this universal energy
works its changes is infinite—that is to say, energy
remains eternally the same and is eternally active:-
at this moment an infinity has already elapsed, that
is to say, every possible evolution must already have
taken place. Consequently the present process of
evolution must be a repetition, as was also the one
before it, as will also be the one which will follow.
And so on forwards and backwards! Inasmuch as
the entire state of all forces continually returns,
Xeverything has existed an infinite number of times.
Whether, apart from this, anything exactly like
something that formerly existed has ever appeared,
is completely beyond proof. It would seem that
each complete state of energy forms all qualities
afresh even to the smallest degree, so that two dif-
ferentcompletestates could have nothing in common.
237
## p. 238 (#258) ############################################
238
THE ETERNAL RECURRENCE
Is it to be supposed that in one and the same com-
plete states two precisely similar things could appear
-for instance two leaves ? I doubt it: it would
take for granted that they had both had an abso-
lutely similar origin, and in that case we should have
to assume that right back in infinity two similar
things had also existed despite all the changes in the
complete states and their creation of new qualities
-an impossible assumption.
2
Formerly it was thought that unlimited energy
was a necessary corollary to unlimited activity in
time, and that this energy could be exhausted by
no form of consumption. Now it is thought that
energy remains constant and does not require to
be infinite. It is eternally active but it is no longer
able eternally to create new forms, it must repeat
itself: that is my conclusion.
3
Anincalculablenumber ofcompletestatesofenergy
have existed, but these have not been infinitely dif-
ferent: for if they had been, unlimited energy would
have been necessary. The energy of the universe
can only have a given number of possible qualities.
4
The endless evolution of new forms is a contra-
diction, for it would implyeternallyincreasing energy.
But whence would it grow? Whence would it de-
rive its nourishment and its surplus of nourishment?
## p. 239 (#259) ############################################
THE ETERNAL RECURRENCE
239
The assumption that the universe is an organism
contradicts the very essence of the organic.
5
In what principle and belief is that decisive turn-
ing point in philosophical thought best expressed
which has come into being thanks to the preponder-
ance of the scientific spirit over the religious and
God-creating one? We insist upon the fact that
the world as a sum of energy must not be regarded
as unlimited—we forbid ourselves the concept in-
finite energy, because it seems incompatible with
the concept energy.
6
An unlimited number of new changes and states
on the part of limited energy is a contradiction,
however extensive one may imagine it to be, and
however economical the changes may be, provided
it is infinite. We are therefore, forced to conclude:
(1) either that the universe began its activity at a
given moment of time and will end in a similar
fashion,—but the beginning of activity is absurd;
if a state of equilibrium had been reached it would
have persisted to all eternity ;(2) Or there is no such
thing as an endless number of changes, but a circle
consisting of a definite number of them which con-
a
tinually recurs : activity is eternal, the number of
the products and states of energy is limited.
1
7
If all the possible combinations and relations of
forces had not already been exhausted, then an
infinity would not yet lie behind us. Now since
## p. 240 (#260) ############################################
240
THE ETERNAL RECURRENCE
infinite time must be assumed, no fresh possibility can
exist and everything must have appeared already,
and moreover an infinite number of times.
a
8
The present world of forces leads back to a state
of greatest simplicity in these forces: it likewise
leads forwards to such a state,—cannot and must
not both states be identical? No incalculable
number of states can evolve out of a system of
limited forces, that is to say, out of a given quantity
of energy which may be precisely measured. Only
when we falsely assume that space is unlimited,
and that therefore energy gradually becomes dissi-
pated, can the final state be an unproductive and
lifeless one.
9
First principles. —The last physical state of energy
which we can imagine must necessarily be the first
also. The absorption of energy in latent energy
must be the cause of the production of the most
vital energy
For a highly positive state must
follow a negative state. Space like matter is a
subjective form, time is not. The notion of
space
first arose from the assumption that space could be
empty. But there is no such thing as empty space.
Everything is energy.
We cannot think of that which moves and that
which is moved together, but both these things
constitute matter and space. We isolate.
IO
Concerning the resurrection of the world. -Out
## p. 241 (#261) ############################################
THE ETERNAL RECURRENCE
241
of two negatives, when they are forces, a positive
arises. (Darkness comes of light opposed to light,
cold arises from warmth opposed to warmth, &c. ,
&c. )
II
An uncertain state of equilibrium occurs just as
seldom in nature as two absolutely equal triangles.
Consequently anything like a static state of energy
in general is impossible. If stability were possible
it would already have been reached.
I2
Either complete equilibrium must in itself be an
impossibility, or the changes of energy introduce
themselves in the circular process before that equi-
librium which is in itself possible has appeared. -
But it would be madness to ascribe a feeling of
self-preservation to existence ! And the same
applies to the conception of a contest of pain and
pleasure among atoms.
13
Physics supposes that energy may be divided
up: but every one of its possibilities must first be
adjusted to reality. There can therefore be no
question of dividing energy into equal parts; in
every one of its states it manifests a certain quality,
and qualities cannot be subdivided : hence a state
of equilibrium in energy is impossible.
14
If energy had ever reached a stage of equilibrium
that stage would have persisted: it has therefore
16
## p. 242 (#262) ############################################
242
THE ETERNAL RECURRENCE
never reached such a stage. The present condition
of things contradicts this assumption. If we assume
that there has ever been a state absolutely like the
present one this assumption is in no wise refuted
by the present state. For, among all the endless
possibilities, this case must already have occurred,
as an infinity is already behind us. If equilibrium
were possible it would already have been reached. -
And if this momentary state has already existed
then that which bore it and the previous one also
would likewise have existed and so on backwards,
-and from this it follows that it has already existed
not only twice but three times, just as it will exist
again not only twice but three times,-in fact an
infinite number of times backwards and forwards.
That is to say, the whole process of Becoming con-
sists of a repetition of a definite number of precisely
similar states. —Clearly the human brain cannot be
left to imagine the whole series of possibilities: but
in any case, quite apart from our ability to judge or
our inability to conceive the whole range of possi-
bilities, the present state at least is a possible one-
because it is a real one.
We should therefore say:
in the event of the number of possibilities not being
infinite, and assuming that in the course of unlimited
time a limited number of these must appear, all real
states must have been preceded by similar states ?
Because from every given moment a whole infinity is
to be calculated backwards ? The stability of forces
and their equilibrium is a possible alternative: but
it has not been reached ; consequently the number
of possibilities is greater than the number of real
states. The fact that nothing similar recurs could
## p. 243 (#263) ############################################
THE ETERNAL RECURRENCE
243
a
not be explained by appealing to accident, but only
by supposing that a certain intention, that no similar
things should recur, were actually inherent in the
essence of energy: for, if we grant that the number
of cases is enormous, the occurrence of like cases is
more probable than absolute disparity.
15
Let us think backwards a moment. If the world
had a goal, this goal must have been reached : if a
certain (unintentional) final state existed for the
world, this state also would have been reached. If
it were in any way capable of a stationary or stable
condition, and if in the whole course of its existence
only one second of Being, in the strict sense of the
word, had been possible, then there could no longer
be such a process as evolution, and therefore no
thinking and no observing of such a process. If on
the other hand the world were something which con-
tinually renovated itself, it would then be understood
to be something miraculous and free to create itself
-in fact something divine. Eternal renovation pre-
supposes that energy voluntarily increases itself, that
it not only has the intention, but also the power, to
avoid repeating itself or to avoid returning into a
previous form, and that every instant it adjusts itself
in every one of its movements to prevent such a con-
tingency,—or that it was incapable of returning to
a state it had already passed through. That would
mean that the whole sum of energy was not constant,
any more than its attributes were. But a sum of
energy which would be inconstant and which would
fluctuate is quite unthinkable. Let us not indulge
1
## p. 244 (#264) ############################################
244
THE ETERNAL RECURRENCE
our fancy any longer with unthinkable things in
order to fall once more before the concept of a
Creator (multiplication out of nothing, reduction out
of nothing, absolute arbitrariness and freedom in
growth and in qualities) :-
16
He who does not believe in the circular process
of the universe must pin his faith to an arbitrary
God—thus my doctrine becomes necessary as op-
posed to all that has been said hitherto in matters
of Theism.
17
The hypothesis which I would oppose to that of
the eternal circular process :—Would it be just as
possible to explain the laws of the mechanical world
as exceptions and seemingly as accidents among the
things of the universe, as one possibility only among
an incalculable number of possibilities? Would it
be possible to regard ourselves as accidentally thrust
into this corner of the mechanical universal arrange-
ment? —That all chemical philosophy is likewise an
exception and an accident in the world's economy,
and finally that organic life is a mere exception and
accident in the chemical world? Should we have
to assume as the most general form of existence
a world which was not yet mechanical, which was
outside all mechanical laws (although accessible to
them)? —and that as a matter of fact this world
would be the most general now and for evermore,
so that the origin of the mechanical world would be
a lawless game which would ultimately acquire such
consistency as the organic laws seem to have now
## p. 245 (#265) ############################################
THE ETERNAL RECURRENCE
245
from our point of view ? So that all our mechanical
laws would be not eternal, but evolved, and would
havesurvived innumerable different mechanical laws,
or that they had attained supremacy in isolated
corners of the world and not in others ? _It would
seem that we need caprice, actual lawlessness, and
only a capacity for law, a primeval state of stupidity
which is not even able to concern itself with
mechanics ? The origin of qualities presupposes the
existence of quantities, and these, for their part,
might arise from a thousand kinds of mechanical
processes.
Is not the existence of some sort of irregularity
and incomplete circular form in the world about us,
a sufficient refutation of the regular circularity of
everything that exists? Whence comes this variety
within the circular process ? Is not everything far
too complicated to have been the outcome of unity?
And are not the many chemical laws and likewise
the organic species and forms inexplicable as the
result of homogeneity? or of duality ? —Supposing
there were such a thing as a regular contracting
energy in all the centres of force in the universe,
the question would be, whence could the most in-
significant difference spring? For then the whole
world would have to be resolved into innumerable
completely equal rings and spheres of existence and
we should have an incalculable number of exactly
equal worlds side by side. Is it necessary for me
to assume this? Must I suppose that an eternal
sequence of like worlds also involves eternal juxta-
position of like worlds ? But the multifariousness
and disorder in the world which we have known
1
## p. 246 (#266) ############################################
246
THE ETERNAL RECURRENCE
hitherto contradicts this; no such universal similarity
has existed in evolution, for in that case even for
our part of the cosmos a regular spherical form
must have been formed. Should the production of
qualities not be subject to any strict laws ? Can it
be possible that different things have been derived
from “energy”? Arbitrarily? Is the conformity
to law which we observe perhaps only a deception ?
Is it possible that it is not a primeval law? Is it
possible that the multifariousness of qualities even
in our part of the world is the result of the absolute
occurrence of arbitrary characteristics ? But that
these characteristics no longer appear in our corner
of the globe? Or that our corner of existence has
adopted a rule which we call cause and effect when
all the while it is no such thing (an arbitrary pheno-
menon become a rule, as for instance oxygen and
hydrogen in chemistry)? ? ? Is this rule simply a
protracted kind of mood ?
18
a
If the universe had been able to become an organ-
ism it would have become one already. As a whole
we must try and regard it in the light of a thing as
remote as possible from the organic. I believe that
even our chemical affinity and coherence may be
perhaps recently evolved and that these appearances
only occur in certain corners of the universe at cer-
tain epochs. Let us believe in absolute necessity
in the universe but let us guard against postulat-
ing any sort of law, even if it be a primitive and
mechanical one of our own experience, as ruling
over the whole and constituting one of its eternal
## p. 247 (#267) ############################################
THE ETERNAL RECURRENCE
247
characteristics. -All chemical qualities might have
been evolved and might disappear and return.
In-
numerablecharacteristics might have been developed
which for us,—from our limited point of view in
time and space, defy observation. The transfor-
mation of a chemical quality may perhaps now be
taking place, but so slowly that it escapes our most
delicate calculations,
19
Inorganic matter, even though in most cases it
may once have been organic, can have stored up no
experience,—it is always without a past! If the
reverse were the case a repetition would be impos-
sible—for then matter would for ever be producing
new qualities with new pasts.
20
We must guard against ascribing any aspiration
or any goal to this circular process: Likewise we
must not, from the point of view of our own needs,
regard it as either monotonous or foolish, &c. We
may grant that the greatest possible irrationality, as
also its reverse, may be an essential feature of it :
but we must not value it according to this hypo-
thesis. Rationality or irrationality cannot stand as
attributes of the universe. We must not think of
the law of this circular process as a thing evolved,
by drawing false analogies with the circular motions
occurring within the circle. There was no primitive
chaos followed gradually by a more harmonious and
finally definite circular motion of all forces : On
the contrary everything is eternal and unevolved.
If there ever was a chaos of forces, then that chaos
## p. 248 (#268) ############################################
248
THE ETERNAL RECURRENCE
itself was eternal and was repeated at its particular
moment of time in the turn of the world wheel. The
circular process is not the outcome of evolution, it
is a primitive principle like the quantum of energy,
and allows of no exception or violation. All Be-
coming takes place within the circular process and
the quantum of energy which constitutes it: there-
fore we must not apply ephemeral processes like
those for instance of heavenly bodies, of the ebb and
flow of tides, of day and night, of the seasons, to the
drawing of analogies for characterising the eternal
circular process.
21
The “chaos of the universe,” inasmuch as it ex-
cludes any aspiration to a goal, does not oppose the
thought of the circular process: the latter is simply
an irrational necessity, absolutely free from any
formal ethical or ästhetical significance. Arbi-
trariness in small things as in great is completely
lacking here.
22
Let us guard against believing that the universe
has a tendency to attain to certain forms, or that
it aims at becoming more beautiful, more perfect,
more complicated! All that is anthropomorphism !
Anarchy, ugliness, form - are unrelated concepts.
There is no such thing as imperfection in the realm
of mechanics.
Everything has returned : Sirius, and the spider,
and thy thoughts at this moment, and this last
thought of thine that all these things will return.
## p. 249 (#269) ############################################
THE ETERNAL RECURRENCE
249
23
Our whole world consists of the ashes of an incal-
culable number of living creatures: and even if
living matter is ever so little compared with the
whole, everything has already been transformed
into life once before and thus the process goes on.
If we grant eternal time we must assume the eternal
change of matter.
24
Whoever thou mayest be, beloved stranger, whom
I meet here for the first time, avail thyself of this
happy hour and of the stillness around us, and above
us, and let me tell thee something of the thought
which has suddenly risen before me like a star which
would fain shed down its rays upon thee and every
one, as befits the nature of light. -
a
25
The world of energy suffers no diminution : other-
:
wise with eternal time it would have grown weak
and finally have perished altogether. The world of
energy suffers no stationary state, otherwise this
would already have been reached, and the clock of
the universe would be at a standstill. The world
of energy does not therefore reach a state of equi-
librium; for no instant in its career has it had rest;
its energy and its movement have been the same
for all time. Whatever state this world could have
reached must ere now have been attained, and not
only once but an incalculable number of times. This
applies to this very moment. It has already been
here once before, and several times, and will recur
1
## p. 250 (#270) ############################################
250
THE ETERNAL RECURRENCE
in the same way, with all forces distributed as they
are to-day: and the same holds good of the moment
of time which bore the present and of that which
shall be the child of the present. Fellow-man!
Your whole life, like a sandglass, will always be re-
versed and will ever run out again,-a long minute
of time will elapse until all those conditions out of
which you were evolved return in the wheel of the
cosmic process. And then you will find every pain
and every pleasure, every friend and every enemy,
every hope and every error, every
blade of
grass
and
every ray of sunshine once more, and the whole
fabric of things that makes up your life. This ring
in which you are but a grain will glitter afresh for
And in every one of these cycles of human
life there will be one hour where for the first time
one man, and then many, will perceive the mighty
thought of the eternal recurrence of all things :
and for mankind this is always the hour of Noon.
ever.
2. THE EFFECTS OF THE DOCTRINE UPON
MANKIND
26
How can we give weight to our inner life without
making it evil and fanatical towards people who
think otherwise. Religious belief is declining and
man is beginning to regard himself as ephemeral
and unessential, a point of view which is making
him weak; he does not exercise so much effort in
striving or enduring. What he wants is momentary
enjoyment. He would make things light for him-
self,—and a good deal of his spirit gets squandered
in this endeavour.
## p. 251 (#271) ############################################
THE ETERNAL RECURRENCE
- 251
1
27
The political mania at which I smile just as
į
merrily as my contemporaries smile at the religious
mania of former times is above all Materialism, a
belief in the world, and in the repudiation of a “Be-
yond,” of a "back-world. ” The object of those who
believe in the latter is the well-being of the ephemeral
individual: that is why Socialism is its fruit; for
with Socialism ephemeral individuals wish to secure
their happiness by means of socialisation. They
have no reason to wait, as those men had who
believed in eternal souls, in eternal development les mans
and eternal amelioration. My doctrine is : Live so
44
that thou mayest desire to live againsthat is thy
duty,—for in any case thou wilt live again! He
unto whom striving is the greatest happiness, let
him strive; he unto whom peace is the greatest
happiness, let him rest; he unto whom subordina-
tion, following, obedience, is the greatest happiness,
let him obey. All that is necessary is that he should
know what it is that gives him the highest happi-
ness, and to fight shy of no means! Eternity is at
stake!
28
“But if everything is necessary, what control have
I over my actions ? ” Thought and faith are a
form of ballast which burden thee in addition to other
burdens thou mayest have, and which are even more
weighty than the latter. Sayest thou that nutrition,
the land of thy birth, air, and society change thee
and deterinine thee? Well, thy opinions do this
to a much greater degree, for they even prescribe
end
ع۔
## p. 252 (#272) ############################################
252
THE ETERNAL RECURRENCE
thy nourishment, thy land of adoption, thy atmo-
sphere, and thy society for thee. —If thou ever
assimilatest the thought of thoughts it will also alter
thee. The question which thou wilt have to answer
before every deed that thou doest : “is this such a
deed as I am prepared to perform an incalculable
number of times? " is the best ballast.
29
The mightiest of all thoughts absorbs a good deal
of energy which formerly stood at the disposal of
other aspirations, and in this way it exercises a
modifying influence; it creates new laws of motion
in energy, though no new energy. But it is precisely
in this respect that there lies some possibility of
determining new emotions and new desires in men.
30
Let us try and discover how the thought that
something gets repeated has affected mankind
hitherto (the year, for instance, or periodical illnesses,
waking and sleeping, &c. ). Even supposing the re-
currence of the cycle is only a probability or a
possibility, even a thought, even a possibility, can
shatter us and transform us. It is not only feelings
and definite expectations that do this! See what
effect the thought of eternal damnation has had !
31
From the moment when this thought begins to
prevail all colours will change their hue and a new
history will begin.
## p. 253 (#273) ############################################
THE ETERNAL RECURRENCE
253
32
The history of the future: this thought will tend
to triumph ever more and more, and those who dis-
believe in it will be forced, according to their nature,
ultimately to die out.
He, alone, who will regard his existence as cap-
able of eternal recurrence will remain over : but
among such as these a state will be possible of which
the imagination of no utopist has ever dreamt!
-
33
Ye fancy that ye
will have a long rest ere your
second birth takes place,—but do not deceive your-
selves ! 'Twixt your last moment of consciousness
and the first ray of the dawn of your new life no
time will elapse,—as a flash of lightning will the
space go by, even though living creatures think it
is billions of years, and are not even able to reckon
it. Timelessness and immediate re-birth arc com-
patible, once intellect is eliminated!
34
Thou feelest that thou must soon take thy leave
perhaps—and the sunset glow of this feeling pierces
through thy happiness. Give heed to this sign : it
means that thou lovest life and thyself, and life as
it has hitherto affected thee and moulded thee,
and that thou cravest for its eternity-Non alia sed
hæc vita sempiterna !
Know also, that transiency singeth its short song
for ever afresh and that at the sound of the first
verse thou wilt almost die of longing when thou
thinkest that it might be for the last time.
## p. 254 (#274) ############################################
254
THE ETERNAL RECURRENCE
35
وشه
Let us stamp the impress of eternity upon our
lives! This thought contains more than all the
religions which taught us to contemn this life as a
thing ephemeral, which bade us squint upwards to
another and indefinite existence.
L!
hi
36
We must not strive after distant and unknown
states of bliss and blessings and acts of grace, but
we must live so that we would fain live again and
live for ever so, to all eternity ! Our duty is present
with us every instant.
!
37
The leading tendencies :(1) We must implant the
love of life, the love of every man's own life in
every conceivable way! However each individual
may understand this love of self his neighbour will
acquiesce, and will have to learn great tolerance
towards it : however much it may often run counter
to his taste,-provided the individual in question
really helps to increase his joy in his own life!
(2. ) We must all be one in our hostility towards
everything and everybody who tends to cast a slur
upon the value of life: towards all gloomy, dissatis-
fied and brooding natures. We must prevent these
from procreating! But our hostility itself must be
a means to our joy! Thus we shall laugh; we shall
mock and we shall exterminate without bitterness!
Let this be our mortal combat.
