and ecclesiastical governments. The “holy lie,” which is common to Confucius, to the law-book of Manu, to Muhamed, and to the Christian church, is not even absent in Plato. “Truth is here”; this phrase means, wherever it is uttered: _the priest lies..._ 56 After all, the question is, to what _end_ are falsehoods perpetrated?
The fact that, in Christianity, “holy” ends are entirely absent, constitutes _my_ objection to the means it employs. Its ends are only _bad_ ends: the poisoning, the calumniation and the denial of life, the contempt of the body, the degradation and self-pollution of man by virtue of the concept sin,—consequently its means are bad as well.—My feelings are quite the reverse when I read the law-book of _Manu, an_ incomparably superior and more intellectual work, which it would be a sin against the _spirit_ even to _mention_ in the same breath with the Bible. You will guess immediately why: it has a genuine philosophy behind it, _in_ it, not merely an evil-smelling Jewish distillation of Rabbinism and superstition,—it gives something to chew even to the most fastidious psychologist. And, _not_ to forget the most important point of all, it is fundamentally different from every kind of Bible: by means of it the _noble classes,_ the philosophers and the warriors guard and guide the masses; it is replete with noble values, it is filled with a feeling of perfection, with a saying of yea to life, and a triumphant sense of well-being in regard to itself and to life,—the sun shines upon the whole book.—All those things which Christianity smothers with its bottomless vulgarity: procreation, woman, marriage, are here treated with earnestness, with revere nee, with love and confidence. How can one possibly place in the hands of children and women, a book that contains those vile words: “to avoid fornication, let every man have his own wife, and let every woman have her own husband...it is better to marry than to burn.”[11] And is it decent to be a Christian so long as the very origin of man is Christianised,—that is to say, befouled, by the idea of the _immaculata conceptio?_...I know of no book in which so many delicate and kindly things are said to woman, as in the Law-Rook of Manu; these old grey-beards and saints have a manner of being gallant to women which, perhaps, cannot be surpassed. “The mouth of a woman,” says Manu on one occasion, “the breast of a maiden, the prayer of a child, and the smoke of the sacrifice, are always pure.” Elsewhere he says: “there is nothing purer than the light of the sun, the shadow cast by a cow, air, water, fire and the breath of a maiden.” And finally—perhaps this is also a holy lie:—“all the openings of the body above the navel are pure, all those below the navel are impure. Only in a maiden is the whole body pure.”
57 The unholiness of Christian means is caught _in flagranti,_ if only the end aspired to by Christianity be compared with that of the Law-Book of Manu; if only these two utterly opposed aims be put under a strong light The critic of Christianity simply cannot avoid making Christianity _contemptible._—A Law-Book like that of Manu comes into being like every good law-book: it epitomises the experience, the precautionary measures, and the experimental morality of long ages, it settles things definitely, it no longer creates. The prerequisite for a codification of this kind, is the recognition of the fact that the means which procure authority for a _truth_ to which it has cost both time and great pains to attain, are fundamentally different from those with which that same truth would be proved. A law-book never relates the utility, the reasons, the preliminary casuistry, of a law: for it would be precisely in this way that it would forfeit its imperative tone, the “thou shalt,” the first condition of its being obeyed. The problem lies exactly in this.—At a certain stage in the development of a people, the most far-seeing class within it (that is to say, the class that sees farthest backwards and forwards), declares the experience of how its fellow-creatures ought to live—_can_ live—to be finally settled. Its object is, to reap as rich and as complete a harvest as possible, in return for the ages of experiment and _terrible_ experience it has traversed. Consequently, that which has to be avoided, above all, is any further experimentation, the continuation of the state when values are still fluid, the testing, choosing, and criticising of values _in infinitum. _ Against all this a double wall is built up: in the first place, _Revelation,_ which is the assumption that the rationale of every law is not human in its origin, that it was not sought and found after ages of error, but that it is divine in its origin, completely and utterly without a history, gift, a miracle, a mere communication...And secondly, _tradition,_ which is the assumption that the law has obtained since the most primeval times, that it is impious and a crime against one’s ancestors to attempt to doubt it. The authority of law is established on the principles: God _gave_ it, the ancestors _lived_ it.—The superior reason of such a procedure lies in the intention to draw consciousness off step by step from that mode of life which has been recognised as correct (_i.e., proved_ after enormous and carefully examined experience), so that perfect automatism of the instincts may be attained,—this being the only possible basis of all mastery of every kind of perfection in the Art of Life. To draw up a law-book like Manu’s, is tantamount to granting a people mastership for the future, perfection for the future,—the right to aspire to the highest Art of Life. _To that end it must be made unconscious;_ this is the object of every holy lie.—_The order of castes,_ the highest, the dominating law, is only the sanction of a _natural order,_ of a natural legislation of the first rank, over which no arbitrary innovation, no “modern idea” has any power. Every healthy society falls into three distinct types, which reciprocally condition one another and which gravitate differently in the physiological sense; and each of these has its own hygiene, its own sphere of work, its own special feeling of perfection, and its own mastership. It is Nature, not Manu, that separates from the rest, those individuals preponderating in intellectual power, those excelling in muscular strength and temperament, and the third class which is distinguished neither in one way nor the other, the mediocre,—the latter as the greatest number, the former as the _élite._ The superior caste—I call them the _fewest,_—has, as the perfect caste, the privileges of the fewest: it devolves upon them to represent happiness, beauty and goodness on earth. Only the most intellectual men have the right to beauty, to the beautiful: only in them is goodness not weakness. _Pulchrum est paucorum hominum:_ goodness is a privilege.
On the other hand there is nothing which they should be more strictly forbidden than repulsive manners or a pessimistic look, a look that makes everything _seem ugly,_—or even indignation at the general aspect of things. Indignation is the privilege of the Chandala, and so is pessimism. “_The world is perfect_”—that is what the instinct of the most intellectual says, the yea-saying instinct; “imperfection, every kind of _inferiority_ to us, distance, the pathos of distance, even the Chandala belongs to this perfection.” The most intellectual men, as the _strongest_ find their happiness where others meet with their ruin: in the labyrinth, in hardness towards themselves and others, in endeavour; their delight is self-mastery: with them asceticism becomes a second nature, a need, an instinct They regard a difficult task as their privilege; to play with burdens which crush their fellows is to them a _recreation..._ Knowledge, a form of asceticism.—They are the most honourable kind of men: but that does not prevent them from being the most cheerful and most gracious. They rule, not because they will, but because they _are;_ they are not at liberty to take a second place.—The second in rank are the guardians of the law, the custodians of order and of security, the noble warriors, the king, above all, as the highest formula of the warrior, the judge, and keeper of the law. The second in rank are the executive of the most intellectual, the nearest to them in duty, relieving them of all that is _coarse_ in the work of ruling,—their retinue, their right hand, their best disciples. In all this, I repeat, there is nothing arbitrary, nothing “artificial,” that which is _otherwise_ is artificial,—by that which is otherwise, nature is put to shame...The order of castes, and the order of rank merely formulates the supreme law of life itself; the differentiation of the three types is necessary for the maintenance of society, and for enabling higher and highest types to be reared,—the _inequality_ of rights is the only condition of there being rights at all.—A right is a privilege. And in his way, each has his privilege. Let us not underestimate the privileges of the _mediocre._ Life always gets harder towards the summit,—the cold increases, responsibility increases. A high civilisation is a pyramid: it can stand only upon a broad base, its first prerequisite is a strongly and soundly consolidated mediocrity. Handicraft, commerce, agriculture, science, the greater part of art,—in a word, the whole range of professional and business callings, is compatible only with mediocre ability and ambition; such pursuits would be out of place among exceptions, the instinct pertaining thereto would oppose not only aristocracy but anarchy as well. The fact that one is publicly useful, a wheel, a function, presupposes a certain natural destiny: it is not _society,_ but the only kind of _happiness_ of which the great majority are capable, that makes them intelligent machines. For the mediocre it is a joy to be mediocre; in them mastery in one thing, a speciality, is a natural instinct. It would be absolutely unworthy of a profound thinker to see any objection in mediocrity _per se._ For in itself it is the first essential condition under which exceptions are possible; a high culture is determined by it. When the exceptional man treats the mediocre with more tender care than he does himself or his equals, this is not mere courtesy of heart on his part—but simply his _duty._...Whom do I hate most among the rabble of the present day? The socialistic rabble, the Chandala apostles, who undermine the working man’s instinct, his happiness and his feeling of contentedness with his insignificant existence,—who make him envious, and who teach him revenge...The wrong never lies in unequal rights; it lies in the claim to equal rights. What is _bad?_ But I have already replied to this: Everything that proceeds from weakness, envy and _revenge._—The anarchist and the Christian are offspring of the same womb...58 In point of fact, it matters greatly to what end one lies: whether one preserves or _destroys_ by means of falsehood. It is quite justifiable to bracket the _Christian_ and the _Anarchist_ together: their object, their instinct, is concerned only with destruction. The proof of this proposition can be read quite plainly from history: history spells it with appalling distinctness. Whereas we have just seen a religious legislation, whose object was to render the highest possible means of making life _flourish,_ and of making a grand organisation of society, eternal,—Christianity found its mission in putting an end to such an organisation, _precisely because life flourishes through it._ In the one case, the net profit to the credit of reason, acquired through long ages of experiment and of insecurity, is applied usefully to the most remote ends, and the harvest, which is as large, as rich and as complete as possible, is reaped and garnered: in the other case, on the contrary, the harvest is _blighted_ in a single night That which stood there, _ære perennius,_ the _imperium Romanum,_ the most magnificent form of organisation, under difficult conditions, that has ever been achieved, and compared with which everything that preceded, and everything which followed it, is mere patchwork, gimcrackery, and dilettantism,—those holy anarchists made it their “piety,” to destroy “the world”—that is to say, the _imperium Romanum,_ until no two stones were left standing one on the other,—until even the Teutons and other clodhoppers were able to become master of it The Christian and the anarchist are both decadents; they are both incapable of acting in any other way than disintegratingly, poisonously and witheringly, like _blood-suckers;_ they are both actuated by an instinct of _mortal hatred_ of everything that stands erect, that is great, that is lasting, and that is a guarantee of the future...Christianity was the vampire of the _imperium Romanum,_—in a night it shattered the stupendous achievement of the Romans, which was to acquire the territory for a vast civilisation which could _bide its time._—Does no one understand this yet? The _imperium Romanum_ that we know, and which the history of the Roman province teaches us to know ever more thoroughly, this most admirable work of art on a grand scale, was the beginning, its construction was calculated _to prove_ its worth by millenniums,—unto this day nothing has ever again been built in this fashion, nor have men even dreamt since of building on this scale _sub specie aterni!_—This organisation was sufficiently firm to withstand bad emperors: the accident of personalities must have nothing to do with such matters—the _first_ principle of all great architecture. But it was not sufficiently firm to resist the _corruptest_ form of corruption, to resist the Christians...These stealthy canker-worms, which under the shadow of night, mist and duplicity, insinuated themselves into the company of every individual, and proceeded to drain him of all seriousness for _real_ things, of all his instinct for _realities;_ this cowardly, effeminate and sugary gang have step by step alienated all “souls” from this colossal edifice,—those valuable, virile and noble natures who felt that the cause of Rome was their own personal cause, their own personal seriousness, their own personal _pride._ The stealth of the bigot, the secrecy of the conventicle, concepts as black as hell such as the sacrifice of the innocent, the _unto 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 immortality 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 insurrectionary, the whole offspring of anarchical intrigues could be gathered together to constitute an enormous 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 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 tradition, 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 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 indolence. 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 knowledge,—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, manifesting 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 _will_ 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 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 _smell,_ 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 understanding —Ah! they were shrewd, shrewd to the point of holiness were these dear old Fathers of the Church I 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 Christianity, 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 grovel in the dust,—a culture, beside which even our Nineteenth Century would seem very poor and very “senile.”—Of 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 friendship 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.
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, all 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 quivering 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?...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 _peceatum originate,_ 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 achievement 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 something 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 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 He, 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 enrich 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 revolution, the modern idea, the principle of decay of the whole of blessings of Christianity! To breed a self-contradiction, an art of self-profanation, a will to lie at any price, an aversion, 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, intellect, 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!...[1] The German “_Tüchtigkeit_” has a nobler ring than our word “efficiency.”—TR.
[2] _Cf._ Disraeli: “But enlightened Europe is not happy. Its existence is a fever which it calls progress. Progress to what?” (“Tancred,” Book III., Chap, vii.).—TR.
[3] It will be seen from this that in spite of Nietzsche’s ruthless criticism of the priests, he draws a sharp distinction between Christianity and the Church. As the latter still contained elements of order, it was more to his taste than the denial of authority characteristic of real Christianity.—TR.
[4] “_reine Thorheit_” in the German text, referring once again to Parsifal.—Tr.
[5] This applies apparently to Bismarck, the forger of the Ems telegram and a sincere Christian.—Tr.
Act 5, Sc. i.), the lion, as is well known, being the symbol for St Mark in Christian literature and Art—TR.
Sc. vi.): “_Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens._” (With stupidity even the gods themselves struggle in vain).—TR.
[8] ἒφεξις = Lat. Retentio, Inhibitio (Stephanus, Thesaurus Græcæ Linguæ); therefore: reserve, caution. The Greek Sceptics were also called Ephectics owing to their caution in judging and in concluding from facts.—TR.
[9] The following passage from Multatuti will throw light on this passage:— “Father:—‘Behold, my son, how wisely Providence has arranged everything! This bird lays its eggs in its nest and the young will be hatched just about the time when there will be worms and flies with which to feed them. Then they will sing a song of praise in honour of the Creator who overwhelms his creatures with blessings.’— “Son:—‘Will the worms join in the song, Dad?’”.—TR.
THE ETERNAL RECURRENCE AND EXPLANATORY NOTES TO “THUS SPAKE ZARATHUSTRA.”
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 importance Nietzsche himself ascribed to this doctrine, and how, until the end, he regarded it as the inspiration which had led to his chief work, _Thus Spake Zarathustra._ For the details relating to its inception, 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 Recurrence;_ and, though I have attributed this difficulty to the extreme novelty of the manner in which the 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 intention, 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 fragmentary 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 instance, 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.
I. ETERNAL RECURRENCE 1. THE DOCTRINE EXPOUNDED AND SUBSTANTIATED.
1.
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 incalculable, 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, everything 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 different complete states could have nothing in common. Is it to be supposed that in one and the same complete 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 absolutely 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 docs 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 An incalculable number of complete states of energy have existed,