Granted that we _could_ appraise the value of existence, what would
be the result of it? The thought of recurrence is a principle _of
selection_ in the service of _power_ (and barbarity!).
The ripeness of man for this thought.
1059.
1. The thought of eternal recurrence: its first principles which must
necessarily be true if it were true. What its result is.
2. It is the most _oppressive_ thought: its probable results, provided
it be not prevented, that is to say, provided all values be not
transvalued.
3. The means of _enduring it:_ the transvaluation of all values.
Pleasure no longer to be found in certainty, but in uncertainty; no
longer "cause and effect," but continual creativeness; no longer
the will to self-preservation, but to power; no longer the modest
expression "it is all _only_ subjective," but "it is all _our_ work!
let us be proud of it."
1060.
In order to endure the thought of recurrence, freedom from morality
is necessary; new means against the _fact pain_ (pain regarded as
the instrument, as the father of pleasure; there is no accretive
consciousness of pain); pleasure derived from all kinds of uncertainty
and tentativeness, as a counterpoise to extreme fatalism; suppression
of the concept "necessity"; suppression of the "will"; suppression of
"absolute knowledge."
_Greatest elevation_ of man's _consciousness of strength,_ as that
which creates superman.
1061.
The two extremes of thought--the materialistic and the platonic--are
reconciled in _eternal recurrence_: both are regarded as ideals.
1062.
If the universe had a goal, that goal would have been reached by now.
If any sort of unforeseen final state existed, that state also would
have! been reached. If it were capable of any halting or stability of
any being, it would only have possessed this capability of becoming
stable for one instant in its development; and again becoming would
have been at an end for ages, and with it all thinking and all
"spirit." The fact of "intellects" being in a _state of development_
proves that the universe can have no goal, no final state, and is
incapable of being. But the old habit of thinking of some purpose in
regard to all phenomena, and of thinking of a directing and creating
deity in regard to the universe, is so powerful, that the thinker has
to go to great pains in order to avoid thinking of the very aimlessness
of the world as intended. The idea that the universe intentionally
evades a goal, and even knows artificial means wherewith it prevents
itself from falling into a circular movement, must occur to all those
who would fain attribute to the universe the capacity of eternally
regenerating itself--that is to say, they would fain impose upon a
finite, definite force which is invariable in quantity, like the
universe, the miraculous gift of renewing its forms and its conditions
_for all eternity._ Although the universe is no longer a God, it must
still be capable of the divine power of creating and transforming;
it must forbid itself to relapse into any one of its previous forms;
it must not only have the intention, but also the means, of avoiding
any sort of repetition, every second of its existence, even, it must
control every single one of its movements, with the view of avoiding
goals, final states, and repetitions and all the other results of such
an unpardonable and insane method of thought and desire. All this
is nothing more than the old religious mode of thought and desire,
which, in spite of all, longs to believe that in some way or other the
universe resembles the old, beloved, infinite, and infinitely-creative
God--that in some way or other "the old God still lives"--that longing
of Spinoza's which is expressed in the words "_deus sive natura_"
(what he really felt was "_natura sive deus_"). Which, then, is the
proposition and belief in which the decisive change, the present
_preponderance_ of the scientific spirit over the religious and
god-fancying spirit, is best formulated? Ought it not to be: the
universe, as force, must not be thought of as unlimited, because it
cannot be thought of in this way,--we forbid ourselves the concept
_infinite_ force, because it is _incompatible_ with the idea of force?
Whence it follows that the universe lacks the power of eternal renewal.
1063.
The principle of the conservation of energy inevitably involves
_eternal recurrence._
1064.
That a state of equilibrium has never been reached, proves that it is
impossible, but in infinite space it must have been reached. Likewise
in spherical space. The _form_ of space must be the cause of the
eternal movement, and ultimately of all imperfection. That "energy" and
"stability" and "immutability" are contradictory. The measure of energy
(dimensionally) is fixed though it is essentially fluid.
"That which is timeless" must be refuted, any given moment of energy,
the absolute conditions for a new distribution of all forces are
present, it cannot remain stationary. Change is part of its essence,
therefore time is as well; by this means, however, the necessity of
change has only been established once more in theory.
1065.
A certain emperor always bore the fleeting nature of all things in his
mind, in order not to value them too seriously, and to be able to live
quietly in their midst. Conversely, everything seems to me much too
important for it to be so fleeting, I seek an eternity for everything:
ought one to pour the most precious salves and wines into the sea? My
consolation is that everything that has been is eternal: the sea will
wash it up again.
1066.
_The new concept of the universe._ The universe exists; it is nothing
that grows into existence and that passes out of existence. Or, better
still, it develops, it passes away, but it never began to develop,
and has never ceased from passing away; it _maintains_ itself in both
states. It lives on itself, its excrements are its nourishment.
We need not concern ourselves for one instant with the hypothesis of a
_created_ world. The concept create is to-day utterly indefinable and
unrealisable; it is but a word which hails from superstitious ages,
nothing can be explained with a word. The last attempt that was made
to conceive of a world that _began_ occurred quite recently, in many
cases with the help of logical reasoning,--generally, too, as you will
guess, with an ulterior theological motive.
Several attempts have been made lately to show that the concept that
"the universe has an infinite past (_regressus in infinitum_) is
contradictory, it was even demonstrated, it is true, at the price
of confounding the head with the tail. Nothing can prevent me from
calculating backwards from this moment of time, and of saying: "I
shall never reach the end"; just as I can calculate without end in a
forward direction, from the same moment. It is only when I wish to
commit the error--I shall be careful to avoid it--of reconciling this
correct concept of a _regressus in infinitum_ with the absolutely
unrealisable concept of a finite _progressus_ up to the present; only
when I consider the direction (forwards or backwards) as logically
indifferent, that I take hold of the head--this very moment--and think
I hold the tail: this pleasure I leave to you, Mr. Dühring!...
I have come across this thought in other thinkers before me, and every
time I found that it was determined by other ulterior motives (chiefly
theological, in favour of a _creator spiritus)._ If the universe were
in any way able to congeal, to dry up, to perish; or if it were capable
of attaining to a state of equilibrium; or if it had any kind of goal
at all which a long lapse of time, immutability, and finality reserved
for it (in short, to speak metaphysically, if becoming could resolve
itself into being or into nonentity), this state ought already to have
been reached.
But it has not been reached: it therefore follows.... This is the only
certainty we can grasp, which can serve as a corrective to a host of
cosmic hypotheses possible in themselves. If, for instance, materialism
cannot consistently escape the conclusion of a finite state, which
William Thomson has traced out for it, then materialism is thereby
refuted.
If the universe may be conceived as a definite quantity of energy,
as a definite number of centres of energy,--and every other concept
remains indefinite and therefore useless,--it follows therefrom that
the universe must go through a calculable number of combinations in
the great game of chance which constitutes its existence. In infinity,
at some moment or other, every possible combination must once have
been realised; not only this, but it must have been realised an
infinite number of times. And inasmuch as between every one of these
combinations and its next recurrence every other possible combination
would necessarily have been undergone, and since every one of these
combinations would determine the whole series in the same order, a
circular movement of absolutely identical series is thus demonstrated:
the universe is thus shown to be a circular movement which has already
repeated itself an infinite number of times, and which plays its game
for all eternity.--This conception is not simply materialistic; for if
it were this, it would not involve an infinite recurrence of identical
cases, but a finite state. Owing to the fact that the universe has
not reached this finite state, materialism shows itself to be but an
imperfect and provisional hypothesis.
1067.
And do ye know what "the universe" is to my mind? Shall I show it
to you in my mirror? This universe is a monster of energy, without
beginning or end; a fixed and brazen quantity o; energy which grows
neither bigger nor smaller, which does not consume itself, but only
alters its face; as a whole its bulk is immutable, it is a household
without either losses or gains, but likewise without increase and
without sources of revenue, surrounded by nonentity as by a frontier,
it is nothing vague or wasteful, it does not stretch into infinity;
but it is a definite quantum of energy located in limited space,
and not in space which would be anywhere empty. It is rather energy
everywhere, the play of forces and force-waves, at the same time one
and many, agglomerating here and diminishing there, a sea of forces
storming and raging in itself, for ever changing, for ever rolling
back over in calculable ages to recurrence, with an ebb and flow of
its forms, producing the most complicated things out of the most
simple structures; producing the most ardent, most savage, and most
contradictory things out of the quietest, most rigid, and most frozen
material, and then returning from multifariousness to uniformity, from
the play of contradictions back into the delight of consonance, saying
yea unto itself, even in this homogeneity of its courses and ages; for
ever blessing itself as something which recurs for all eternity,--a
becoming which knows not satiety, or disgust, or weariness:--this, my
Dionysian world of eternal self-creation, of eternal self-destruction,
this mysterious world of twofold voluptuousness; this, my "Beyond Good
and Evil" without aim, unless there is an aim in the bliss of the
circle, without will, unless a ring must by nature keep goodwill to
itself,--would you have a name for my world? A _solution_ of all your
riddles? Do ye also want a light, ye most concealed, strongest and
most undaunted men of the blackest midnight?--_This world is the Will
to Power--and nothing else!_ And even ye yourselves are this will to
power--and nothing besides!