(This is the fifth part of an essay from the book The Doctrine of Eternal Recurrence, presenting a previously unpublished genealogy of the thought of Eternal Recurrence in Nietzsche’s philosophizing. The first four parts of the essay can be read >> here.)

One may now ask: what did Nietzsche actually write in his notebooks during those days, in the wake of his “enlightenment” through an extraordinary insight? Under note 141 in volume 11 of the German edition of Nietzsche’s complete works, edited by Colli and Montinari (as well as in volume 6 of the English edition used here), we read:

The Recurrence of the Same.
Draft

1. The incorporation of basic errors.
2. The incorporation of passions.
3. The incorporation of knowing and of the knowing that renounces. (Passion of knowledge)
4. The innocent one. The individual as experiment. The alleviation of life, debasement, weakening – transition.
5. The new weight: the eternal recurrence of the same. Infinite importance of our knowing, erring, our habits, lifestyles for everything coming. What do we do with the rest of our life we who have. spent the greatest portion of it in the vastest ignorance? We teach the teaching- it is the strongest means of incorporating it into ourselves. Our kind of bliss, as teachers of the greatest teaching.

Beginning of August 1881 in Sils-Maria,
6000 feet above sea level and much higher above all
human affairs! –

For those who wish to follow the development of the thought firsthand, all of Nietzsche’s notes on Eternal Recurrence can be found here, arranged in chronological order.

This, then, is the famous first note found in Nietzsche’s notebooks that mentions the thought of Eternal Recurrence, and it is generally assumed that he wrote it immediately after the thought first occurred to him. Some sources – such as the small booklet about the Nietzsche-Haus, available for purchase in the house where he stayed in Sils-Maria – speculate that this happened sometime between 6 and 8 August 1881. Indeed, it is not difficult to imagine him jotting it down on a bench by the lake immediately after the experience, especially since it is well established that he carried these notebooks with him on his walks. Yet we have the impression that this may apply to the other notes, but not to the opening of this one. Why? Because it is remarkably measured and carefully composed. We suspect that several days must have passed between the moment of enlightenment and the writing of this note, for it already presents an astonishingly clear and comprehensive structure of what would become the very first draft of the Doctrine of Eternal Recurrence of the Same. It is not merely a description of his immediate reaction, mood, or psychological state after the experience, as in his letter to Peter Gast, nor is it an account of the genesis of the thought itself, which he would later recount seven years afterwards in Ecce Homo. Rather, it is the first attempt at systematically shaping the outline of a serious doctrine capable of transforming humanity’s perspective on nature as a whole.

Yet after the thoughtful and carefully rounded opening of note 141, its continuation – particularly the elaboration of point four, as well as the notes that follow – seems to reveal Nietzsche thinking aloud about this illuminating experience. One gains the impression that even he himself was not entirely certain how he ought to relate to the thought. The sentences are ambivalent, obscure, and at times even contradictory. Nevertheless, we must bear in mind that these are merely notebook entries never intended to become part of a finished work. As a “conversation of the thinker with himself,” they deserve to remain just that – notes which, had it been left to the philosopher himself, would probably never have been published. Yet for those of us today who wish to penetrate the very foundations of the thought with which they are concerned, their importance is immeasurable. In a sense, they demonstrate that the ideas that came to Nietzsche during his exhausting walks around the lake were later worked out in writing – that he thought through his notebooks as well – before eventually incorporating them into the books he would later publish.

There is not the slightest trace in these early notes of the initial exhilaration we know from his letter to Paul Gast. Instead, the possible consequences of the insight immediately take centre stage; immediately Nietzsche begins to reflect on how the doctrine can be incorporated into oneself – by teaching it to others. How might such an insight – that the world unfolds within the Eternal Recurrence of the Same, which for Nietzsche at that moment appears to constitute the only truth – affect both the individual and humanity as a whole?

One thing, however, stands out before all else: the word “incorporation” appears no fewer than four times in this outline. In the first three points it appears as the very first word, in the form of a verbal noun, while in the fifth it acquires its full significance: the doctrine must be taught precisely so that the Teacher may incorporate it into himself.

This naturally raises another question: how long did it take Nietzsche to digest this thought? Much later he himself admitted that it took time. If so, perhaps this first note was not written on the very day of the experience. Perhaps he wrote it a week or two later—or even after his letter to Peter Gast. For it will become evident that the word “incorporation” is closely connected with the possibility of assimilating and accepting the truth of Eternal Recurrence. If we wished to summarize this first note on Eternal Recurrence, we might put it this way: Can a human being incorporate the truth of Eternal Recurrence into himself in the same way that he has already incorporated the fundamental errors about the world, the passions, and the passion for knowledge? Ultimately, can one renounce the passion for knowledge itself?

The first two points of the outline clearly suggest that throughout history humanity has treated errors as fundamental truths in order to survive (Nietzsche had already written about them in The Birth of Tragedy), and that it was driven to do so by instincts, later sublimated into passions. Let us not forget that, for Nietzsche, thinking itself is a process that arises from instincts, just like everything else.

Be that as it may, in this very first published notebook entry written after the enlightening insight into Eternal Recurrence, Nietzsche considers two ways of enduring it. The first is to become a Teacher of Eternal Recurrence, for this is “the strongest means of incorporating it into ourselves.” The second is more enigmatic: to continue living “only for the sake of knowledge.” No, he was not joking.

What remains for a human being, burdened by such a terrifying insight, is to discover to what extent he can incorporate it within himself. For in the same note, in the elaboration of point four – which is considerably longer than the concise outline – Nietzsche writes that one must “wait and see how far knowledge and truth can be incorporated,” and whether “such a thing is at all possible.” For this reason, in his first encounter with the thought of Eternal Recurrence as the ultimate truth of existence, Nietzsche advises us to preserve the “sources and powers of knowledge – the original errors and passions,” so that through them we may look upon the world “with as many eyes as possible,” surrender ourselves to life, and then once again “temporarily rest our gaze” (whatever exactly that may mean).

What follows in the remainder of the elaboration of point four may, in the briefest possible terms, be described as an awakening to the dark side of this “terrible insight.” Nietzsche suddenly begins invoking a “surplus of joy” in life, because otherwise all that remains is “the destruction of ourselves as humanity.” “Do we still wish to live?” he asks. If the truth we have finally discovered is unbearable, and compels us to answer that question in the negative… what then?

He then turns once more to indifference. In an entire section, three times longer than the original outline and entitled The Philosophy of Indifference, we read: “Indifference must deeply permeate us, together with the pleasure of observing.” But how? The situation remains unclear. At these dramatic moments, one gains the impression that Nietzsche is struggling with all his might to make this thought acceptable, yet somehow failing to do so.

Finally, at the end of note 141, like a light at the end of a tunnel, there appears something that might prove “saving”:

To consider: the various sublime states that I had, as foundations of the various chapters and their material – as the regulator of the expression, presentation, pathos reigning in each chapter – thus gaining an illustration of my ideal, as it were through addition. And then upward!

This doctrine somehow had to be endured, and for that purpose Nietzsche seems, at the last moment, to have conceived the idea of taking from life its very best moments – those sublime states that are worth reliving and because of which he might be able to endure this truth. With the thought that his most beautiful moments would return again and again, this truth might perhaps become more bearable. Yet we are still far from discovering the true way in which this thought could genuinely be incorporated into the human being. And even in the notes that follow, as we shall see, Nietzsche still seems to wander uncertainly. It appears that he still does not know what to do with this thought; contradictory observations continue to occur to him. All this points to just how delicate these moments were for Nietzsche’s thinking as a whole. It is as though we have entered a war zone: on one side stands the thought, on the other the thinker; on one side an incomprehensible, unwieldy, terrifying thought, and on the other a thinker desperately trying to make it acceptable and to incorporate it into himself.