And you have another rationalist, one not sad or submissive, like
Spinoza, but rebellious, and though concealing a despair not less
bitter, making a hypocritical pretence of light-heartedness, you have
Nietzsche, who discovered _mathematically_ (!!!) that counterfeit of the
immortality of the soul which is called "eternal recurrence," and which
is in fact the most stupendous tragi-comedy or comi-tragedy. The number
of atoms or irreducible primary elements being finite and the universe
eternal, a combination identical with that which at present exists must
at some future time be reproduced, and therefore that which now is must
be repeated an infinite number of times. This is evident, and just as I
shall live again the life that I am now living, so I have already lived
it before an infinite number of times, for there is an eternity that
stretches into the past--_a parte ante_--just as there will be one
stretching into the future--_a parte post_. But, unfortunately, it
happens that I remember none of my previous existences, and perhaps it
is impossible that I should remember them, for two things absolutely and
completely identical are but one. Instead of supposing that we live in a
finite universe, composed of a finite number of irreducible primary
elements, suppose that we live in an infinite universe, without limits
in space--which concrete infinity is not less inconceivable than the
concrete eternity in time--then it will follow that this system of
ours, that of the Milky Way, is repeated an infinite number of times in
the infinite of space, and that therefore I am now living an infinite
number of lives, all exactly identical.
Pages:
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173