[2] This is an evangelical reminiscence, thinks Peter Gast. Scriptural suggestions are frequent in the language and thought of Nietzsche.
[3] The Dawn of Day, cxiv. This book, published in June, 1881, gives very reliable autobiographical indications on the period here studied.
[4] The Dawn of Day, p. 301. This passage is taken from Miss Johanna Volz's translation. London: T. Fisher Unwin.
[CHAPTER VI]
THE LABOUR OF ZARATHUSTRA
I
The Conception of the Eternal Return
Friedrich Nietzsche regarded The Dawn of Day as the exercise of a convalescent who amuses himself with desires and ideas, and finds in each a malicious or a delightful pleasure. It had been a game which must have an end. I must now choose from among these half-perceived ideas, he thought, I must lay hold of one, express it in its full force, and close my years of retreat and hesitation. "In times of peace," he had written, "the man of warlike instinct turns against himself." Hardly done with his combats, he sought a new occasion for battle.