224 Nietzscheis not in fact new, because "the events are the dial," and hence any "new"
phase will repeat each event number by number.
Nietzsche found ample support for the woddview he espoused in
"Fate and History" in the writings of Schopenhauer. Although
Schopenhauer did not think in terms of physical reincarnation, he did
affirm the immortality of the essence of the will, which is embodied in
the world of phenomena in diverse and manifold forms and which
returns in that capacity. In The Birth of Tragedy, Nietzsche linked to this
his concept of the "eternal life of the core of existence, with the per-
petual destruction of phenomena" (1,59; BT% 8). Schopenhauer had
also invoked the image of time as an "endlessly revolving sphere"
(Schopenhauer 1,279), which deeply impressed Nietzsche, as did
Schopenhauer's characterization of the present as a Now that cannot be
lost in awareness. Schopenhauer saw the present as the vertically stream-
ing sun of an "eternal noon":^ cThe earth moves on from day to night;
the individual dies, but the sun itself burns without intermission, an
eternal noon" (Schopenhauer 1,281). For him, the fact that the present
cannot be lost meant that in the course of time everything can change,
except the form of existence in the present, which persists. The land-
scape is modified, but the window through which we look out at it
remains. And why should the stability of this window onto the present
be imperceptible to us? Schopenhauer meditated on this question. The
present, he explained, is the tangent that has one point of contact with
the circle of time. This point does not turn with the circle, but stays in
place, yielding an eternal present or eternal noon. Our problem is that
we look at the turning circle and not at the persistent point of contact
with the tangent, even though we can perceive this turning only in con-
trast with the persistent point We are the turning wheel as creatures in
time, but as presence of mind and attention we are ourselves the sun and
the eternal noon. That Nietzsche would use the image of eternal noon
in Zarathustra specifically in connection with the doctrine of eternal
recurrence shows how deeply he was affected by these ideas. The terms
"great" noon, and "noon and eternity" all appear in Zarathustra.