Eternal Recurrence and Will to Power

Nietzsche's second main doctrine, Will to Power, can easily be construed as difficult to reconcile with Eternal Recurrence. Contrary to the most common understanding of it, Will to Power is not an endorsement of rapacity and brutality, but is primarily intended by Nietzsche as a rival to Will to Live as an hypothesis of human motivation, though he later extends it to not only all biological, but to all inorganic phenomena, as well. The source of the common misunderstanding is the unawareness that Nietzsche conceives 'Power' in its pure scientific sense, i. e. as equivalent to 'causal efficacy', of which the political variety is only a special case. Now, Will to Power interprets phenomena as linear and expansive, which seems to contradict the Eternal Recurrence interpretation of them as circular and constant. Possibly the only passage in which Nietsche tackles their relation directly is an untranslated fragment that seems to accord priority to Eternal Recurrence--it speculates that linearity and explansiveness are only localized characteristics of phenomena, subsequently subject to supervening erosion and contraction, e. g. autumn following upon summer, eventually returning them to their initial condition. However, this scientific account of their relation seems irrelevant to what is implied in more prominent passages. From the outset of its introduction, Nietzsche emphasizes that the idea of Eternal Recurrence is distinct from the affirmation of it. Furthermore, the latter process is fundamentally determined by momentary strength. And, though he does not state it explicitly in these passages, the exercise of strength is an expression of Will to Power. So, the central evidence suggests that for Nietzsche, Eternal Recurrence and Will to Power are two different explanatory orders, reminiscent of Kant's Nature-Freedom, or of Schopenhauer's Representation-Will pairs, respectively.