240 Nietzsche
corresponds to the ebb or to the flow. The desire for knowledge could
be regarded as ebb to the extent that it is a retreat from the temptation
to inundate reality with our own projections. Seen in this light, the flow
would then be an image analogous to the desire for desultory wander-
ing. An alternative interpretation is also possible, however, according to
which the desire for knowledge would represent the flow in contact with
reality, and the desire for desultory wandering would be the ebb, viewed
as a retreat into our own imaginary world (in lieu of the knowledge of
reality). The flow—like knowledge—sprays out and attacks, but the ebb,
the desire for desultory wandering, pulls back in a positively fearful man-
ner. Nietzsche took up this image of ebb and flow once again in a
remarkable aphorism of The Gay Science called "Will and Wave" (§310).
Here the metaphorical vacillation between the desire for knowledge and
the desire for desultory wandering is intensified and presented as an
unresolvable "mystery." "The wave creeps greedily into the innermost
recesses of the rocky cleft" and comes "back, somewhat more slowly,
still quite white with excitement—is it disappointed?" And the next
wave is already beginning the game all over again. Although the waves
are curious and have something to discover, they also have something to
hide. When they foam up in their eager curiosity, they form "a wall
between me and the sun... already nothing remains from the world
aside from green twilight and green lightning" (3,546; GS§ 310).
Nietzsche did not get beyond this metaphor, in which the desire for
knowledge and the desire for desultory wandering are interpreted as
contrary, and yet ultimately consistent, instinctual behavior.
Consequendy, when we judge things to be "true" or "false," there can-
not be a standpoint outside of this instinctual behavior; only varying
degrees of overwhelming strength, feelings of pleasure and displeasure,
sufficiency and force of habit can be differentiated. 'The strength of
knowledge lies not in its degree of verity but rather in its age, the extent
of its incorporation, its character as a condition of life" (3,469; GS §
110).
Nietzsche reviewed the complex history of truth once again from