242 NietzscheNietzsche always maintained an indisputable standard of judgment. For
him, the formation of ideas was a matter not just of creating images but
of forging paths to (self-)knowledge. An idea struck him as "true" if it
brought together meaning and style to constitute a unit that was suffi-
ciendy strong and lively to endure his often unbearable pain and provide
a vital counterbalance to it
Nietzsche, who had pondered the agonistic character of life in other
contexts, introduced this agonistic element as a key component of his
argument. The interplay and counterplay of mind and body was the pri-
mary agonistic locus. Yet another struggle for truth was taking place
here beyond the truth value of propositional statements. We will never
understand Nietzsche if we do not realize that for him ideas possessed
actual spiritual and physical reality on a par with passions. He might have
said: How could his thoughts not be "true" if they engaged him, as he
wrote in The Gay Science, in an extraordinary activity, a "perpetual stair
climbing-like motion and at the same time feeling as though resting on
clouds"? (3,529; GS% 288).
During that January of 1882, Nietzsche experienced the pleasurable
side of knowledge as never before. Although knowledge is always asso-
ciated with feelings and emotions, which are instinctual in nature, he
now focused on the accompanying or supporting affects of knowledge,
and was elated by the perspective that knowledge serves not to diminish
or reduce the fullness of existence but rather to enhance it. The pursuit
of knowledge is even an enhancement when it reveals horrifying reali-
ties. If, for example, the doctrine of eternal recurrence should prove to
be true, we need to confront the fact that there is no possible refuge
from time.
Nietzsche's elation could not be dampened by his awareness "that the
human and animal past, indeed the whole primeval age and the past of
all sentient being keeps on writing, loving, hating, and reaching conclu-
sions within me" (3,416f.; GS§ 54). He felt as though he had awakened
from a dream but was aware that he "must continue dreaming so as not
to perish: like a sleepwalker who must continue dreaming so as not to