22
PARTISAN REVIEW
What such philosophy is cannot indeed be stated adequately in any
formula. Any attempt at such a formula strikes at best obliquely–
as for example: this philosophy is the will to produce an authentic
man in
his
world; this philosophy aspires to awaken man, to make
man possible; or, it is the will to authentic being which is manifested
in the movement of thought as a whole, thanks to a transformation of
man occurring concomitantly with this thought.
Nietzsche must be understood in the face of these difficulties
arising from the disordered state of his work, from the damaging
ef–
fects of his sickness, and from the nature of philosophical endeavor
as such. Today we are not entitled to say that he has already been
understood adequately and according to his deserts.
Nietzsche is a world. We must know his experience, his friends,
his landscapes, in short his world, which for him assumed a quality of
myth, the atmosphere in which his ideas and visions arose, and in
which the metaphors of his style had their origin. We perceive scenes
of depth and greatness, but sometimes as well something operatic,
Wagnerian, dated, an ill-fitting cloak.
It is not possible to read Nietzsche with any clear picture of
him that will merely become clearer. Both attraction .and repulsion
increase. But Nietzsche's greatness also increases, while constantly as–
suming different aspects. And then much of what he has said falls
away like dust.
His enduring greatness lies in a seriousness that commands our
respect, in his clear-sightedness for his age which remains our age,
in
his
vast integrity.
Nietzsche's philosophy is irreplaceable, because it enables us
to perceive the real problems, but not because it solves them. His
thinking is a testing, he calls it in an ambiguous pun:
Versuchs–
philosophie
[experimental or tentative philosophy]. He keeps our
head awhirl "nth his sudden reversals, and the reader can really
lose his reason unless he inwardly transforms Nietzsche's thinking
on the basis of his own fundamental independence.
For those who succumb to the fascination, Nietzsche is forbidden
reading. But those who are not inwardly moved, who are not for a
time carried away, have failed to understand. In the study of
Nietzsche we must always seek the whole; after reading, we must re-
