unlimited historiological calculation as "new" is not only the hitherto unfamiliar and unprecedented, but also everything that continues and promotes whatever progression happens to be under way. What is useless in relation to the promotion of progress counts as "old." The old is then the antiquated. Thus in each epoch historiology and historiological research endeavor, always under different catchwords, to "paint" over the old and the bygone with the gloss of the respective present, and so to justify historiological activity itself as indispensable.
However, the essential has its own history [Geschichte] and is not calculable according to the ciphers "new" and "old." Where such calculation nevertheless occurs, relations to the essential are most covered over. There man stubbornly sets himself against the demand that he reach the essential upon the path of remembrance [Erinnerung] and that he grasp the ground. According to the view of the merely calculating man, remembrance fixes itself to something earlier, hence older, hence old, hence antiquated, and therefore at best attainable through extant historiological research. Yet the earlier, assuming it is essential, remains outside that utility to which everything "new" and "old" in the conventional sense must subject itself.
e) The meaning of reflection upon the inception of history
According to the historiological reckoning of time the earliest is indeed the oldest, and, in the estimation of ordinary understanding, also the most antiquated. The earliest, however, can also be the first according to rank and wealth, according to originality and bindingness for our history [Geschichte] and impending historical [geschichtliche] decisions. The first in this essential sense for us is the Greeks. We name this "earliest" the incipient [das Anfängliche]. From it comes an exhortation, in relation to which the opining of the individual and the many fails to hear, and misconstrues its essential power, unaware of the unique opportunity: that remembrance of the inception can transport us into the essential.
We can fail to hear the claim of the incipient. That it comes to this seems to alter nothing in the course of our history. Thus the dispensability of remembering the inception is "practically" demonstrated. Indeed,