yield any utility whatsoever, for it allows us to recognize that there is something that does not have to be "effective" or useful in order to be. Therefore in this thinking we are left to our own freedom.
The possibilities for professional training, the appropriation of the skills necessary for this, instruction in areas of knowledge not directly relevant to professional training, these can always be subsequently obtained and improved upon where needed. By contrast, the moments for essential reflection are rare and unrepeatable. That holds above all for those moments that occur once in a lifetime that either awaken, bury, or waste one's fundamental abilities for the entire future.
"Ground-Concepts"—this title involves the readiness to reach the ground and not to let it go again. If this readiness is not to remain an empty curiosity, it must immediately begin practicing what it is ready for. It must begin with reflection.
It is now time to actually carry out a simple reflection, in which we shall prepare to confront the inception of our history. From such remembrance of this inception we can come to anticipate that history is moving toward decisions that will surpass everything otherwise familiar to modern man in his objectives. If this is the case, then it is necessary at this moment of the world for the Germans to know what could be demanded of them in the future, when the "spirit of their fatherland" must be a "holy heart of nations" [Völker].
Recapitulation
1. Our understanding of “basic concepts” and our relation to them as an anticipatory knowing
By “basic concepts”’ one usually understands those notions that delimit a region of objects as a whole, or according to single, leading aspects. Thus the concept of "force" is a basic concept of natural science, the concept of "culture" is a basic concept of historiology, the concept "law" is a basic concept of jurisprudence—in another way also a basic concept of natural science—, the concept of "style" is a basic concept of research