In such knowledge, which can only grow slowly, the question is decided whether art can be an origin and then must be a forward spring, or whether it is to remain a mere appendix and then can only be carried along as a routine cultural phenomenon.
Are we in our existence historically at the origin? Do we know, which means do we give heed to, the essence of the origin? Or, in our relation to art, do we still merely make appeal to a cultivated acquaintance with the past?
For this either-or and its decision there is an infallible sign. Holderlin, the poet—whose work still confronts the Germans as a test to be stood—named it in saying:
Schwer verlasst
was nahe dem Ursprung wohnet, den Ort.
Reluctantly
that which dwells near its origin abandons the site.
—"The Journey," verses 18-19