entity whose kind of Being is Being-in-the-world with a state-of-mind,1 can they be 'touched' by anything or 'have a sense for' ["Sinn haben für"] something in such a way that what touches them shows itself in an affect.2 Under the strongest pressure and resistance, nothing like an affect would come about, and the resistance itself would remain essentially undiscovered, if Being-in-the-world, with its state-of-mind, had not already submitted itself [sich schon angewiesen] to having entities within-the-world "matter" to it in a way which its moods have outlined in advance. Existentially, a state-of-mind implies a disclosive submission to the world, out of which we can encounter something that matters to us. Indeed from the ontological [138] point of view we must as a general principle leave the primary discovery of the world to 'bare mood'. Pure beholding, even if it were to penetrate to the innermost core of the Being of something present-at-hand, could never discover anything like that which is threatening.
The fact that, even though states-of-mind are primarily disclosive, everyday circumspection goes wrong and to a large extent succumbs to delusion because of them, is a μή ὂν [non-being] when measured against the idea of knowing the 'world' absolutely. But if we make evaluations which are so unjustified ontologically, we shall completely fail to recognize the existentially positive character of the capacity for delusion. It is precisely when we see the 'world' unsteadily and fitfully in accordance with our moods, that the ready-to-hand shows itself in its specific worldhood, which is never the same from day to day. By looking at the world theoretically, we have already dimmed it down to the uniformity of what is purely present-at-hand, though admittedly this uniformity comprises a new abundance of things which can be discovered by simply characterizing them. Yet even the purest θεωρία [theory] has not left all moods behind it; even when we look theoretically at what is just present-at-hand, it does not show itself purely as it looks unless this θεωρία lets it come towards us in a tranquil tarrying alongside ..., in ραστώνη and διαγωγή Any cognitive determining has its existential-ontological Constitution in the state-of-mind of Being-in-the-world; but pointing this out is not to be confused with attempting to surrender science ontically to 'feeling'.
1 'befindlichen In-der-Welt-seins'. In previous chapters we have usually translated 'befindlich' by such expressions as 'which is to be found', etc. See, for instance, H. 67, 70, 117 above, where this adjective- is applied to a number of things which are hardly of the character of Dasein. In the present chapter, however, the word is tied up wit the special sense of 'Befindlichkeit' as 'state-of-mind', and will be translated by expressiOns such as 'with a state-of-mind', 'having a state-of-mind', etc.
2 In this sentence Heidegger has been calling attention to two ways of using the word 'Sinn' which might well be expressed by the word 'sense' but hardly by the word 'meaning': (1) 'die Sinne' as 'the five senses' or the 'senses' one has when one is 'in one's senses'; (2) 'der Sinn' as the 'sense' one has 'for' something—one's 'sense for clothes', one's 'sense of beauty', one's 'sense of the numinous', etc. Cf. the discussion of 'Sinn' on H. 151 f. below.