before,1 is not a result that ensues only from curiosity, but is the ontological condition for curiosity itself.
As regards their temporal meaning, the characteristics of falling which we have pointed out—temptation, tranquillization, alienation, self-entanglement—mean that the making-present which 'leaps away' has an [348] ecstatical tendency such that it seeks to temporalize itself out of itself. When Dasein entangles itself, this has an ecstatical meaning. Of course when one speaks of the rapture with which one's existence is carried away in making present, this does not signify that Dasein detaches itself from its Self and its "I". Even when it makes present in the most extreme manner, it remains temporal-that is, awaiting and forgetful. In making present, moreover, Dasein still understands itself, though it has been alienated from its ownmost potentiality-for-Being, which is based primarily on the authentic future and on authentically having been. But in so far as making-present is always offering something 'new', it does not let Dasein come back to itself and is constantly tranquillizing it anew. This tranquillizing, however, strengthens in turn the tendency towards leaping away. Curiosity is 'activated' not by the endless immensity of what we have not yet seen, but rather by the falling kind of temporalizing which belongs to the Present as it leaps away.2 Even if one has seen everything, this is precisely when curiosity fabricates something new.
As a mode of temporalizing, the 'leaping-away' of the Present is grounded in the essence of temporality, which is finite. Having been thrown into Being-towards-death, Dasein flees—proximally and for the most part—in the face of this thrownness, which has been more or less explicitly revealed. The Present leaps away from its authentic future and from its authentic having been, so that it lets Dasein come to its authentic existence only by taking a detour through that Present. The 'leaping-away' of the Present—that is, the falling into lostness—has its source in that primordial authentic temporality itself which makes possible thrown Being-towards-death.3
While Dasein can indeed be brought authentically face to face with its thrownness, so as to understand itself in that thrownness authentically, nevertheless, this thrownness remains closed off from Dasein as regards the ontical "whence" and "how" of it. But the fact that it is thus closed
1 '... beim Nächsten hält und das Vordem vergessen hat ...'
2 'Nicht die endlose Uniibersehbarkeit dessen, was noch nicht gesehen ist, "bewirkt" die Neugier, sondem die verfallende Zeitigungsart der entspringenden Gegenwart.' This sentence is grammatically ambiguous.
3 'Der Ursprung des "Entspringens" der Gegenwart, das heisst des Verfallens in die Verlorenheilt, ist die ursprüngliche, eigentliche Zeitlichkeit selbst, die das geworfene Sein zum Tode ermöglicht.' Our conventions for translating 'Ursprung' as 'source', 'ursprünglich' as 'primordial', and 'entspringen' as 'leap away', conceal Heidegger's exploitation of the root 'spring-' in this passage.