this essence authentically and to endure this authenticity steadfastly, and also not to endure it, according to the respective a-byssal character of the appropriation-that constitutes the essence of selfhood. Selfhood cannot be grasped on the basis of the "subject," and certainly not on the basis of the "I" or the "personality," but only through steadfastness in the belongingness to beyng by way of stewardship, which means only on the basis of the propulsion of the indigence of the gods. Selfhood is the unfolding of the proprietorship of the essence. That humans have their essence as property means this essence is constantly in danger of being lost. And that is the resounding of the ap-propriation; it is consignment to beyng.
Only in Da-sein, which the human being steadfastly becomes through an essential transformation in the transition, does there occur a preservation of beyng in something that thereby first appears as a being. If Being and Time says that what first becomes determinable through the "existential analytic" is the being of non-human beings, then this does not mean the human being would be what is given primarily and first of all and would be the measure according to which all other beings receive the stamp of their being. Such an "interpretation" assumes that the human being is still to be understood as understood by Descartes and by all his followers and mere opponents (even Nietzsche is one of the latter), namely, as a subject. The very first task, however, is precisely to discontinue postulating the human being as a subject and to grasp this being primarily and exclusively on the basis of the question of being. If, despite everything, Da-sein does gain the priority, then that means humans, grasped in terms of Da-sein, ground their essence and the proprietorship of their essence on the projection of being and thereby, in all comportment and restraint, keep themselves to the realm of the clearing of beyng. This realm is nevertheless utterly non-human; i.e., it cannot be determined and borne by the animal rationale and just as little by the subjectum. The realm is not at all a being; instead, it belongs to the essential occurrence of beyng. Grasped with respect to Dasein, humans are those beings who, in being, can incur the loss of their essence and thereby are in each case self-certain in the most uncertain and risky way, and are so on the basis of their consignment to the stewardship of beyng. The priority of Da-sein is not merely contrary to every sort of anthropologizing of the human being; it even grounds a completely different history of the essence of the human being, a history which could never be grasped by metaphysics or, consequently, by "anthropology." This does not exclude, but rather includes, the fact that the human being now becomes even more essential for beyng though at the same time less important with respect to "beings."