60
DISCOURSE ON THINKING

ourselves to the sought-for essence of a thinking that is not a willing.

Teacher: You are not only right, but by the gods! as I would say if they had not flown from us, you have uncovered something essential.

Scholar: I should now be tempted to say that you, in your interpretation of the ambiguous talk about non-willing, have surpassed both us and yourself—if anyone were entitled to mete out praise and if that were not contrary to the style of our conversations.

Scientist: That I succeeded in this, was not my doing but that of the night having set in, which without forcing compels concentration.

Scholar: It leaves us time for meditating by slowing down our pace.

Teacher: That is why we are still far from human habitation.

Scientist: Ever more openly I am coming to trust in the inconspicuous guide who takes us by the hand—or better said, by the word—in this conversation.

Scholar: We need this guidance, because our conversation becomes ever more difficult.

Teacher: If by "difficult" you mean the unaccustomed task which consists in weaning ourselves from will.

Scholar: Will, you say, and not merely willing . . .

Scientist: . . . and so, you state an exciting demand in a released manner.

Teacher: If only I possessed already the right releasement, then I would soon be freed of that task of weaning.

Scholar: So far as we can wean ourselves from willing, we contribute to the awakening of releasement.


Memorial Address (GA 16) by Martin Heidegger