EARLY GREEK THINKING

pose toward every other of its kind. None heeds the lingering presence of the others. Whatever lingers awhile is inconsiderate toward others, each dominated by what is implied in its lingering presence, namely, the craving to persist. Beings which linger awhile do not in this respect simply drift into inconsiderateness. Inconsiderateness impels them toward persistence, so that they may still present themselves as what is present. Nevertheless, what is present in totality does not simply disintegrate into inconsiderate individualities; it does not dissipate itself in discontinuity. Rather, the saying now says:

διδόναι.     τίσιν ἀλλήλοις

—beings which linger awhile let belong, one to the other: consideration with regard to one another. The translation of τίσις as consideration coincides better with the essential meaning of "heeding" and "esteeming." It is thought from within the matter, on the basis of the presencing of what lingers awhile. But the word "consideration" means for us too directly that human trait, while τίσις is applied neutrally, because more essentially, to everything present, αὐτά (τὰ ἐόντα). Our word "consideration" lacks not only the necessary breadth, but above all the gravity to speak as the translating word for τίσις in the fragment, and as the word corresponding to δίκη, order.

Now our language possesses an old word which, interestingly enough, we moderns know only in its negative form, indeed only as a form of disparagement, as with the word Unfug [disorder]. This usually suggests to us something like an improper or vulgar sort of behavior, something perpetrated in a crude manner. In the same fashion, we still use the word ruchlos [reckless] to mean something pejorative and shameful: something without Ruch [reck]. We no longer really know what Ruch means. The Middle High German word ruoche means solicitude or care. Care tends to something so that it may remain in its essence. This turning-itself-toward, when thought of what lingers awhile in relation to presencing, is τίσις, reck. Our word geruhen [to deign or respect] is related to reck and has nothing to do with Ruhe [rest]: to deign means to esteem something, to let or allow something to be itself. What we observed concerning the word "consideration,"

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