Heraclitus’s saying says what it says about φύσις not in regard to its relation to the human’s comprehension or non-comprehension of it, but rather in regard to the proper essence of φύσις. φύσις does not conceal itself from the human: rather, emerging preserves itself as emerging within self-occluding as its essential bestowal. That emerging ‘is’ a self-concealing in such a manner in no way means that φύσις hides itself, but rather that it reveals its essence precisely in emerging as a self-concealing. It is precisely because it is the essence of φύσις not to ‘hide’ itself that the conventional understanding [141] collides with this essence, and as a consequence of this collision solidifies its own conviction, which is understandable since, after all, one has created it for oneself. Because φύσις does not hide itself, but is to the contrary the simple emerging and the open, it is the nearest of the near.

106    The Inception of Occidental Thinking