ἁρμονία (i.e., the jointure) is there in the pure shining of its essence and lightens there unblemished: it unfolds there as what is most beautiful and as that wherein the emerging harbors itself, also unblemished, in the self-concealing, while at the same time self-concealing finds in the emerging the pure bestowing of itself. Thus, where emerging [145] gives itself to the essence of self-concealing, and self-concealing gives itself to the essence of emerging, each one goes toward what is contrary to it. Here, the going over-and-against within the favor of essential bestowal is, in Greek, τὸ ἀντίξουν. ξέω means to go back-and-forth over something, for example while in the process of working on something in order to smooth it out and bring out its form (such as in the grinding, abrading, scraping, and shaving of a stone). (ξέω, ξάω, and ‘shave’ are the same word). τὸ ἀντί-ξουν—the participial form of ἀντιξέω, to go toward and back— means: going-toward-and-against, as in the jointure of the essential joining of φύσις itself. Insofar as emerging joins to self-concealing as the bestowal of its essence, it goes toward what is opposed to it (namely, submerging); however, insofar as self-concealing joins to emerging, it too goes against what is against itself. τὸ ἀντίξουν prevails as the bearing that is over against, and yet toward, one another. By prevailing, ‘it brings’ emerging together with self-concealing. The Greeks called the bringing-together and bearing-toward of one to the essence of the other in the manner of a joining into the joint of the unity of essence συμφέρειν; the participle συμφέρον subsequently comes to mean what is ‘beneficial’ and helpful. Bearing-together in the sense of ἀντίξουν holds the self-joining in the unity of its essence.
Heraclitus says this in fragment 8, which we order as the fourth:
τὸ ἀντίξουν συμφέρον καὶ ἐκ τῶν διαφερόντων καλλίστην ἁρμονίαν
Going-toward-and-against, a bringing-together; and from out of the bringing-apart, the one resplendent jointure.
The bringing-together, which is not a pushing together of things whereby the different is simply pushed toward the different and attached to it, but which on the contrary consists of a going-toward-and-against of what experiences and dispenses
110 The Inception of Occidental Thinking