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opposite extreme—perhaps in an analogy to the relatedness of ἕν and πάντα.
The question which leads us is whether, with the admission of the relationship of immortals to mortals, more than just an anthropological clue is found for indicating how the fire, the sun, the lightning, as special forms of ἕν, comport themselves toward πάντα. There is not ἕν and τὰ πάντα next to one another. They do not lie on the same plane, do not lie on a comparable plane of the usual sort, but they are unique in their relatedness. Their relatedness can be indicated with no known relationship. ἕν is not among πάντα; it is not already thought when we think τὰ πάντα strictly and include in this quintessence everything that is at all. When we ourselves think τὰ πάντα as quintessence, it is not inclusive of ἕν. It remains separated from τὰ πάντα, but not in the manner, familiar to us, of being separated by spatial and temporal boarders or by belonging to another kind of species. All usual kinds of separation are inapplicable to the fundamental relatedness of ἕν and πάντα. But at the same time we must also say that the unique belonging-together of ἕν and πάντα, the intertwining of what is separated, must also be seen in the unique separation of ἕν and τὰ πάντα. ἕν and τὰ πάντα are tightened together in their intertwining.
Up to now we have met with a manifold of similies; for example, as in the night, things shine up in the light-shine of the lightning flash and show their relief, so in an original sense, the entirety of things comes forth to appearance in the outbreaking light-shine of ἕν, thought as lightning. Or again: as the things that stand in sunlight shine up in their imprint in the light of the sun, so the entirety of inner-worldly things comes forth to appearance in the ἕν thought as sunlight. Here, things do not come forth side by side with the sunlight, but the sunlight surrounds the things and is thus separated from them and at the same time bound with them in the manner of an including light. Just so, there is also an entirety of the many τὰ πάντα, not side by side with the light of shining-forth; rather, the light of shining-forth envelops the entirety of πάντα and is "separated" from it and "bound" with it in a manner difficult to comprehend, which we could probably best clarify for ourselves in comparison with the all-embracing light. Are immortals and mortals now also referred to each other like ἕν and τὰ πάντα with their greatest separation? Thereby we understand the immortals as those who know their own perpetual being only on the background of the temporal perishing of humans. And we understand the mortals as humans who only know their transient being by having a relationship to the immortals who always arc and who know their perpetual being. We could read ἀθάνατοι θνητοί, θνητοί ἀθάνατοι in many ways; either with Diets or else in the following way: immortal mortals, mortal immortals. This hard phrase