And what is a human lifespan amid millions of years? Barely a move of the second hand, a breath. Within beings as a whole there is no justification to be found for emphasizing precisely this being that is called the human being and among which we ourselves happen to belong.
But if beings as a whole are ever brought into our question, then the questioning does come into a distinctive relation with them—distinctive because it is unique—and beings do come into a distinctive relation with this questioning. For through this questioning, beings as a whole are first opened up as such and with regard to their possible ground, and they are kept open in the questioning. The asking of this question is not, in relation to beings as such and as a whole, some arbitrary occurrence amid beings, such as the falling of raindrops. The why-question stands against beings as a whole, so to speak, stands back from them them, though never completely. But this is precisely how [4|6] the questioning gains its distinction. What is asked in this question rebounds upon the questioning itself, for the questioning stands against beings as a whole, but does not after all wrest itself free from them. Why the Why? What is the ground of this why- question itself, a question that presumes to establish the ground of beings as a whole?