It is, as we say, a necessary consequence of the essence of Being as emergent shining <Scheinen>. But in this there is no distancing, much less a fall away from the inception. Certainly not.

But if that which is an essential consequence is raised to the level of essence itself, and thus takes the place of the essence, then how do things stand? Then there is a fall, and it must for its part generate its own distinctive consequences. This is what happened. What remains decisive is not the fact in itself that φύσις was characterized as ἰδέα, but that the ἰδέα rises up as the sole and definitive interpretation of Being.

We can easily assess the distance between the two interpretations if we pay attention to the difference between the perspectives in which these essential determinations of Being, φύσις and ἰδέα, move. Φύσις is the emerging sway, the standing-here-in-itself, constancy. Ἰδέα, the look as what is seen, is a determination of the constant insofar as, and only insofar as, it stands opposed to a seeing. But φύσις as emerging sway is also already an appearing. To be sure. It is just that appearing has two meanings. First, appearing denotes the self-gathering event of bringing-itself-to-stand and thus standing in gatheredness. But then, appearing also means: as something that is already standing here, to proffer a foreground, a surface, a look as an offering to be looked at.

Considered in terms of the essence of space, the difference between the two types of appearing is this: appearing in the first and authentic sense, as the gathered bringing-itself-to-stand, takes space in; it first conquers space; as standing there, it creates space for itself; it brings about everything that belongs to it, while it itself is not imitated. Appearing in the second sense merely steps forth from an already prepared space, and it is viewed by a looking-at within the already fixed dimensions of this space. The aspect offered by the thing, and no longer the thing itself, now becomes what is decisive. Appearing in the first sense first rips space open.