what he creates is in each case something singular, a one; and also there where allowance is made in the representation of a manifold for an ascent to the representation of its one.

The grounding of this interpretation of Being goes back to the initiating action of a creator and to the presupposition of a one which in each case unifies a manifold. For us a question lies concealed here. How does Being, as presencing and letting come to presence, cohere with the one, as unifying? Does the reversion to a creator contain an answer to the question, or does the question remain unasked, since Being as presencing is not thought through, and the unifying of the one not defined with reference to Being as presencing?

[187] Every single being, which we today take to be the particular item which is "properly real," manifests itself in three modes of outward appearance. Accordingly, it can be traced back to three ways of self-showing or being pro-duced. Hence there are three kinds of producers.

First, the god who lets the essence emerge—φύσιν φύει. He is therefore called φυτουργός, the one who takes care of and holds in readiness the emergence of pure outward appearance, so that man can discern it.*

Second, the craftsman who is the δημιουργὸς κλίνης. He produces a bed according to its essence, but lets it appear in wood, that is, in the kind of thing where the bedframe stands as this particular item at our disposal for everyday use.

Third, the painter who brings the bedframe to show itself in his picture. May he therefore be called a δημιουργός? Does he work for the δημος, participating in the public uses of things and in communal life? No! For neither does he have disposition over the pure essence, as the god does (he rather darkens it in the stuff of colors and surfaces), nor does he have disposition over and use of what he brings about with respect to what it is. The painter is not δημιουργός but μιμητὴς οὗ ἐκεῖνοι δημιουργοί, "a copier of the things of which those others are

* Schleiermacher translates φυτουργός (Republic, 597 d 5) as Wesensbildner, "shaper of essences"; the word literally means gardener, "worker with plants." Aeschylus' suppliant maidens use the word as an epithet of Zeus the Father (Supp. 592).