ground of the essence of Being itself, is the transformation of the essence of truth. It is "only" this. Here the "only" does not indicate a restriction but refers to the uniqueness of the primordial essence, from which as ground the other essential features of history spring forth as essential consequences. History "is" the transformation of the essence of truth. Historical beings receive their Being from such transformation. Amid these transformations of the essence of truth occur the inconspicuous rare moments when history pauses. These pausing moments of hidden repose are the primordial historical moments, for in them the essence of truth originally assigns itself, and transmits itself, to beings.
For a long time it has been maintained that where there are events, motion, and processes, where something "comes to pass," there we have history, for history has to do with what "happens," and "happening" means "coming to pass." But happening and history actually mean destiny, destining, assignment. Genuinely formulated in German, we may not speak of history ["die" Geschichte], in the sense of coming to pass, but of sending ["das Geschicht"], in the sense of the assignment of Being. Luther still uses this genuinely German word [das Geschicht]. The question remains as to what for man is the essentially send-able or trans-mittable [Zu-schickbare] and the self-transmitting. If the essence of man is founded in the fact that he is that being to whom Being itself reveals itself, then the essential trans-mittal and the essence of "sending" is the unveiling of Being. But if unveiling is the essence of truth, and if in accordance with the transformation of this essence of truth the assignment of Being is also transformed, then the essence of "history" is the transformation of the essence of truth.
In the concealed repose of this transformation, there rests and sways, holds and fluctuates, congeals and whirls, that which is established on the basis of "historiography," i.e., on the basis of the investigations and explorations of objectivized "history," as events and accomplishments, i.e., as data [Sachen] and deeds [Taten], or in short, as facts [Tat-sachen]. These constatations then are presented with the prodigious display of the technical gadgets of modern research, making it seem that the technique of historiography is history itself. The historiographical thus becomes identified with the historical. From this "historiographical" element, "balances" are made up, "taxations" are drawn, and "shares" and "costs" are calculated, which "man" in history must pay. It is certainly no accident that a thinker of history of the rank of Jacob Burckhardt, and precisely he, moves within the horizon of "balances," "taxations," "shares," and "costs," and gives an account of history according to the schema of "culture and barbarism." Even Nietzsche thinks in terms of this schema of the nineteenth century. Nietzsche turns the "calculating of values," i.e., the accounting, into the final form of Western metaphysical thinking.