ON THE ESSENCE OF TRUTH

factically in keeping with its freedom in each case; the fact that transcendence temporalizes itself as a primordial occurrence, does not stand in the power of this freedom itself. Yet such impotence (thrownness) is not first the result of beings forcing themselves upon Dasein, but rather determines Dasein's being as such. All projection of world is therefore thrown. Clarifying the essence of finitude in Dasein from out of the constitution of its being^a must precede all "self-evident" assumptions concerning the finite "nature" of the human being, all description of properties that first ensue from finitude, and above all any overhasty "explanation" of the antic provenance of such properties.

[71] The essence of the finitude of Dasein is, however, unveiled in transcendence as freedom for ground.^b

And so the human being, existing as a transcendence that exceeds in the direction of possibilities, is a creature of distance. Only through originary distances that he forms for himself in his transcendence with respect to all beings does a true nearness to things begin to arise in him. And only being able to listen into the distance awakens Dasein as a self to the response of the other Dasein in whose company [Mitsein] it can surrender its I-ness so as to attain itself as an authentic self.

^a First edition, 1929: The leap [Sprung] into the origin [Ursprung]! (Da-sein) origin - freedom - temporality; finitude of Dasein not identical with the finitude of the human being, to be grasped otherwise: character of origin!

^b First edition, 1929: But freedom has nothing in common with grounding or with ground, just as little as with cause [Ursache] or causation [Ver-ursachen] or any kind of "substance" or "making" ["Sachen" und "mach en" ).

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