71
As long as the truth of beyng is not grounded and thus the essence of the human being is not decided, the derived form of knowledge—science— in whatever configuration and usefulness | it may appear—remains without a ground. “Beings” are surrendered to the arbitrariness of the throng. But the more irresistible the human masses, all the more indispensable is “science.” This sort of necessity, as it increases, includes an ever more extensive hollowing out and degrading of the essence “of science.” On this basis can be gauged the significance of the now-spreading satisfaction of the “researchers,” with which they record the inevitable recognition of their accomplishments and tasks. Through this wretched self-satisfaction, they betray themselves as the genuine enemies of knowledge—i.e., enemies of meditation and of the passion for the question-worthiness of beyng.
To be sure, they themselves in this attitude are already no longer free but instead are serfs of something irresistible, which they are simply unable to behold in its essence, because they are blinded by its unlimited success and because success is the greatest lure cast out everywhere by machination.
The insidiousness of considerations of an epoch when they get bogged down in comparing and “typifying” and do not from the beginning arise out of meditation.
72
Only one who knows can question. To endure the question-worthiness of beyng requires a knowledge of the essence of truth as the clearing of self-refusal. Any sort of “belief,” held up to this knowledge, is still an instance of doubt. Such knowledge—untouchable by science and useless for science—stands in the event of appropriation and, in questioning, fathoms the abyss as the denial of a ground.
Denial, however, is the supreme gift—for those who know, those who question. “Ground” as borrowed soil is a comfort to one who does not know, who needs what is unquestioned and is to make use of it. Genuine questioning seeks only that strangeness it already knows, without being the courage derived from it and without first unfolding it into truth. Questioning is displacement into the event of appropriation. (Cf. p. 67f.)
73
As long as we still insist on “lived experiences,” we deny ourselves the displacement into truth. Or would indeed the increasing frenzy of