us with the exacting claim under which our era stands world-historically. What does λόγος mean, when thought in a Greek manner? The answer here inevitably turns out to be crude. It restricts itself to the sort of references that help us think, in a manner apropos of the history of being, what the principle of reason says in the second tonality: being and ground/reason. The Greek noun λόγος belongs to the verb λέγειν. It means "to gather, to lay one beside the other." In this case it can happen that the one is laid beside the other such that the one is oriented towards the other, conforming to it. The Latin reor and ratio represent the sort of orienting and conforming that is a reckoning, which is why the Roman word ratio is suited to translate the Greek word λόγος into Roman thinking. Even in Greek, λόγος can have the sense of "reckoning," "orienting one thing towards another," an orienting that we still more generally call "the relating of something to something." Λόγος can mean the equivalent of the Latin relatio: relation. But how is it that λόγος can mean this? Because λόγος and λέγειν name something more essential than the gathering and reckoning we had in mind just a moment ago; the verb λέγειν is a word for "to say" and λόγος means "a statement" and "legend." Every dictionary gives this information. One accepts it as obvious that where we say sagen ["to say"] the Greeks say λέγειν. In the end, what the two, literally different, words mean passes as obvious. Yet it may be time to ask: in what is the essence of saying based for the Greeks?
"Saying" means, when thought in a Greek manner, "to bring to light," "to let something appear in its look," "to show the way in which it regards us," which is why a saying clarifies things for us. But then how come a saying for the Greeks is a λέγειν, λόγος? Because λέγειν means "to gather," "to lay-next-to-each-other." But such a laying is, as a laying that gathers, raises up, keeps and preserves, an allowing-to-lie-present that brings something to shine forth, namely that which lies present. However, that which lies present is what comes-to-presence-on-its-own; λέγειν and λόγος allow what comes to presence to lie present in its presencing. Λόγος as λεγόμενον simultaneously means that-which-has-been-said, which means, what-has-been-shown, which means, what-lies-present as such-what comes to presence in its presencing. We say: beings in their being. Λόγος names being. But as that which lies present, as what presents itself, λόγος is simultaneously that upon which something else lies and is based. We say: the footing, the ground. Λόγος names the ground. Λόγος is at once presencing and ground. Being and ground belong together in λόγος. Λόγος names this belonging-together of being and ground. It names them insofar as it, in one breath, says: "allowing to lie present as allowing to arise," "emerging-on-its-own": Φύσις, "being"; and: "allowing to lie present as presenting," laying a bed of soil, "grounds": "ground/reason." Λόγος names in one breath being and ground/reason.