within it; for only thus, simultaneously, is that which is most worthy of questioning experienced, i.e., that which radically carries forward and constrains a creating into the future, out beyond what is at hand, and lets the transformation of man become a necessity springing forth from Being itself. No age lets itself be done away with by a negating decree. Negation only throws the negator off the path. The modern age requires. however, in order to be withstood in the future, in its essence and on the very strength of its essence, an originality and range of reflection for which We of today are perhaps preparing somewhat, but over which we certainly can never gain mastery.
2. The phrase "ongoing activity" [Betrieb] is not intended here in a pejorative sense. But because research is, in eS5ellce ongoing activity, the industrious activity of mere "busyness" [des blossen Betriebs], which is always possible, gives the impression of a higher reality behind which the burrowing activity proper to research work is accomplished. Ongoing activity becomes mere busyness whenever, in the pursuing of its methodology, it no longer keeps itself open on the basis of an ever-new accomplishing of its projection-plan, but only leaves that plan behind itself as a given; never again confirms and verifies its own self .. accumulating results and the calculation of them, but simply chases after such results and calculations. Mere busyness must at all times be combated precisely because research is, in its essence, ongoing activity. If We seek what is scientific in science solely in serene erudition, then of course it seems as though the disowning of practical activity also means the denying of the fact that research has the essential character of ongoing activity. It i s true that the more completely research becomes ongoing activity, and in that way mounts to its proper level of performance, the more constantly does the danger of mere industriousness grow within it. Finally a situation arises in which the distinction between ongoing activity and busyness not only has become unrecognizable, but has become unreal as well. Precisely this balancing out of the essential and the aberrant into the average that is the self-evident makes research as the embodiment of science, and thus makes the modem age itself, capable of enduring. But whence does research