statement would join with Nietzsche's words in a destiny to which, it seems, our whole earth is destined to its remotest corners. That destiny ""·ill above all shake the foundations of all of man's thinking, in dimensions of such magnitude that the demise we modems are witnessing in only one sector, literature, is a mere episode by comparison. But we must not equate such a shaking of the foundations with revolution and collapse. The shaking of that which exists may be the way by which an equilibrium arises, a position of rest such as has never been—because that rest, that peace, is already present at the heart of the shock.

No thinking, therefore, creates for itself the element in which it operates. But all thinking strives, as if automatically, to stay within the element assigned to it.

What is the element in which Nietzsche's thought operates? We must see more clearly here before attempting further steps along our way. We must see that all those foreground things which Nietzsche had to reject and oppose—that fundamentally he passes them all by, that he speaks only in order better to preserve his silence. He is the first to pose the thoughtful question—thoughtful in that it starts from metaphysics and points back to metaphysics—which we formulate as follows: Is the man of today in his metaphysical nature prepared to assume dominion over the earth as a whole? Has the man of today yet given thought in any way to what conditions will determine the nature of such worldwide government? Is the nature of this man of today such that it is fit to manage those powers, and put to use those means of power, which are released as the nature of modem technology unfolds, forcing man to unfamiliar decisions? Nietzsche's answer to these questions is No. Man as he is today is not prepared to form and assume a world government. For today's man lags behind, not just here and there—no, in everything he is, in all his ways, he lags curiously behind that which is and has long been. That