definition, here left unattended, of Being itself as being present, even as the enduring presence? What about Being as the being-present, in whose light time was conceived as a passing away, and even eternity as the present "now"? Is not this definition of Being ruled by the view of presence, the present—ruled, that is, by the view of time, and of a time of such a nature as we could never surmise, let alone think, with the help of the traditional time concept? What about Being and Time, then? Must not one as much as the other, Being as much as Time—must not both become questionable in their relatedness, first questionable and finally doubtful? And does not this show, then, that something was left unthought at the very core of the definition which is regarded as guiding all Western metaphysics—something essential in the essential nature of Being? The question "Being and Time" points to what is unthought in all metaphysics. Metaphysics consists of this unthought matter; what is unthought in metaphysics is therefore not a defect of metaphysics. Still less may we declare metaphysics to be false, or even reject it as a wrong turn, a mistake, on the grounds that it rests upon this unthought matter.

Revenge, for Nietzsche, is the will's revulsion against time. This now means: revenge is the will's revulsion against the passing away and what has passed away, against time and its "It was." The revulsion turns not against the mere passing, but against that passing away which allows what has passed to be only in the past, which lets it freeze in the finality of this rigor mortis. The revulsion of revenge is against that time which makes everything dissolve in the "It was," and thus makes passing pass away. The revulsion of revenge is not against the mere passing of time, but against the time that makes the passing pass away in the past, against the "It was." The revulsion of revenge remains chained to this "It was"; just as there lies concealed in all hatred the abysmal dependence upon that from which