Dasein can be reached by the blows of fate only because in the depths of its Being Dasein is fate in the sense we have described. Existing fatefully in the resoluteness which hands itself down, Dasein has been disclosed as Being-in-the-world both for the 'fortunate' circumstances which 'come its way' and for the cruelty of accidents. Fate does ot first arise from the clashing together of events and circumstances. Even one who is irresolute gets driven about by these-more so than one who has chosen; and yet he can 'have' no fate.1
If Dasein, by anticipation, lets death become powerful in itself, then, as free for death, Dasein understands itself in its own superior power, the power of its finite freedom, so that in this freedom, which 'is' only in its having chosen to make such a choice, it can take over the powerlessness of abandonment to its having done so, and can thus come to have a clear vision for the accidents of the Situation that has been disclosed.2 But if fateful Dasein, as Being-in-the-world, exists essentially in Being-with Others, its historizing is a co-historizing and is determinative for it as destiny [Geschick]. This is how we designate the historizing of the community, of a people. Destiny is not something that puts itself together out of individual fates, any more than Being-with-one-another can be conceived as the occurring together of several Subjects.vii Our fates have already been guided in advance, in our Being with one another in the same world and in our resoluteness for definite possibilities. Only in communicating and in struggling does the power of destiny become free. Dasein's [385] fateful destiny in and with its 'generation'viii goes to make up the full authentic historizing of Dasein.
Fate is that powerless superior power which puts itself in readiness for adversities—the power of projecting oneself upon one's own Being-guilty, and of doing so reticently, with readiness for anxiety. As such, fate requires
1 This statement may well puzzle the English-speaking reader, who would perhaps be less troubled if he were to read that the irresolute man can have no 'destiny'. As we shall see in the next paragraph, Heidegger has chosen to differentiate sharply between the words 'Schicksal' and 'Geschick', which are ordinarily synonyms. Thus 'Schicksal' (our 'fate') might be described as the 'destiny' of the resolute individual; 'Geschick' (our 'destiny') is rather the 'destiny' of a larger group, or of Dasein as a member of such a group. This usage of 'Geschick' is probably to be distinguished from that which we have met on H. 16, 1 9, and perhaps even 379, where we have preferred to translate it by 'vicissitude'. The suggestion of an etymological connection between 'Schicksal' and 'Geschick' on the one hand and 'Geschichte' (our 'history') and 'Geschehen' (our 'historizing') on the other, which is exploited in the next paragraph, is of course lost in translation.
2 'Wenn das Dasein vorlaufend den Tod in sich mächtig werden lässt, versteht es sich, frei für ihn, in der eigenen Übermacht seiner endlichen Freiheit, urn in dieser, die je nur "ist" im Gewählthaben der Wahl, die Ohnmacht der Überlassenheit an es selbst zu übernehmen und für die Zufalle der erschlossenen Situation hellsichtig zu werden.' It should perhaps be pointed out that 'Ohnmacht' can also mean a 'faint' or a 'swoon', and that 'Hellsichtigkeit' is the regular term for 'clairvoyance'. Thus the German reader might easily read into this passage a suggestion of the seer's mystical trance.