The Anaximander Fragment
current, derived senses. We should rather keep to the root-meaning: to use is to brook [bruchen], in Latin frui, in German fruchten, Frucht.* We translate this freely as "to enjoy," which originally means to be pleased with something and so to have it in use. Only in its derived senses does "enjoy" mean simply to consume or gobble up. We encounter what we have called the basic meaning of "use," in the sense of frui, in Augustine's words, Quid enim est aliud quod dicimus firui, nisi praesto habere, quod diligis?** Frui involves praesto habere. Praesto, praesitum is in Greek dnoicefuevov, that which already lies before us in unconcealment, odofa, that which lingers awhile in presence. "To use" accordingly suggests: to let something present come to presence as such; frui, to brook, to use, usage, means: to hand something over to its own essence and to keep it in hand, preserving it as something present.
In the translation of τὸ χρεών usage is thought as essential presencing in Being itself. "To brook," frui, is no longer merely predicated of enjoyment as a form of human behavior; nor is it said in relation to any being whatsoever, even the highest (fruitio Dei as the beatitudo hominis); rather, usage now designates the manner in which Being itself presences as the relation to what is present, approaching and becoming involved with what is present as present: τὸ χρεών.
Usage delivers what is present to its presencing, i.e. to its lingering. Usage dispenses to what is present the portion of its while. The while apportioned in each case to what lingers rests in the jointure which joins what is present in the transition between twofold absence (arrival and departure). The jointure of the while bounds and confines what is present as such. That which lingers awhile in presence, id ἐόντα, comes to presence within bounds (πέρας).
*"To brook" is today used only in negative constructions—"I'll brook no rival!"—which suggest unwillingness to put up with a state of aflairs. It shares its original Teutonic stem with the modem German brauchen and the Middle High German bruchen: bruk-, from the Indo-European bhrug-. Its archaic senses include: to make use of, to have the enjoyment of, to bear or hold, to possess the right of usufruct—i.e. the right to cultivate and use land one does not own, and to enjoy its fruits.—TR.
**"For what else do we mean when we say frui if not to have at hand something that is especially prized?" De moribus ecclesiae, lib. I, c. 3; cf. De doctrina Christiana, lib. I, c. 2-4. For the first see Basic Writings of Saint Augustine, 2 vols., ed. Whitney J. Oates (New York: Random House, 1048) I, 321: for the second see On Christian Doctrine, trans. D. W. Robertson, Jr. (New York: Liberal Arts Press, 1958), pp. 9-10.—TR.
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