It builds unity; it is the gathering (λόγος). Πόλεμος and λόγος are the same.]⁵

The struggle meant here is originary struggle, for it allows those that struggle to originate as such in the first place; it is not a mere assault on the present-at-hand. Struggle first projects and develops the un-heard of, the hitherto un-said and un-thought. This struggle is then sustained by the creators, by the poets, thinkers, and statesmen. Against the overwhelming sway, they throw the counterweight of their work and capture in this work the world that is thereby opened up. With these works, the sway, φύσις, first comes to a stand in what comes to presence. [48|66] Beings as such now first come into being. This becoming-a-world is authentic history. Struggle as such not only allows for arising and standing-forth; it alone also preserves beings in their constancy. Where struggle ceases, beings indeed do not disappear, but world turns away. Beings are no longer asserted [that is, preserved as such].⁶ Beings now become just something one comes across; they are findings. What is completed is no longer that which is pressed into limits [that is, set into its shape],⁷ but is now merely what is finished and as such is at the disposal of just anybody, the present-at-hand, in which no world is worlding any more—instead, human beings now steer and hold sway with whatever is at their disposal. Beings become objects, whether for observing (view, picture) or for making, as the fabricated, the object of calculation. That which originally holds sway,⁸ φύσις, now degenerates into a prototype for reproduction and copying.

5. In parentheses in the 1953 edition.

6. In parentheses in the 1953 edition.

7. In parentheses in the 1953 edition.

8. Here we translate das ursprünglich Waltende of the Gesamtausgabe edition; the Niemeyer edition has das ursprünglich Weltende (that which originally worlds).