Translations:Benutzer:Arian/Klett-Mini-Test/749/en

This first step toward knowledge of the essential being is followed by a second, more deeply penetrating one, when one practises in thinking the following of the transformation — for instance of the farm whole in the course of the year. The one form of appearance transforms itself, taken as a whole, into another. The very same winter-wheat plant that, after its hidden germination in the earth, first comes to appearance in its still rolled-up first leaf, transforms itself into one that now from its densely packed nodes puts forth further leaves (tillering); then into one that in winter presses its leaf rosette star-like to the ground; further into one that in the warmth of spring raises its leaves; then into one that suddenly shoots up as a vertical stem; again into one that pushes out the ear; once more into one that ends its growth in the forming of the ear; and finally into one that flowers inconspicuously, self-pollinates (or, as with rye, surrenders its spores in yellow clouds to the wind). There follow the transformation-stage of complete dying-away, and in the course of this the ripening of the grain or seed, and at last its detachment from the living context of the mother plant — bearing within itself what is yet to come. Thus in constant transformation the sum of all plants, and with them the sum of all animals, stamp the face of the farm precincts. Between each of these steps of transformation there exists an evident connection, for it is always one and the same plant, one and the same animal, that lives itself forth now in one way, now in another. What transforms itself there becomes perceptible appearance; how it transforms itself remains in darkness. The forces through which the one form of appearance arises out of the other, and which thereby bring about the "context of transformation," remain invisible. The transition from the one to the other either never becomes a question — or one loses oneself in theory.