SCHOLAR: Non-willing still signifies, on the one hand, a willing, in that a No prevails in it, even if it is in the sense of a No that directs itself at willing itself and renounces it. Non-willing in this sense means: to willfully renounce willing. And then, on the other hand, the expression non-willing also means: that which does not at all pertain to the will.
SCIENTIST: Which can therefore also never be accomplished or achieved by a willing.
GUIDE: But perhaps we come nearer to it through a willing in the first sense of non-willing.
SCHOLAR: So you see the one and the other non-willing in a definite relation to one another. [107]
GUIDE: I not only see this relation. Let me confess that it has appealed to me, if not indeed called on me, ever since I began attempting to reflect on what moves our conversation.
SCIENTIST: Am I right to assume the following determination of the relation between the one and the other non-willing: You will a nonwilling in the sense of a renouncing of willing, so that through this renouncing we can let ourselves engage in—or at least prepare ourselves for an engagement in—the sought-for essence of that thinking which is not a willing.
GUIDE: Not only do you assume correctly, but you have—“by the gods,” I would say, if they had not flown from us—found something essential.
SCHOLAR: If any of us were in a position to mete out praise, and if this were not to run contrary to the style of our conversations, I would be tempted to say now that you have surpassed both us and yourself with this interpretation of the ambiguous talk of non-willing.
SCIENTIST: That I succeeded in this was not due to me, but rather to the night which has in the meantime fallen upon us, and which compels concentration without using force.
SCHOLAR: By slowing down our pace, it allows us time to ponder.
GUIDE: Which is why we are also far away from human habitation.
SCIENTIST: Ever more relaxed, I am coming to trust the inconspicuous escort who takes us by the hand or, more aptly said, by the word in this conversation.
SCHOLAR: This escort is also needed, since the conversation is becoming ever more difficult. [108]
GUIDE: If by difficult you mean what is unaccustomed, which consists in the fact that we are disaccustoming ourselves to the will. Scholar: To the will, you say, and not just to willing—
SCIENTIST: —and so you pronounce a rousing proposal in a relaxed [gelassen] manner.