Man as the measurer. – Perhaps all the morality of mankind has its origin in the tremendous inner excitement which seized on primeval men when they discovered measure and measuring, scales and weighing [das Maass und das Messen, die Wage und das Wägen] (the word ‘Man [Mensch]’, indeed, means the measurer [Messendend], he desired to name himself after his greatest discovery!). With these conceptions they climbed into realms that are quite unmeasurable and unweighable [unmessbar und unwägbar] but originally did not seem to be.

Thus aletheuin shows itself most immediately in legein. Legein, ‘to speak’ [Sprechen], is what basically constitutes human Dasein. In speaking, it expresses itself: by speaking about something, about the world. This legein was for the Greeks so preponderant and such an everyday affair that they acquired their definition of man in relation to, and on the basis of, this phenomenon and thereby determined it as zoon ekhon logon. Connected with this definition is that of man as the being which calculates [rechnet], arithmein. Calculating does not mean here counting [zählen] but to reckon something, to be designing [berechnend sein]; it is only on the basis of this original sense of calculating [Rechnen] that number [Zahl] developed.

The Greeks made one invention too many, either geometry or democracy.