—It is understandable that the world of It, given over to itself, that is, not brought into contact with and melted down by the Thou as it comes into being, takes on the alien form of an incubus. But how is it that (as you say) the I of man is emptied of reality? Surely, whether living in or out of relation, the I is assured of itself through its self-consciousness, that strong golden thread on which the many-coloured circumstances are strung. If now I say, “I see you”, or, “I see the tree”, perhaps the seeing is not real in the same way in both, but the I in both is real in the same way.
—Let us make trial if this is 80. The form of the words proves nothing. If many a spoken Thou indicates fundamentally an It, addressed as Thou only from habit and obtuseness, and many a spoken It fundamentally a Thou, its presentness remembered as it were remotely with the whole being, so are countless I’s only indispensable pronouns, necessary abbreviations for “This man here who is speaking”. You speak of self-consciousness? If in the one sentence the Thou of relation is truly meant and in the other the It of an experience, that is, if the I in both is truly meant, is it the same I out of whose self-consciousness both are spoken?
The I of the primary word I-Thou is a different I from that of the primary word I-It.
The I of the primary word I-It makes its appearance as individuality and becomes conscious of itself as subject (of experiencing and using).
The I of the primary word I-Thou makes its appearance as person and becomes conscious of itself as subjectivity (without a dependent genitive).
Individuality makes its appearance by being differentiated from other individualities.
A person makes his appearance by entering into relation with other persons.
The one is the spiritual form of natural detachment, the other the spiritual form of natural solidarity of connexion.
The aim of self-differentiation is to experience and to use, and the aim of these is “life”, that is, dying that asts the span of a man’s life.
The aim of relation is relation’s own being, that is, contact with the Thou. For through contact with every Thou we are stirred with a breath of the Thou, that is, if eternal life.
He who takes his stand in relation shares in a reality, that is, in a being that neither merely belongs to him nor merely lies outside him. All reality is an activity in which I share without being able to appropriate for myself. Where there is no sharing there is no reality. Where there is self-appropriation there is no reality. The most direct the contact with the Thou, the fuller is the sharing.
The I is real in virtue of its sharing in reality. The fuller its sharing the more real it becomes.