central fact of his being, we shall not know whether he is a poor
relation of ours or is rather akin to rocks, and clouds, and trees. I
incline to the former guess, and am ready to believe that between him
and us there is only a difference of degree. But since in any case he
stands at an extreme distance from ourselves, we may for purposes of
explanation assume that distance to be absolute, and talk of him as
having no share in the prerogative announced by Shelley. So regarded,
we shall say of him that he does not compare or adjust. He does not
organize experiences and know a single self running through them all.
Whenever an experience takes him, it swallows his self--a self, it is
true, which he never had.

It is sometimes assumed that Shelley was the first to announce this
weighty distinction. Philosophers of course were familiar with it long
ago, but the poets too had noticed it before the skylark told Shelley.
Burns says to the mouse:--

"Still thou art blest, compared wi' me!
The present only toucheth thee:
But, ooh! I backward cast my e'e
On prospects drear!
An' forward tho' I canna see,
I guess an' fear."

This looking backward and forward which is the ground of man's
grandeur, is also, Burns thinks, the ground of his misery; for in it
is rooted his self-consciousness, something widely unlike the itemized
consciousness of the brute. Shakespeare, too, found in us the same
distinctive trait. Hamlet reflects how God has made us "with such
discourse, looking before and after." We possess discourse, can move