He knows no other self than that; or,
strictly speaking, he knows no self at all. It is the experience he
knows, and not himself the experiencer. We say, "The cat feels herself
warm;" but is it quite so? Does she feel herself, or does she feel
warm? Which? If we may trust the writers to whom I have referred, we
ought rather to say, "The cat feels warm" than that "she feels herself
warm;" for this latter statement implies a distinction of which she is
in no way aware. She does not set off her passing moods in contrast to
a self who might be warm or cold, active or idle, hungry or satiated.
The experience of the instant occupies her so entirely that in reality
the cat ceases to be a cat and becomes for the moment just warm. So it
is in all her seeming activities. When she chases a mouse we rightly
say, "She _is_ chasing a mouse," for then she is nothing else. Such a
state of things is at least conceivable. We can imagine momentary
experiences to be so engrossing that the animal is exclusively
occupied with them, unable to note connections with past and future,
or even with herself, their perceiver. Through very fullness of
Consciousness brutes may be lacking in self-consciousness.
Whether this is the case with the brutes or not, something quite
different occurs in us. No particular experience can satisfy us; we
accordingly say, not "I am an experience," but "I have an experience.
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