"
To be able to throw off the bondage of the moment is the distinctive
characteristic of a person. When Shelley watches the skylark, he
envies him his power of whole-heartedly seizing a momentary joy. Then
turning to himself, and feeling that his own condition, if broader, is
on that very account more liable to sorrow, he cries,--
"We look before and after,
And pine for what is not."
That is the mark of man. He looks before and after. The outlook of the
brute, if the questionable account which I have given of him is
correct, is different. He looks to the present exclusively. The
momentary experience takes all his attention. If it does not, he too
in his little degree is a person. Could we determine this simple point
in the brute's psychology, he would at once become available for
ethical material. At present we cannot use him for such purposes, nor
say whether he is selfish or self-sacrificing, possessed of moral
standards and accountable, or driven by subtle yet automatic reflexes.
The obvious facts of him may be interpreted plausibly in either way,
and he cannot speak. Till he can give us a clearer account of this
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.
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