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φαν31

“Thou art the unanswered question;
Couldst see thy proper eye,
Alway it asketh, asketh;
And each answer is a lie.”

But whatever he may have meant, it is plain enough that all that is
immediately present to a man is what is in his mind in the present instant,
his whole life is in the present. But when he asks what is the content of
the present instant, his question always comes too late. The present has gone,
gone by, and what remains of it is greatly metamorphosed. He can, it
is true, recognize that he was a[t?] that time, for example, looking at
a specimen of red-lead, and must have seen that color, which, he perceives,
is something positive and sui-generis, of the nature of Feeling.
But nobody's immediate consciousness, unless when he was much more than
half asleep, ever consisted wholly of a color-sensation; and since, a