William James' image of riding a horse at night, but not knowing whether it is white or black. Compare Hegel, decades earlier, not able to make out the colors of cows in the gloaming. Or trying to time the flight of Minerva's owl--it never occurring to him that the sense of one flight-path might be Hesperus and the sense of the other, Phosphorus. Trying to keep an eye on the livestock has done much for philosophy. Acts of care, not sentiment.
