It had been no easy matter when he first drifted in mysteriously out of nowhere to their little mountain cottage.

Shakespeare could understand Human, the language used by people, as well as Dog, the telepathic speech with which canines communicated with each other.

But that full graſp of vaſt Eternitie / Longs not to beings ſimply vegetive, / Not yet to creatures merely ſenſitive: / Reaſon alone cannot arrive to it. / Onely ſouls Deiform intellective / Unto that height of happineſſe can get; / Yet immortalitie with other ſouls may fit.

It was to acknowledge this difficulty that Heidegger proposed in Zur Seinsfrage (1955) to write “Being” under erasure, so that the visible crossing-out of the word would display its negation as an act taking place within time.