Last season, however, Lennon seemed to take an unsteady step backwards at White Hart Lane, while Walcott made a rocket-assisted international take-off on a memorable night in Zagreb.
We identify with the estranged sensation, absorbed by it, rather than reverting to understanding it egotistically as an expression of an inner self, already formed, already perfected.
For the better part of a century, most biologists have been reluctant to use those words, mindful of a principle of evolution that says "evolution cannot run backwards".