In The Geographical History of America, or The Relation of Human Nature to the Human Mind (1937), Gertrude Stein describes the effect of flying over the United States and looking at the land from above, which she distinguishes from what happens when you “climb on the land”:

What does Stein mean by the “human mind” if it involves no remembering or forgetting (faculties most of us would tend to associate with nothing if not our minds)? The best way to make sense of this counterintuitive definition is to look at what else Stein aligns with the “human mind” in opposition to what she calls “human nature.” She adds to the distinction between climbing on the land and looking at it from above in another passage when she remarks that “the land is flat from on high.”