Darwinism stated by Darwin himself: Characteristic passages from the writings of Charles DarwinDarwin, Charles
Science
Darwinism stated by Darwin himself: Characteristic passages from the writings of Charles Darwin
Darwin, Charles
Evolution (Biology)
Most of the more complex emotions are common to the higher animals and
ourselves. Every one has seen how jealous a dog is of his master’s
affection, if lavished on any other creature; and I have observed the
same fact with monkeys. This shows that animals not only love, but
have desire to be loved. Animals manifestly feel emulation. They love
approbation or praise; and a dog carrying a basket for his master
exhibits in a high degree self-complacency or pride. There can, I
think, be no doubt that a dog feels shame, as distinct from fear,
and something very like modesty when begging too often for food. A
great dog scorns the snarling of a little dog, and this may be called
magnanimity. Several observers have stated that monkeys certainly
dislike being laughed at; and they sometimes invent imaginary offenses.
In the Zoölogical Gardens I saw a baboon who always got into a furious
rage when his keeper took out a letter or book and read it aloud to
him; and his rage was so violent that, as I witnessed on one occasion,
he bit his own leg till the blood flowed.
All animals feel _wonder_, and many exhibit _curiosity_. They sometimes
suffer from this latter quality, as when the hunter plays antics and
thus attracts them; I have witnessed this with deer, and so it is with
the wary chamois, and with some kinds of wild-ducks. Brehm gives a
curious account of the instinctive dread which his monkeys exhibited
for snakes; but their curiosity was so great that they could not desist
from occasionally satiating their horror in a most human fashion, by
lifting up the lid of the box in which the snakes were kept. I was so
much surprised at his account, that I took a stuffed and coiled-up
snake into the monkey-house at the Zoölogical Gardens, and the
excitement thus caused was one of the most curious spectacles which I
ever beheld.
ALL ANIMALS POSSESS SOME POWER OF REASONING.
[Page 75.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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