Undoubtedly they do, as a rule, by means of their implicit judgment,
distinguish animals as of a different type from other objects, but they
transfuse into everything their own personality and their intrinsic
consciousness. This is the case with the whole animal kingdom, at least
with those whose internal emotion can be gathered from their external
movements and gestures.
An animal is sometimes aware that an enemy which may lie in wait for and
destroy him has approached the neighbourhood of his haunts, or at any
rate may interfere with the freedom of his ordinary life, and he
withdraws as far as he can from this new peril or injury, and seeks to
defend himself from the malice of his enemy by special arts. In this
case, the external subject or thing is what his own objective sense
conceives it to be, and his inward perception corresponds to an actual
cosmic reality.
Suppose that instead of this, the neighbourhood of a fierce fire, or
violent rain and hail, or a stormy wind, or some other natural
phenomenon, surprises or injures such creatures; these facts do not
affect them as if they were merely occurrences in accordance with cosmic
laws, for such a simple conception of things is not grasped by them.
Such phenomena of nature are regarded by animals as living subjects,
actuated by a concrete and deliberate purpose of ill-will towards them.
Any one who has observed animals as I have done for many years, both in
a wild and domestic state, and under every variety of conditions and
circumstances, will readily admit the fact.
This truth, which clearly appears from an accurate analysis of facts,
and from experiments, can also be demonstrated by the arguments of
reason. Since animals have no conception of the purely cosmic reality of
the phenomena and laws which constitute nature, it follows that such a
reality must appear to their inner consciousness in its various effects
as a subject vaguely identical with their own psychical nature. Hence
they regard nature as if she were inspired with the same life, will, and
purpose, as those which they themselves exercise, and of which they have
an immediate and intrinsic consciousness.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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