No sooner said than done. Ratter delicately stirred the cinders with his paw, stretched out his claws two or three times to prepare for the stroke, and then adroitly whipped out first one, then two, then three of the chestnuts, whilst Bertrand crunched them up between his teeth. In came a servant, and there was an end of the business. Farewell, ye rogues! I am told that Ratter was by no means satisfied with the affair. And princes are equally dissatisfied when, flattered to be employed in any uncomfortable concern, they burn their fingers in a distant province for the profit of some king. XXX THE TWO RATS, THE FOX, AND THE EGG[8] (BOOK X.--No. 1) Do not take it ill if, in these fables, I mingle a little of the bold, daring, and fine-spun philosophy that is called new. They say that the lower animals are mere machines: that everything they do is prompted, not by choice, but by mechanism, coming about as it were by springs. There is, they say, neither feeling nor soul--nothing but a mechanical body. It goes just as a watch or clock goes, plodding on with even motion, blindly and aimlessly. Open such a machine and examine it; what do we find? Wheels take the place of intelligence. The first wheel moves the second, and that in turn moves a third, with the result that, in due time, it strikes the hour. According to these new philosophers, that is exactly the case with an animal. It receives a blow in a certain spot, this spot conveys the sensation to another spot, and so the message goes on from place to place until the brain receives it and the impression is made. That is all very well, but how is the impression made? It is necessarily made, without passion, without will, say these philosophers. They tell us that the common idea is that an animal is actuated by emotions which we know as sorrow, joy, love, pleasure, pain, cruelty, or some other of these states; but that it is not so. Do not deceive yourself, they say. "What is it then?" I ask. A watch, indeed! And pray what of ourselves? Ah, well! that is perhaps another thing altogether. This is the way Descartes expounds the theory--Descartes, that mortal who, if he had lived in pagan times, would have been made a god, and who holds a place between man and the higher spirits, just as some I could name--beasts of burden with long ears--hold a place between man and the oysters. Thus, I say, reasons this author: "I have a gift beyond any possessed by others of God's creatures, and that is the gift of thought. I know of what I think." But from positive science we know that although animals may think, they cannot reflect upon what they think. Descartes goes further and boldly states that they do not think at all. That is a statement which need not worry us.