Animal mind

“ It is, however, becoming more and more clearly evident that the discussion of the relation of the animal to the human mind, if it is to be made a subject of scientific inquiry, must be conducted on psychological lines by those who have devoted years of study to the subject. In this work such a discussion will be attempted, and animal behaviour will be treated as the precursor of human conduct, and as affording evidence of the germs from which the distinctively human mental attributes may have been evolved. ”

“ An animal, even an insect, thinks, remembers, reasons, and wills. (1) Few naturalists will now support the doctrine that all the mental operations of brute or insect are to be exclusively referred to instincts; and, even if they do, the word ‘instinct’ is a very vague word,—loose and large enough to cover an abyss which our knowledge has not sounded. And, indeed, in proportion as an animal like the dog becomes cultivated by intercourse, his instincts grow weaker, and his ideas formed by experience (namely, his mind) , more developed, often to the conquest of the instincts themselves. ”

“ My belief is that the mind of the mere animal is in no ease able to reach beyond the limit of simple ministration to the animal needs, and animal feelings, and instincts of the creature according to its kind ”

“ I admit this necessity, and unhesitatingly take the position, as has been already done in the classification of minds, that the lower animals are in fact endowed with a something higher and more spiritual than their material bodies or their animal vitality—something which bears distinguishing characteristics of mind. ”

“ The history of this peculiar herd-dog shows us how marvellously pliant the body and mind of this species has become under the conditions of civilization. The rude process of unconscious selection, acting without steadfastness of purpose or rationally developed skill, serves to sway the qualities of the animal this way or that to meet the ever-changing requirements of use or fancy. ”

“ Their care is to catch the varying, elusive personalities which dwell back of the luminous brain windows of the dog, the horse, the deer, or wrap themselves in reserve behind the inscrutable eyes of all the cats, or sit aloof in the gaze of the hawk and the eagle. The animal story at its highest point of development is a psychological romance constructed on a framework of natural science. ”

“ We come, now, to the first appearance, so far as we know, of an animal that by reason of a superior development of its brain was destined to subjugate all the other members of the animal kingdom—the animal which we know as Man. ”

“ Although the naturalist may, for his own convenience, class these reactions under general heads, he must not forget that in the animal it is a particular sensation or perception, or image which calls them forth.
At first this view astounds us by the enormous number of special adjustments it supposes animals to possess ready-made in anticipation of the outer things among which they are to dwell. Can mutual dependence be so intricate and go so far? Is each thing born fitted to particular other things, and to them exclusively, as locks are fitted to their keys? ”

“ What now is the case of animals, especially those which are most highly trained, as for instance the dog, the horse, or the monkey? Have not they likewise a soul? Certainly the animal possesses sensible impressions, feelings, impulses, a memory, and as far as this goes, one may speak of a soul. ”

“ The observant naturalist of the field has the sense—at least he has it if he be endowed with a little imagination—of [216] the immense pleasure which life gives to most wild animals. That instinctive, and in its foundations utterly irrational and animal joy which men have, or should have, in their day, is part of the birthright of all sentient beings. ”

“ It is no detraction from the merit of these books, which have done great service in awakening a sympathetic understanding of the animals and sharpening our sense of kinship with all that breathe, to say that their psychology is human. Their animal characters think and feel as human beings would think and feel under like conditions. This marks the stage which these works occupy in the development of the animal story. ”

“ I would merely take this occasion to reaffirm with confidence the belief, which I find shared by practically all observers whose lives are passed in the closest relationship with animals,—by such vitally interested observers, for instance, as keepers, trainers, hunters, and trappers,—that the actions of animals are governed not only by instinct, but also, in varying degree, by processes essentially akin to those of human reason. ”

“ He brought to his writings of animal life a new point of view—namely, that human beings and wild animals are kin; that animals are motivated with passions and desires and, to some extent, ideas, just as human beings are. Thus he wrote with sympathy and with creative imagination and revealed the new life and being of wild animals, and he hoped to achieve the practical result of quickening the sympathies of man toward animals and stopping the thoughtless extermination of many of our harmless wild creatures. ”

“ How far down the scale of animal life the phenomena of consciousness are manifested, it is impossible to say. No one doubts their presence in his fellow-men; and, unless any strict Cartesians are left, no one doubts that mammals and birds are to be reckoned creatures that have feelings analogous to our smell, taste, sight, hearing, touch, pleasure, and pain. ”

“ The proper place in which to study the minds, manners and morals of wild animals is in the most thickly populated haunts of the most intelligent species. The free and untrammeled animal, busily working out its own destiny unhindered by man, is the beau-ideal animal to observe and to study. ”

“ From such experiences I judge that the feeling of unsensed danger, or the more subtle feel of a living thing, is as variable in the animals as are their instincts or their social habits. It may be dull in one creature and keen in another of the same species, or alternately awake and asleep in the same creature; but there is no longer any doubt in my mind that it is a widespread gift among birds and beasts. ”

“ I might speak of the use of animals to man for food, for clothing, to bear his burdens, to delight him with their beauty and affection animal. He has animal instincts, desires, passions, tastes, habits, powers, in a word, an animal nature. He possesses not merely the special faculties of one animal. The qualities of all animals are embodied in him. Plants and animals are special forms and qualities of life, all of which are combined in every human being. ”

“ But when we ask as to the nature of the animal soul, and how far it is analogous to that of man, we meet with certain difficulties. Let us see then how many of the human qualities of the soul are to be found in animals, and so discover if there is any remainder not possessed by them, peculiar to ourselves. ”

“ The perceptual volition of animals, then, is a state of consciousness arising when, as the outcome of perception and emotion, motor-stimuli prompting to activity conflict with inhibitory stimuli restraining from activity. The animal chooses or yields to the stronger motive, and is conscious of choosing. ”

“ All we can say is, that it is possible to trace in animal behaviour some of the instinctive tendencies and intelligent modes of accommodation to social circumstances, together with the germs of imitation, intercommunication, and tradition, and the establishment of bonds of sympathy, without which the subsequent stages of evolution would be inconceivable. ”

“ Objections.—As the processes of life and that lower order of intelligence known as instinct, are manifested in animals, identically the same as they are in man, and by the wonderful interrelationship existing between all the members of the animal world, from protozoa to man, what is true of one must be true of all, it follows that if it is necessary to evoke the aid of the spirit for the explanation of the phenomena connected with man, it is equally necessary [205] in the case of animals. ”

“ As animal consciousness is related to human self-consciousness, so exactly is animal will to human free-will, animal intelligence to human reason, animal sign-language to rational grammatical speech of man, constructive art of animals to true rational progressive art of man. ”

“ Still more dimly does the animal feel that, apart from external interests which prompt nine-tenths of its behaviour, chiefly through the senses of sight, hearing, and smell, there are also matters in which the interest has somehow shifted to his own body. ”

“ It is not reason, for they have no soul nor mind as men, women, and children have; but by it some animals, such as dogs and horses, often seem to know what is right and wrong. It is instinct which teaches the bird to build her nest. ”

“ When we meet with instances of a nature calculated to overturn this theory—such as wild animals attacking and destroying travellers, or preying upon the shepherd as he guards his flock, with others of a similar description—instead of hastily presuming upon the falsity of the above position, we should rather seek for some explanation of the reasons which in these cases checked for the time the workings of the animal’s natural instinct. ”

“ Hence I said that the animals in our zoological gardens, even if born and reared in captivity, may exhibit a craving for freedom and a yearning to perform their instinctive activities. This craving may be regarded as a blind and vague impulse, prompting the animal to perform those activities which are for its own good and for the good of the race to which it belongs. ”

“ Folk who loved their animal comrades—their dogs, horses, cats, parrots, elephants—were observing, with the wonder and interest of discoverers, the astonishing fashion in which the mere instincts of these so-called irrational creatures were able to simulate the operations of reason. ”

“ All natural philosophers and historians who have made the nature and habits of the animal creation their study have agreed upon this fact; that all healthy animals, unless their lives are terminated by violence, live five times as long as it takes them to grow up. ”

“ But who attributes to the animals a belief that the phenomena of nature are worked by a multitude of invisible animals or by one enormous and prodigiously strong animal behind the scenes? It is probably no injustice to the brutes to assume that the honour of devising a theory of this latter sort must be reserved for human reason. ”

“ On the other hand, we recognize in many animals the operation of a reasoning mind. In their efforts to escape, or when conditions of a novel character are presented to them, they act in a manner that shows clear evidence of intelligence, although they show this to a very limited extent as compared with man. [5] We also know that habits acquired by animals during domestication, or taught them by the exercise of their reasoning faculties, become instinctive in them, and are inherited in their offspring, as in the familiar case of the pointer dog. ”

“ As our intelligence has developed we have applied it to the service of the senses and at the expense of our primitive intuition of right and wrong that guided us in the selection of that which was suitable to our preservation and health. We excel the animals in the possession of reason, but the animals excel us in the exercise of instinct. ”

“ But throughout the animal kingdom, until we reach its highest development in man, the guidance of consciousness, important as it is, seems to be almost wholly subservient to a biological end, that of the preservation of the race, and for the race of the individual. Practical utility is the touchstone of animal intelligence, and of the whole range of feeling and emotion in beings still under examination in the stern school of natural selection. ”

“ For instance, we have had many books, brochures, magazine articles, &c., devoted to the subject of "animal instinct v. reason," and I would mention such standard works as 'Animal Behaviour' and 'Habit and Instinct,' by Principal Lloyd Morgan. ”

“ The animal judges the movements of its friends and foes, it learns their peculiarities by heart and acts accordingly: it gives up, once and for all, the struggle against individual animals of certain species, and it likewise recognises, in the approach of certain varieties, whether their intentions are agreeable and peaceful. ”

“ Thus we call the sentiment which leads the Birds to perform so many admirable actions, instinct. The tenderness of the mother for her young for instance—a tenderness so full of delicacy and foresight, is, we say, only the result of instinct. It is agreed, however, that this instinct singularly resembles the intelligence called reason. ”

“ What, then, have you to urge against my doctrine that the whole animal world is in that condition, and that—to use the very correct words of Father Malebranche—'Thus in dogs, cats, and other animals, there is neither intelligence nor spiritual soul as we understand the matter commonly; they eat without pleasure—they cry without pain—they grow without knowing it—they desire nothing, they know nothing ”

“ To understand what I mean, consider any animal—a dog, for instance—how much every animal has in it what men have,—a body, and brain, and heart; it hungers and thirsts as we do, it can feel pleasure and pain, anger and loneliness, and fear and madness ”