Myth and Science Part 2

ANIMAL SENSATION AND PERCEPTION.

All animals communicate with each other and with the external world through their senses, and by means of their perception, both internal and external, they possess knowledge and apprehension of one another. In the vast organic series of the animal kingdom, some are better provided than others with methods, instruments, and apparatus fit for effecting such communication. The senses of relation are not found in the same degree in all animals, nor when such senses are the same in number are they endowed with equal intensity, acuteness, and precision. But the fundamental fact remains the same in all cases; they communicate with themselves and with the external world through their senses.

We must now inquire what value the external object of perception, considered in itself, has for the animal, what character it has and a.s.sumes with respect to his inner sense in the act of perception or apprehension. Man, and especially man in our days, after so many ages of reflection, and through the influence of contemporary science, is so far removed from the primitive and simple exercise of his psychical life, that he finds it difficult to picture to himself the ancient and spontaneous conditions under which his senses communicated with the world and with himself. And therefore, without further consideration, he thinks and believes that in primeval times everything took place in the same way as it does at present, and, which is a still greater error, as it takes place in the lower animals.

This identification of the complex machinery of human perception with that of animals must not be regarded as an absurd paradox, since, as we have shown in an earlier work, they were originally and in themselves the same.[8] By pursuing an easy mode of observation, divested of prejudice, we may revert to that primeval state of human nature, and may also comprehend with truth and certainty the condition of animals. For the animal nature has not ceased to exist in man, and it may be discerned by those who care to look for it; and careful study, with the constant aid of observation and experiment, will reveal to us the hidden life of sensation and intelligence in the lower animals.

There is a continual self-consciousness in all animals; it is inseparable from all their internal and external acts, from every fact, pa.s.sion, and emotion; and this is clear and obvious. This fundamental and persistent self-consciousness--persistent in dreams, and even in the calmest sleep, which is always accompanied by a vague sensation--is the consciousness of a living subject, active, impressionable, exercising his will, capable of emotions and pa.s.sions. It is not the consciousness of an inert thing, pa.s.sive, dead, or extrinsic; for animal life consists in sensation of greater or less intensity, but always of sensation.

Consequently, such a consciousness signifies for the animal a constant apprehension of an active faculty exercised intrinsically in himself, and it makes his life into a mobile drama, of which he is implicitly conscious, of acts and emotions, of impulses, desires, and suspicions.

This inward form of emotional life and psychical and organic action, into which the whole value of personal existence is resolved, may be said to invest and modify all the animal's active relations to the external world, which it vivifies and modifies according to its own image. The subsequent act of doubling the faculties which takes place in man does not occur in the animal; a process which modifies through the intellect the spontaneous and primitive act. Consequently, the active and inward sense which is peculiar to the animal is renewed in him by the external things and phenomena of nature which stimulate and excite him.

Two kinds of things present themselves to his perception: other animals, of whatever species, and the inanimate objects of the world. As far as the other animals are concerned, which are obvious to his perception, it is perfectly evident that upon these he will project his whole internal life of consciousness and emotions, and will feel their ident.i.ty with himself by his implicit and intuitive judgment. And in fact, the movements, sounds, gestures, and forms of other animals necessarily cause this sense of inward psychical ident.i.ty, whence arises the implicit notion of an animated and personal subject. Any one who observes, however superficially, the conduct of animals to each other when they first meet, cannot doubt this truth for an instant.

Although the external form and character of the animal perceived are important factors of the implicit notion of an animated personal subject, this belief is even more due to the animal's inward consciousness of himself as a living subject which is reflected in the extrinsic form of the other and is identified with it. The spontaneous and personal psychical effort does not decompose the object perceived into its proper elements by means of reflex attention, but it is immediately projected on those phenomena which a.s.sume a form a.n.a.logous to the sentient subject.

The fact of this law must never be forgotten in the a.n.a.lysis of animal intelligence and sensation. All those who do not keep clearly in view the real and genuine character of the sentient and intelligent faculty in animals are liable to error.

In addition to the perceptions we have mentioned, animals have a perception of inanimate things, that is, of various bodies and phenomena of nature. Although the form, motion, and gestures of an a.n.a.logous and personal subject are wanting in these cases, so that they do not cause extrinsically the same implicit idea, neither do they remain, as with a cultivated and rational man, things and qualities of independent existence, disconnected with the life of the animal which perceives them, exerting no intentional efficacy, and governed by necessary laws by means of which they act and exist.

A cultivated and rational man, by the reflex and calm examination of things, can correctly distinguish these two cla.s.ses of subjects and phenomena, and cannot as a rule be deceived as to their real and relative value with respect to them and to himself. But when he forgets his primary intellectual condition, and does not perfectly understand the permanent condition of animals, he believes that their faculties are identical, and that things, qualities, and phenomena present the same appearance to the human and the animal perception. Yet the actual nature of the thing, so far as it is estimated by our perception as an object different from ourselves and from any other animal, cannot be so apprehended by animals which lack the a.n.a.lytical faculty in the perennial flow of their perceptions; the actual and inanimate thing is presented to them only by the intrinsic, peculiar, personal, and psychical quality of the animal itself.

If form, and characteristic and deliberate action, are wanting to the substances and phenomena of inanimate nature, qualities which more readily arouse in animals the idea of a subject resembling and a.n.a.logous to themselves, yet there always remains the apprehension of some sort of form in which--not distinguished from the others by reflex action--the inward faculty of sensation and emotion is repeated and impersonated by the perceiving animal. Thus every form, every object, every external phenomenon becomes vivified and animated by the intrinsic consciousness and personal psychical faculty of the animal itself. Every object, fact, and phenomenon of nature will not merely appear to him as the real object which it is, but he will necessarily perceive it as a living and deliberating power, capable of affecting him agreeably or injuriously.

Every one is aware of the jealous, suspicious nature of animals, and that they are not only inquisitive about other animals, but about every material object which they see unexpectedly, which moves in an unusual way, or which interferes with or injures them.

It must have been often observed how they turn against any object which has chanced to hurt them, or which has annoyed them by regular and repeated motions, how they start at the sudden appearance or oscillation of some unlooked-for thing, at an unusual light, a colour, a stone, a plant, at the fluttering of branches, of clothes, or weatherc.o.c.ks, at the rush of water, at the slightest movement or sound in the twilight, or in the darkness of night. They look about, and consider all things and phenomena as subjects actuated by will, and as having an immediate influence on their lives, either beneficent or injurious.

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 circ.u.mstances, will readily admit the fact.

This truth, which clearly appears from an accurate a.n.a.lysis 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 const.i.tute 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.

It is true that after long experience animals become accustomed to regard as harmless the phenomena, objects, and forces by which they were at first sympathetically excited and terrified. Of this we have innumerable examples both among wild and domestic animals; but although suspicion and anxiety are subdued by habit and experience, yet these objects and phenomena are not thereby transformed into pure and simple realities. In the same way, if they are at first frightened by the sight and companionship of some other species or object, habit and experience gradually calm their fears and suspicions, and the a.s.sociation or neighbourhood may even become agreeable to them. I have often observed that different species, both when at liberty and in confinement, are affected by the most lively surprise and perturbation when some new phenomenon has startled them; they act as if it were really a living and insidious subject, and then they gradually become calm and quiet, and regard it as some indifferent or beneficent power.

I must adduce some observations and experiments from the many I have made on this subject. It may be objected that if animals in their spontaneous perception personify the object in question, they would give signs of this fact with respect to all the objects with which they come in contact, and among which they live, and yet they remain indifferent to many of them, which is a proof that they distinguish the animate from the inanimate. In fact it cannot be disputed that a vast number of the phenomena and objects of nature are regarded by animals with indifference; they are perceived by them, but it does not appear that they suppose these things to be endowed with life. It is, however, necessary in the first place to distinguish two modes and stages in this animation of things, one of which we may term static, and the other dynamic. In the first instance, the sentient subject remains tranquil at the very moment when he vivifies the phenomenon or the thing perceived; while the act is accomplished with so much animating force, and with an implicit and fugitive consciousness, it exerts no immediate and sudden influence on the perceiving animal, and consequently he gives no external signs of the personifying character of his perception. In the second instance, which we have termed dynamic, that is, when the phenomenon or object has a direct and sudden effect on the animal himself, he expresses by his movements; gestures, cries, and other signs, how instantaneously he considers and feels the object in question to be alive, for he behaves in exactly the same way towards real animals.

Animals are accustomed to show such indifference towards numerous objects that it might be supposed that they have an accurate conception of what is inanimate; but this arises from habit, from long experience, and partly also from the hereditary disposition of the organism towards this habit. But if the object should act in any unusual way, then the animating process which, as we have just said, was rendered static by its habitual exercise, again becomes dynamic, and the special and permanent character of the act is at once revealed. We have experience of this fact in ourselves, although we are now capable of immediately distinguishing between the animate and the inanimate, and man alone has, or can have, a rational conception of what are really cosmic objects or things. Yet if we suddenly and unexpectedly see some object move in a strange way, which we know from experience to be inanimate, the innate inclination to personify it takes effect, and for a moment we are amazed, as if the phenomenon were produced by deliberate power proper to itself.

I have kept various kinds of animals for several years, in order to observe them and try experiments at my convenience. I have suddenly inserted an unfamiliar object in the various cages in which I have kept birds, rabbits, moles, and other animals. At first sight the animal is always surprised, timid, curious, or suspicious, and often retreats from it. By degrees his confidence returns, and after keeping out of the way for some time, he becomes accustomed to it, and resumes his usual habits. If then, by a simple arrangement of strings already prepared, I move the object to and fro, without showing myself, the animal scuttles about and is much less easily reconciled to its appearance. I have tried this experiment with various animals, and the result is almost always the same.

In the cage of a very tame thrush, I made a movable bottom to his feeding trough, so arranged that by suddenly pulling a cord, the food which it contained could be raised or lowered. When everything remained stationary in its place the thrush ate with lively readiness, but as soon as I raised the food he nearly always flew off in alarm. When the experiment had been often repeated, he did not like to come near the feeding trough, and--which is a still stronger proof that he imagined the food itself to be endowed with life--he often refused to approach, or only approached in fear the sopped bread which was placed outside the trough. I tried the same experiment with other birds, and nearly always with the same result.

On another occasion I repeatedly waved a white handkerchief before a spirited horse, bringing it close to his eyes; at first he looked at it suspiciously and shied a little, but without being much discomposed, and I continued the experiment until he became accustomed to its ordinary appearance. One day I and a friend went out driving with this horse, and I directed a man, while we were pa.s.sing at a moderate pace, to wave the same handkerchief, attached to a stick, in such a way that his person on the other side of the hedge was invisible. The horse was scared and shied violently, and even in the stable he could not see the handkerchief without trembling, and it was difficult to reconcile him to the sight of it. I repeated the experiment with slight variations on other horses, and the issue was always more or less the same.

Again, I placed a scarecrow or bogey in a parti-coloured dress in the s.p.a.cious kennel of a hound while he was absent from it. When the dog wished to return to his kennel, he drew back at the sight of it, and barked for a long while. After going backwards and forwards, snuffing suspiciously, he decided to enter, but he remained on the threshold of the kennel, anxiously inspecting the bogey. In a few days, however, he became accustomed to it, and was indifferent to its presence. I ought to add that I had taught him on the first day, by punishment and admonition, that he must not destroy the bogey. One day when the dog was lying down I violently moved the puppet's arms by a cord, and he jumped up and ran barking out of the kennel, soon returning to bark as he had done at first. Finally, he again became accustomed to it, but whenever I repeated the movement with greater violence, it took a long while for him to become reconciled to it.

I put into a room various kinds of wild birds, which had been taken in nets after they were full grown. The window, which looked upon a garden, was unglazed, and closed by a wire netting, through which the outer air entered and was constantly renewed. I placed in the middle of the room a pot containing a shrub of some size, on which the birds used to perch.

Since they had been reared in the open air they were certainly accustomed to the wind, and to the way in which it moves trees and branches, so that they were not alarmed by a phenomenon which they recognized from experience. I fastened a cord to the head of the shrub which I pa.s.sed through a hole in the door, making another to look through, and in this way I moved it to and fro as the wind might have done. One day when there was a high wind which could be heard in the room, and when the current of air through the window was perceptible, I tried the experiment when the conditions of resemblance were perfect.

And yet when the violent movement and oscillation of the shrub was combined with the noise of the wind, the frightened birds all fluttered about, and after repeating the movement, and then allowing it to subside, they kept away from the shrub and did not dare to settle on it.

At another time, aided by an ingenious young friend, I constructed a toy windmill, of which the vanes were moved by weights. I placed this toy in a cage, so arranged that its motions could be regulated from the outside, and I put into the cage a sparrow, which had been taken from the nest, and which consequently had no experience of the external world. Much patience was needed, since the toy required careful adjustment and was easily thrown out of gear, but I managed it at last.

The sparrow pecked at the little mill as soon as he was put into the cage, and he grew up accustomed to its motions. I then took the sparrow out of the cage and put in a finch, which had also been taken from the nest, but was reared far from such a machine, and he was frightened and did not reconcile himself to it for some time. I exchanged this bird for a goldfinch which had been caught after he was full grown, and his alarm at the little mill was so great that he did not dare to move.

In a ground floor room which I used as my study, I hung an old sheet, which reached to the ground, on a long spear inserted in a heavy wooden disk; I surmounted it with a ragged hunting cap, and so arranged the sheet as to give it some resemblance to the human form. When my dog came in as usual, he looked suspiciously at the object, snuffing about and gradually approaching to walk round and observe it. At last he was satisfied, and curled himself up by the skirts of the bogey, where I had placed the mat on which he was accustomed to lie when he was with me.

One evening when the moon shone doubtfully and there was just light enough to distinguish the outline of things, I carried the shapeless bogey into the garden near my room, and placed it among some shrubs and bushes. I went back to the house and called my dog, who followed me quietly until he reached the spot from which he could see the bogey distinctly enough for him to recognize its ident.i.ty with the one with which he was already familiar. As soon as he saw the apparition he stood still, growling furiously; he began to bark, and when I encouraged him to come on, he turned round and ran back to the house. I shut up the dog in another room, brought back the bogey to its former place, and threw a strong light upon it before recalling the dog. At the first sight of the bogey the dog paused suspiciously for an instant, but when I sat down to the table as usual, he hesitated a little and after snuffing at it went back to his couch.

I have made similar experiments with dogs, rabbits, birds, and other animals. I took long wooden poles, and put them inside their cages or hutches in such a way that the animals got to know and feel reconciled to the sight of them. After some days had elapsed, I contrived, while screened from sight, to take the poles from their usual place and to make them touch and annoy the animals with more or less violence, thus causing them to flutter or scamper about and to shrink away, as if from the touch of a living person, although they were unable, as I have said, to see me or my hand. Those which were least agitated sprang forward with little leaps and looked about them, doubtful and excited. I might go on to describe many other experiments made with the same object, and always with the same result, but these are enough to show that I went to work cautiously and conscientiously, that the spontaneous and innate personification of the objects perceived by animals is clearly apparent, and also how we may account for their indifference to those to which they become accustomed.

Among animals the necessity of finding food is the great and unfailing stimulus towards the exercise of their vital functions; food which may, as we all know, be vegetable, animal, or a combination of both kinds. It is evident that in the case of carnivorous animals the object which satisfies this desire is a living subject, of which it is necessary to become possessed by arts, wiles, sometimes by a fierce and cruel conflict. In these cases, animals are in constant communication with an animal world resembling their own, and the objective reality is for the most part resolved into living subjects, endowed with consciousness and will. But neither is the vegetable food of herbivorous, frugivorous, and graminivorous animals regarded by them, as it is by us, as a material and unconscious satisfaction of their wants; these gra.s.ses, grains, and leaves appear to animals to be living powers which it is necessary to conquer, animated subjects endowed with life, but for the most part inoffensive, and which, unlike the living prey of carnivora, offer no resistance.

Observe the way in which an herbivorous or graminivorous animal becomes excited and angry when the branch or the ear of corn obstinately adheres to the ground, or offers any other difficulty to his immediate desire of obtaining food; he acts like one who has to do with a resisting power.

Observe how, when they are quietly stripping the bough, picking out the grains, or eating the gra.s.s, they become suspicious, or fly away if there should be any unusual movement in the bough, the ears of corn, or the gra.s.s. In one way or another their food is regarded as a subject endowed with sympathetic and deliberate consciousness. And every one must have observed that animals at play act towards inanimate objects as if they were conscious and endowed with will.

Every object of animal perception is therefore felt, or implicitly a.s.sumed, to be a living, conscious, acting subject. This is due to the external reflection and projection of the intrinsic and sentient faculty, and therefore--since an animal has not the duplex faculty of deliberate and reflex attention--he cannot attain to the conception of simple external reality, of cosmic things and phenomena. Every object, every phenomenon is for him a deliberating power, a living subject, in which consciousness and will act as they do in himself. There are undoubtedly in the vast series of beings which compose the order of nature, and which he is able to perceive, degrees, differences, and varieties of energy, power, and efficacy with respect to himself and to the normal exercise of his life. But he transfuses into all, in proportion to the effects which result from them, his own nature, and modifies them in accordance with the intrinsic form of his consciousness, his emotions, and his instincts.

The external world appears to animals to be a great and mighty movement and congeries of living, conscious, deliberating beings, and the value of the phenomenon or thing is great in proportion to its effect on the animal itself. The objective and simple reality, as it appears to man, has no existence for animals; from the nature of their intelligence they cannot attain to any explicit conception of it, so that this reality is resolved and modified into their own image. The eternal and infinite flux, by which all things come and go in obedience to laws which are permanent and enduring, appears to animals to be a vast and confused dramatic company in which the subjects, with or without organic form, are always active, working in and through themselves, with benign or malignant, pleasing or hurtful influence. It is for this reason, and this reason only, that their life of consciousness and of relation is so deeply seated and so readily excited. Nor do animals ever believe themselves to be alone among inanimate things; even when not surrounded by allied or different species, they have the sense of living amid the manifold forms of conscious and deliberating life which the world contains.

This constant and deliberate animation of all the objects and phenomena of nature is spontaneous and necessary owing to the psychical and organic const.i.tution of the animal kingdom, and it resolves itself into a universal personification of the phenomena themselves. In fact, the animal's intrinsic psychical personality is infused and transformed into each of them with more or less intensity and vigour; the phenomena are perceived by each individual just as far as he a.s.similates them, and he is constantly a.s.similating himself to them. His communication with the external world is in proportion with its internal reflection on himself, and he understands just as much as his own nature enables him to grasp.

A careful consideration therefore shows that the conditions of animal knowledge consist in endowing the phenomena and objects of nature with consciousness and will. I think that this truth will prove a certain guide and beacon in the interpretation of the origin of myth and science in man.

CHAPTER III.

HUMAN SENSATION AND PERCEPTION.

In man, as it has been clearly proved, sensations and perceptions occur both physiologically and psychically just as they do in animals. If science and the rational process of the interpretation of things have their origin and are evolved in us by the duplication of our faculties, such a function, which is due to this duplication, is very slowly developed and exercised, and in its origin, as an effort of the intelligence, it does not differ from that of animals.

It is true that the internal act of the higher faculty of reflection has hardly taken place before man unconsciously enters on a new and vast apprenticeship, which soon distinguishes him from and exalts him above the animal kingdom; science has already put forth its first germ. But the reasoning and simply animal faculties were so mingled, that for a long while they were confounded together in their effects and results, as well as in their natural methods. We must therefore begin by considering the nature of this primitive human perception, in some degree identical with that of animals, so that they may be estimated to be of equal value, at any rate in their first results and arts.

The vivid self-consciousness, inseparable at all times from every act, pa.s.sion, and emotion, actuates man and animals alike; he has this consciousness in common with all other animals, and especially with those superior orders which are nearest to himself. The further perception of extrinsic things and phenomena occurs after the same manner and in accordance with the same physiological and psychical laws.

By the intrinsic law of animal nature, as it is adapted to his cosmic environment, we see the cause and necessity of the transfusion and projection of himself into everything which he perceives; whence it follows that he regards these things as living, conscious, and deliberating subjects; and this is also the case with man, who animates and endows with life all which surrounds him and which he perceives.

In fact, in man's spontaneous and immediate perception and apprehension of any object or external phenomenon, especially in early life, the innate effects are instantaneous, and correspond with the real const.i.tution of the function; a.n.a.lysis and reflex attention necessarily and slowly succeed to this primitive animal act in the course of human development. Consequently the true character and value of its effect on the perception are the same in man and animals.

If in this psychical and organic fact of perception, man is at first absolutely in the conditions of animals, identical effects must be produced; and this was originally the case, as far as man himself and external things were concerned. The powerful self-consciousness which actuates man and animals alike is projected on the objects or phenomena perceived, and they see them transformed into living, deliberating subjects. In this way the world and all which it contains appears to be a congeries of beings, actuated by will and consciousness, and powerful for good or evil, and in practice they seek to modify, to encourage, or to avoid such influence. The ultimate effect of this action, a.s.sumed to be intentional in all and each of these subjects, will be their personification, either vaguely or definitely, but always as a power active for good or ill.

If we trace back the memories of historic and civilized peoples into the twilight of their origin, at a time when they were still barbarous, and little removed from their primitive savage conditions, we shall find, the further we go back, the more vivid, general, and multiform will the mythological interpretation and conception of the world and its various phenomena appear to be; everything was personified by these primitive peoples in a way common to the animal and human consciousness alike.