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,