Book-bot.com - read famous books online for free

Myth and Science - An Essay by Tito Vignoli
page 41 of 265 (15%)
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 assume a form analogous
to the sentient subject.

The fact of this law must never be forgotten in the analysis 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 analogous 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 classes 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
DigitalOcean Referral Badge