consisting in this case of its capacity to satisfy his wants. In short,
all animals, man included, in every act of communication with the world,
exercise this faculty by means of the three elements which constitute
it. If we consider the actions of infants, and still more of all young
animals, this truth will be vividly displayed.

In common speech, even to this day, all men, both learned and unlearned,
speak of inanimate things as if they had consciousness and intelligence.
While this mode of expression bears witness to the extremely early
origin of the general personification of natural objects, it also shows
that even now our intelligence is not emancipated from such a habit, and
our speech unconsciously retains the old custom. Thus we call weather
good and bad, the wind mad (_pazzo_) or furious, the sea treacherous,
the waters insidious; a stone is obstinate, if we cannot easily move it,
and we inveigh against all kinds of material obstacles as if they could
hear us. We call the season inconstant or deceitful, the sun melancholy
and unwilling to shine, and we say that the sky threatens snow. We say
that some plants are consumed by heat, that some soils are indomitable,
that well cultivated ground is no longer wild, that in a good season the
whole landscape smiles and leaps for joy. A river is called malevolent,
and a lake swallows up men; the earth is thirsty and sucks up moisture,
and plants fear the cold. The people of Pistoja say that some olive
trees will not feel a thrashing, that they are afraid of many things,
and that they live on, despising the course of years. Again, they say
that olive trees are not afraid of the pruning knife, and that they
rejoice in its use by a skilled hand. Thousands of such expressions
might be adduced, and we refer our readers to Giuliani's work,
"_Linguaggio vivente toscano._"

Nor do we only ascribe our own feelings to inanimate things, but we also