54 MYTH AND SCIENCE. 



or which has annoyed them by regular and re- 

 peated motions, how they start at the sudden appear- 

 ance or oscillation of some unlooked-for thing, at an 

 unusual light, a colour, a stone, a plant, at the flut- 

 tering of branches, of clothes, or weathercocks, 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 pheno- 

 mena 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 dif- 

 ferent type from other objects, but they transfuse 

 into everything their own personality and their in- 

 trinsic consciousness. This is the case with the whole 

 animal kingdom, at least with those whose internal 

 emotion can be gathered from their external move- 

 ments 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. 



