64 MYTH AND SCIENCE. 



perceived by animals is clearly apparent, and also 

 how we may account for their indifference to those 

 to which they hecome 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 con- 

 stant communication with an animal world resembling 

 their own, and the objective reality is for the most 

 part resolved into living subjects, endowed with con- 

 sciousness 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 grasses, 

 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 car- 

 nivora, offer no resistance. 



Observe the way in which an herbivorous or grami- 

 nivorous animal becomes excited and angry when the 

 branch or the ear of corn obstinately adheres to the 

 ground, or oners any other difficulty to his immediate 

 desire of obtaining food ; he acts like one who has to 



