RATIONAL LIFE 275 



carry through our reflections and form our decisions. 

 We consciously originate, continue, and conclude our 

 own reflections. Assigning to enviroment and to 

 organism all that has been indicated above, in the 

 movement of the bird, and in the sight of the move 

 ment contemporaneously with the sight of it by cat 

 and dog, we are, apart from these, conscious of our 

 own agency in the exercise of intelligence. We 

 identify the bullfinch, by reference to the class to 

 which it belongs ; and when, quite instinctively, let 

 us say, the desire to save it arises, our decision to act 

 is matter of consciousness. If, instead of this, we had 

 lifted a stone, and thrown it at the bullfinch; that 

 also would have been our act, for which we should 

 have been responsible, whatever the source of the 

 impulse, simply because we are rational agents. No 

 one thinks the cat responsible for his spring, or the 

 dog for careering among the bushes with noisy yelp. 

 We do not spend our breath on arguments with the 

 animals: nor do they complain of neglect on this 

 account. As Erasmus suggested in the Praise of 

 Folly, we cannot call a horse unhappy, because he 

 was never taught grammar, nor an ox miserable, be 

 cause he was never taught to fence. But when there 

 is a child to hear and understand, we do think it of 

 consequence to speak of kindness to animals. The 

 testimony for the rational life is first and supremely, 

 that of consciousness. Our own knowledge of our 

 own activity, gives certainty. Of this knowledge, we 

 have no explanation apart from our own agency in 

 the exercise of intellect, for which the functions of 

 the nerve-system afford us no explanation. Concen 

 tration of attention, use of past experience, reflection 



