14 The Animal Mind 



as they could. Still others have occupied an intermediate 

 position. 



Descartes and Montaigne are the two writers antedating 

 the modern period who are most frequently quoted in this 

 connection. The latter had evidently a natural sympathy 

 with animals. In that most delightful twelfth chapter of 

 the second book of Essays, "An Apology of Raymond 

 Sebonde," he gives free rein to the inclination to humanize 

 them. I quote Florio's translation: "The Swallowes 

 which at the approach of spring time we see to pry, to 

 search and ferret all the corners of our houses ; is it with- 

 out judgment they seeke, or without discretion they chuse 

 from out a thousand places, that which is fittest for them, 

 to build their nests and lodging? . . . Would they (sup- 

 pose you) first take water and then clay, unlesse they 

 guessed that the hardnesse of the one is softned by the 

 moistness of the other? . . . Why doth the spider spin 

 her artificiall web thicke in one place and thin in another ? 

 And now useth one, and then another knot, except she 

 had an imaginary kind of deliberation, forethought, and 

 conclusion?" To ascribe such behavior to the working 

 of mere instinct, "with a kinde of unknowne, naturall and 

 servile inclination," is unreasonable. "The Fox, which 

 the inhabitants of Thrace use" to test the ice on a river 

 before crossing, which listens to the roaring of the water 

 underneath and so judges whether the ice is safe or not; 

 "might not we lawfully judge that the same discourse pos- 

 sesseth her head as in like case it would ours? And that 

 it is a kinde of debating reason and consequence, drawne 

 from natural sense ? ' Whatsoever maketh a noyse moveth, 

 whatsoever moveth, is not frozen, whatsoever is not frozen, 

 is liquid ; whatsoever is liquid, yeelds under any weight ? ' ' 

 (498). 



