THE BASIS OF ANIMAL MYTH 



THE awakening of interest in the emotions and 

 intelligence of animals in the present era, is a natural 

 reaction from the theories of Buffon and his school, 

 that they were, so far as mind is concerned, mere 

 automata, working out innate ideas without conscious 

 intelligence. But Buffon's position was in its turn 

 the result of a reaction from the * myths ' of the 

 mediaeval naturalists, who culling these stories from 

 the works of Pliny, that great reservoir of lies about 

 animals, used them for their own purposes, and 

 bequeathed this corpus of nonsense to the travellers 

 who, when the exploring impulse began in the six- 

 teenth century, found themselves equipped with this 

 singularly useless stock of ' facts ' to guide them 

 in their observations. Yet the mediaeval naturalists 

 were industrious after a fashion, and we must con- 

 sider the difference of aim with which they wrote, 



contrasted with the modern treatment of natural 



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