y ANIMAL AUTOMATISM 237 



we consider the infant advancing in years, or the 

 adult emerging from slumber and swoon. We 

 know, further, that the lower animals possess, 

 though less developed, that part of the brain which 

 we have every reason to believe to be the organ of 

 consciousness in man ; and as, in other cases, func- 

 tion and organ are proportional, so we have a right 

 to conclude it is with the brain ; and that the 

 brutes, though they may not possess our intensity 

 of consciousness, and though, from the absence of 

 language, they can have no trains of thoughts, but 

 only trains of feelings, yet have a consciousness 

 which, more or less distinctly, foreshadows our own. 



I confess that, in view of the struggle for exist- 

 ence which goes on in the animal world, and of 

 the frightful quantity of pain with which it must 

 be accompanied, I should be glad if the proba- 

 bilities were in favour of Descartes' hypothesis ; 

 but, on the other hand, considering the terrible 

 practical consequences to domestic animals which 

 might ensue from any error on our part, it is as 

 well to err on the right side, if we err at all, and 

 deal with them as weaker brethren, who are 

 bound, like the rest of us, to pay their toll for 

 living, and suffer what is needful for the general 

 good. As Hartley finely says, " We seem to be in 

 the place of God to them ; " and we may justly 

 follow the precedents He sets in nature in our 

 dealings with them. 



But though we may see reason to disagree with 



