Difficulties and Methods 15 



nature and by springs, like a clock, which tells better what the 

 hour is than our judgment can inform us. And doubtless 

 when swallows come in the spring, they act in that like clocks. 

 All that honey bees do is of the same nature " (99, pp. 281- 

 283). The statement of Descartes, contained in the letter 

 to Mersenne of July 30, 1640, that animals are automata, is 

 often misunderstood. Descartes does not assert that animals 

 are unconscious in the sense which that term would carry 

 to-day, but only that they are without thought. Sensations, 

 feelings, passions, he is willing to ascribe to them, in so far as 

 these do not involve thought. " It must however be observed 

 that I speak of thought, not of life, nor of sensation," he says 

 in the letter to Henry More, 1649; "I do not refuse to them 

 feeling ... in so far as it depends only on the bodily 

 organs " (99, p. 287). In this he does not go so far as some 

 modern writers, who decline to assert the presence of any 

 psychic process in the lower forms of animal life. 



Turning to recent times, we find arguments very like those 

 of Montaigne used by the earlier evolutionary writers. 

 Darwin, for instance, says in "The Descent of Man," "As 

 dogs, cats, horses, and probably all the higher animals, even 

 birds, have vivid dreams, and this is shown by their move- 

 ments and the sounds uttered, we must admit that they pos- 

 sess some power of imagination" (89, p. 74). "Even brute 

 beasts," says Montaigne, "... are seen to be subject to the 

 power of imagination; witnesse some Dogs . . . whom we 

 ordinarily see to startle and barke in their sleep" (277, Bk. I, 

 ch. 20). " Only a few persons," Darwin continues, "now dis- 

 pute that animals possess some power of reasoning. Ani- 

 mals may constantly be seen to pause, deliberate, and resolve." 

 And he states that his object in the third chapter of the work 

 quoted is "to show that there is no fundamental difference 

 between man and the higher mammals in their mental facul- 



