244 ANIMAL AUTOMATISM. 



as he is held back by the leash he is not free, being 

 prevented by external force from following his inclina- 

 tion. And the ascription of freedom to the greyhound 

 under the former circumstances is by no means incon- 

 sistent with the other aspect of the facts of the case 

 (r that he is a machine impelled to the chase, and caused, 

 at the same time, to have the desire to catch the game 

 by the impression which the rays of light proceeding 

 from the hare make upon hisrjeyes, and through them 

 upon his brain. 



Much ingenious argument has, at various times, been 

 bestowed upon the question : How is it possible to im- 

 agine that volition, which is a state of consciousness, 

 and, as such, has not the slightest community of nature 

 with matter in motion, can act upon the moving matter 

 of which the body is composed, as it is assumed to do 

 in voluntary acts ? But if, as is here suggested, the 

 voluntary acts of brutes or, in other words, the acts 

 which they desire to perform are as purely mechanical 

 as the rest of their actions, and are simply accompanied 

 by the state of consciousness called volition, the inquiry, 

 so far as they are concerned, becomes superfluous. Their 

 volitions do not enter into the chain of causation of their 

 actions at all. 



The hypothesis that brutes are conscious automata 

 is perfectly consistent with any view that may be held 

 respecting the often discussed and curious question 

 whether they have souls or not ; and, if they have souls, 

 whether those souls are immortal or not. It is obviously 



