How Animals Talk 



forbear details and accept the fact, and try here to 

 view or understand it as a natural phenomenon. 



At first you may strongly object even to my 

 premise, calling it incredible that sense -bound 

 mortals should feel a danger that their eyes can- 

 not see or their ears hear; but there are at least 

 two reasonable answers to your objection. In the 

 first place, we are sense-bound only in the sense of 

 limiting ourselves unnecessarily, confining our per- 

 ception to five habitual modes, shamefully neglect- 

 ing to cultivate even these, and ignoring the use 

 or the existence of other and perhaps finer means 

 of contact with the external world. Again, it is 

 not a whit more incredible that sensitive creatures, 

 whether brute or human, should feel the coming 

 or going of a person than that they should feel 

 his look or glance, as they certainly do. 



This last is no cloudy theory; it is a plain fact 

 which endures the test of observation. Almost 

 any man of strong personality can disturb or 

 awaken a sleeping wild animal simply by looking 

 at him intently; and the nearer the man is the 

 more certain the effect of his gaze on the sleeping 

 brute. The same is true in less degree of most 

 Indians and woodsmen, and of many sensitive 

 women and children, as you may prove for your- 

 self. Go into a room where a sensitive or "high- 

 strung" person is taking a nap not sleeping 



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