Chapter VIII (part 7)

90 [paragraph continues] HIMSELF, BUT FROM THE OUTSIDE WORLD. MAN IS THE TRANSMITTING OR TRANSFORMING STATION FOR CERTAIN FORCES: ALL OF HIS ACTIONS IN THESE THREE CATEGORIES ARE CREATED AND DETERMINED BY HIS IMPRESSIONS OF THE OUTSIDE WORLD. MAN IN THESE THREE SPECIES OF ACTIONS IS, IN SUBSTANCE, AN AUTOMATON, UNCONSCIOUS OR CONSCIOUS OF HIS ACTIONS. NOTHING COMES FROM HIM HIMSELF. With the exception of sensations of the outer world, only the higher category of actions, i.e., conscious actions 1 appears to depend on something else. But the aptitude for such actions is seldom met with—only in some few persons whom it is possible to describe as MEN OF A HIGHER TYPE. Having established the differences between various kinds of actions, let us return to the question propounded before: In what manner does the psyche of an animal differ from that of a human being? Out of the four categories of actions the two lower ones are accessible to animals. The category of "conscious" actions is inaccessible to animals. This is proven first of all by the fact that animals have not the power of speech as we have it. As has been shown before, the possession of speech is indissolubly bound up with the possession of concepts. Therefore we may say that animals do not possess concepts. Is this true, and is it possible to possess the instinctive mind without possessing concepts? All that we know about the instinctive mind teaches us that it acts possessing sensations and perceptions only, and that in the lower grades it possesses sensation only. The being which does its thinking by means of perceptions possesses the instinctive mind which gives it the possibility of exercising that choice between the perceptions presented to it which produces the impression of judging and reasoning. In reality the animal does not reason its actions, but lives by its emotions, subject to that emotion which happens to be strongest. Although indeed , in the life of the animal, acute moments sometimes occur when it is confronted with the necessity of choosing among a certain series of perceptions. At such moments its actions may seem to be quite reasoned out. For example, the animal, being put in a situation of danger acts often very cautiously and wisely, p. 91 but in reality its actions are directed not by thoughts but principally by emotional memory and motor perceptions. It has been previously shown that emotions are expedient, and that the subjection to them in a normal being must be expedient. Any perception of an animal, any recollected image, is bound up with some emotional sensation or emotional remembrance—there are no non-emotional, cold thoughts in the animal soul, or even if there are, these are in-active, and incapable of becoming the springs of action. Thus all actions of animals, sometimes highly complex, expedient, and apparently reasoned, we can explain without attributing to them concepts, judgments, and the power of reasoning. Indeed, we must recognize that animals have no concepts , and the proof of this is that they have no speech. If we take two men of different nationalities, different races, each ignorant of the language of the other, and put them together, they will find a way to communicate at once. One perhaps draws a circle with his finger, the other draws another circle beside it. By these means they have already established that they can understand one another. If a thick wall were put between them it would not hamper them in the least—one of them knocks three times, and the other knocks three times in response. The communication is established. The idea of communicating with the inhabitants of other planets is founded upon the idea of light signals. It is proposed to make on the earth an enormous lighted circle or a square to attract the attention of the inhabitants of Mars and to be answered by them by means of the same signal.