The San Francisco call., 1896-05-03


reputation of the writer as a thinker and a
leader of thought will command for his views a
careful consideration Why may we not sup
pose that animals are immortal? he asks.
''Will men be less so, if they are ?"
The Soul in Dumb Animals
In the few paragraphs at my disposal it
is, of course, impossible to do any suffi-
cient justice to such question as that of
soul in dumb animals. Nothing finally
convincing could be said about it except
by arguing at such length and with such
subtle refnements as would be foreign to
the whole aim and spirit of the daily
newspaper. But the readers of such con-
tributions as this, l suppose, care more to
know what the writer's opinions on the
question are than what are the arguments
by which he supports them.
L am accordingly ready to say that I
have long been convinced that all animals
have principle at the root of their being
which cannot justly be called anything
but a soul or mind. For that matter l
think the same is true of all living beings
OF every sort, plants as well as animals. In
short, the truth is that life in every form,
and in all its degrees, is consequent upon
mind, and comes from it and by help of it,
instead of minds coming from life, and
being fed from life and sustained by life.
The profoundest and most coherent phil
osophy, the exactest and most compre-
hensive science, alike point to this as the
truth, and tend alike to reverse the more
obvious and superficial judgment which
makes mind dependent upon life and
life dependent upon matter and mo-
ton. In opposition to this material
istic and mechanical explanation of
/ life and mind DR.. LIE Conte rightly
! argues that nothing but a mind, and a
mind resident in the living being, can ex-
plain the subtle, the complex, the incon-
celvably intricate, the necessarily develop
ing processes of life. He conceives of this
resident mind as the one and only cosmic
mind, or God. But | would go on from this
and say that, while [ can attach no really
intelhgible meaning to the residence of
the divine or cosmic intelligence in each
separate living being, l can readily under
stand the need OF each beings own mind,
resident in it in the sense of being its own
ana its own exclusively, in order to it's
living, its acting and its growing.
This general philosophical tenet of the
prlmacy OF the mind ove:life and matter
tenet for the proofs of which, remote as
they are, the present is no place-is the
chief and, to my mind, the sufficient basis
for belief that mind is co-extensive with
life, and that, therefore, every animal has
soul. There are, indeed, manifold cor
roborative proofs of this to be drawn from
the study and analysis of the endless de-
tails in animal life and habit and bena-
vior. 1t would be idle here TO attempt to
go into these. But it may be pertinent to
say that if one demanded a summary
statement OF the reason why animals
should be credited with mental being
and real self the answer might well be:
The same reason, in general that leads us
to believe in the personal mind, the real
self, of our fellow-inen. As we only Judge
that we have fellow-men and that they
are real personal minds from the nature of
the movements which they make and the
perceptible actions they perform, all with
an apparently intelligentpu purpose. so in the
dumb creation our notice of movements
and actions that serve ends analogous
TO those which the purposeful acts of men
secure leads us to infer like mental re-
ality for them.
L know the round of objections to this,
but they do not seem to me conclusive
nor even well-founded. 1t is easy to lay
down distinction between consciousness
and self-consclousness, to say that nothing
but the self-conscious being should be
called a soul and to maintain that no brute
gives any evidence of self-consciousness
But | much doubt if consciousness does
OBSERVATION-DISCLOSURES
insist that the general fact of self-con-
sciousness is the vital matter and that its
degree is a minor consideration, and that
deficient degree of self-consclousness is
therefore no proof that soul does not ex-
lst. The argument, were it valid, would
prove the soullessness of every infant. of
every child suffering from arrested devel-
opment, and of everybody but the one
possessing the maximum possible self-con-
sciousness. In brief, 1t would permit no
soul but God, or else would teach that the
soul is only gradually acquired. and that,
too, by but few. But wonder how many
of these obJectors have ever thought it out
to the bottom-how soul, once wholly
unpossessed and non-existent, could ever
get to be.
l know, too, it is said that speech is the
test or mind, and that, therefore, the very
dumbness of the brutes is their damnation.
He who speaks not has no general ideas.
it is claimed and general ideas are the life
OF thinking, of purpose, of ideals, of spirit,
of soul. But the possession of general
ideas in the sense of mere concentrations
from things perceived, is proof of nothing
more than certain degree attained In the
use OF self-consciousness. The heart of
ask what are the clews to possible
selfconsciousness OF this sort-a compara-
tlveiy poor sort-and thus what are the
truly general ideas, primary, undenied,
generic and engendering. Tnen we see
that these are such thoughts as time,
space, cause, the true, the beautiful, the
good. And l ask, Do not all living crea-
lures that perceive at all prove py their
perceptions and by their actions suited to
their aims that they have every one OF
these thoughts? 1t seems TO me undeni-
| able that whatever perceiyes, even in the
least degree, ana acts upon that Derceiv-
ing. proves thereby that it is complex of
| all the priori thoughts, be the develop
ment OF its victorious career in apply
! ing those thoughts to the canceling of
| their limitation as low as it may.
All this development is a question
merely of degree; it is the question