The San Francisco call., 1896-05-03
souls is a question of religious faith and not of
Have Animals souls

Souls is question OF rellg1ouS faltn ana not OF
science.
Have Animals Souls?
The circulation of the blood, respiration
and the other processes of the negative sys-
tenn go on in the bodies of animals, in
cluding man, automatically-that is, they
are carried out according to mechanical
laws and without the Intervention of con-
sciousness.
Moreover, processes which are at flrst
voluntary become through praclce au-
tomato; we shut our eyes Involuntary
when fist is darted toward them. and we
involuntarily stretch out a hand to save
ourselves from falling Rejecting on these
facts and filled, through the discoveries OF
Calico and Harvey, with the conception OF
the mechanical nature of all the processes
of the universe, Rene Descartes, the father
of modern philosophy, asserted that the
actions of all animals below man were
automatic, that mans actions, so far as he
was an animal, were likewise automatic,
but that man differed from the other ami
mails in possessing rational soul which
directed his actions as the engineer
directed the engine. Descartes' disciple,
Malebranche, stated very clearly what was
meant by the automatism OF animals. I'm
dogs, in cats and in other animals" he
SAYS, ''there is neither intelligence nor
spiritual soul as we understand 1T. They
eat without pleasure, they cry without
pain they desire nothing, they are aware
OF nothing"
The common-sense of mankind at large
prevented any very wide acceptance of
Malebranche's deductions from Descartes'
doctrine, though the Port Royalists. who
adopted these views are said to have
fraatad ANrnactia nj a 10 mi 1txyo 4
neglecI. But Descartes' philosophical doc
trine, backed by scriptural authority in re-
gard to the "beast that perisheth" be-
came, with more or less modification, the
popular view, in succeeding centuries of
the difference between men and other ami.
mails. Thus it was and is commonly held
that man possesses some mental or spirit
ual attributes the very rudiments of which
are wanting i'll the mental makeup of
animals. This attribute is sometimes
called the rational soul, sometimes reason,
sometimes simply soul, and the corre-
spending difference in conduct is indicated
by the common remark that animals act
through instinct and man through reason.
The tendency, however. of the doctrine
of evolution is to submerge this barrier
erected 6y an early philosophy and shored
up by theology. Step by step, from the
lower animals up to man, we find the ex-
tent and complexity of mental action par
the brain, and step by step we find all the
earlier forms OF growth of the human ami
NAL repeated in the development of the
animals below man. Consequently we
should expect to find no greater break in
the continuity of the mental series than of
the physical series; i'll other words, we
should expect to find in the minds of ami
mails the rudiments, at least, OF all that we
find in the mind of man.
And, indeed, the numerous careful in
vestigatlons into child and animal
psychology of the past few years indicate
that sue is the case. Darwin, Romanes
and other trained observers have shown
that animals display almost all the emo
tions which are felt by the human being,
among them sympathy, renorse, deceit,
the ludicrous, cruelty and beneVolence.
Romanes even speaks of an "indefnite
morality" the raw material of con-
science, which exists among dogs. The
monkey and elephant have been known
to use tools to serve their own purposes,
and Darwin speaks OF reason in an animal
as low as the crab
Whether the numerous well-authenti-
Gated stories of the sagacity of animals,
particularly of dogs, indicate the use of
reason as we understand it in men, it is
difficult to say; it certainly seems hard to
avoid the inference that monkeys, ele-
plants and dogs often reason out their
methods of action. But il is still mooted
question among psychologists whether
or not animals form abstract ideas. If
they do not, it is hard to see how they can
reason, in our sense of the word and in
this case we should be driven to explain
ing their apparently rational acts through
the logical association of ideas.
The artist Hamerton, a most careful OBJ
server of animals, speaks of a posthorse
which fell on hard road and broke fore
leg SO that the broken ends OF the bone
portruded through the skin. The horse
was turned out into an adjoining pasture,
and The next morning was found content
edly nibbling the grass, while the turf all
around was dented with holes punched by
the leg bone of the horse during its noe
turnal grazing. The moral of this is that
the conditions of pain in the horse must be
very different from what they are in the
human being. And many other instances
could be given to show the danger of ex-
planning the actions Of animals on the
basis OF human thoughts and feelings.
But granting this argument its full
weight. it is still highly probable that in
tellectual processes of many animals, set
ting aside the question of instinct, are be-
yond the powers of the human infants
mind. In other words, that the mental
processes of the developed animal and
undeveloped human being overlap.
In this sense, then, that the mental pro.
cesses OF man and animals are alike in
kind, though differing in degree, it may
be said that animals have souls. Whether.
however. these souls are immortal is
question not of science, but of religious
faith.