Bab 8
Alat persepsi kita. Sensasi. Perwakilan. Konsep. Seni sebagai bahasa masa depan. Sejauh mana tiga dimensi dunia bergantung pada sifat-sifat alat penglihatan kita? Apa yang bisa membuktikan ketergantungan ini? Di mana kita dapat menemukan konfirmasi nyata dari ketergantungan ini? Psikologi hewan. Apa bedanya dengan manusia? Refleks. Iritabilitas sel. Naluri. Kesenangan - rasa sakit. Pemikiran emosional. Tidak adanya konsep. Bahasa binatang. Logika binatang. Tingkat kecerdasan yang berbeda pada hewan. Angsa, kucing, anjing, dan monyet.
In order to find out the exact relation of our inner life to the outer world and to define what in our perception of the world belongs to the world and what belongs to ourselves, we must turn to elementary psychology and examine the mechanism of our perceiving apparatus. The basic unit of our perception is a sensation. A sensation is an elementary change in the state of our inner life, produced, or so it appears to us, either by some change in the state of the outer world in relation to our inner life, or by a change in our inner life in relation to the outer world. So physics and psycho-physics teach us. I shall not deal here with the question of the correctness or incorrectness of the interpretations advanced by these sciences. It is sufficient to define a sensation as an elementary change in the state of the inner life, i.e. as the element, or the basic unit of this change. Experiencing a sensation, we assume it to be, so to speak, a reflection of some kind of change in the external world. The sensations experienced by us leave a certain trace in our memory. In accumulating, memories of sensations begin to blend in our consciousness into groups according to their similarity, to become associated, to be put together, or to be contrasted. Sensations, usually experienced in close connection with one another, will arise in our memory preserving the same connection. And gradually, out of memories of sensations there are formed representations. Representations are, so to speak, group memories of sensations. In the formation of representations, the grouping of sensations follows two clearly denned directions. The first direction is according to the character of the sensations: thus sensations of yellow colour will be linked with other sensations of yellow colour, sensations of acid taste, with other sensations of acid taste. The second direction is according to the time of receiving the sensation. When one group, forming one representation, contains different sensations experienced simultaneously, the memory of this definite group of sensations is attributed to a common cause. The 'common cause' is projected into the external world, as the object; and it is assumed that the given representation reflects the real properties of this object. Such a group memory constitutes a representation, as, for instance, the representation of a tree - this tree. Into this group enters the green colour of the leaves, their smell, their shade, the sound of the wind in the branches, and so on. All these things, taken together, form, as it were, the focus of rays emitted by our mind and gradually focused on the external object, which may coincide with it either badly or well. In the further complexities of mental life, memories of representations undergo the same process as memories of sensations. In accumulating, memories of representations or 'images of representation' become associated along the most varied lines, are put together, contrasted, form groups and, in the end, give rise to concepts. Thus, out of the various sensations experienced at different times (in groups), there arises in a child the representation of a tree (this tree), and later, out of the images of representation of different trees is formed the concept of a tree, i.e. not of this particular tree but of a tree in general. The formation of concepts leads to the formation of words and the appearance of speech. The rudiments of speech may appear on the lowest level of intelligence, at the stage of living by sensations; at the stage of living by representations speech becomes considerably more complex. But, so long as there are no concepts, it will not be speech in the true sense of the word. On the lower levels of intelligence certain sensations may be expressed by certain sounds. In this way it is possible to transmit general impressions of fear, anger, pleasure. These sounds may serve as danger signals, as a summoning call, an entreaty, a threat and so on. But one cannot convey much by them. In the subsequent development of speech, if words or sounds express representations, as in the case of children, it means that a given sound or a given word designates only this or that particular object. For every new similar object there must be a new sound or a new word. If the speaker designates different objects by the same word or sound, it means either that, in his opinion, it is one and the same object, or that he calls by the same name objects known to be different. In either case it is very difficult to understand him. And speech of this kind cannot serve as an example of clear speech. For instance, if a child calls a tree by a certain sound or word, having in mind only that tree, and being in complete ignorance of other trees, then any new tree he sees he will call by another word, or he will take it for the same tree. The speech in which 'words' correspond to representations, consists, as it were, of proper names; it has no generic nouns yet. Moreover, not only nouns, but verbs, adjectives and adverbs also have the character of 'proper names', i.e. names applicable only to the given action, the given quality, the given characteristic. The appearance of words of general meaning indicates the appearance of concepts in the mind. Speech consists of words; every word expresses a concept. A concept and a word are really the same thing, only the one (the concept) stands, as it were, for the inner aspect, while the other (the word) for the outer aspect. Or, according to Dr Bucke (the author of the book Cosmic Consciousness about which I shall have much to say later), the word, (i.e. the concept) is the algebraic sign of a thing. It has been noticed thousands of times that the brain of a thinking man does not exceed in size the brain of a non-thinking wild man in anything like the proportion in which the mind of the thinker exceeds the mind of the savage. The reason is that the brain of Herbert Spencer has very little more work to do than has the brain of a native Australian, for this reason, that Spencer does all his characteristic mental work by signs or counters which stand for concepts, while the savage does all or nearly all his by means of cumbersome recepts. The savage is in a position comparable to that of an astronomer who makes his calculations by arithmetic, while Spencer is in the position of one who makes them by algebra. The first will fill many great sheets of paper with figures and go through immense labour; the other will make the same calculations on an envelope and with comparatively little mental work.* In our speech words express concepts or ideas. Ideas are broader concepts; they are not a group sign for similar representations, but embrace groups of dissimilar representations, or even groups of concepts. Thus an idea is a complex or an abstract concept. In addition to the simple sensations of the sense organs - colour, sound, touch, smell and taste; in addition to simple emotions of pleasure, displeasure, joy, fear, surprise, astonishment, curiosity, laughter, anger and many others, there proceed in our consciousness series of complex sensations and higher (complex) emotions - moral emotion, aesthetic emotion and religious emotion. The content of emotional experiences, even of the simplest, to say nothing of those which are complex, can never be wholly fitted into concepts or ideas and, therefore, can never be correctly and exactly expressed in words. Words can only hint at it or lead to it. The interpretation of emotional experiences and emotional understanding is the aim of art. In the combination of words, in their meaning, in rhythm, in music, in the combination of meaning, rhythm and music; in sounds, in colours, in lines, in forms - men create a new world and try to express in it that which they feel but cannot express and convey simply in words, i.e. in concepts. The emotional tones of life, i.e. the 'feelings' are best expressed in music. On the other hand, music is utterly incapable of expressing concepts, i.e. thoughts. Poetry aims at expressing the two together. The combination of feeling and thought of high intensity leads to a higher form of inner life, difficult to define in ordinary language. Thus, in art we already find the first experiments in a language of the future. Art marches in the vanguard of inner evolution, anticipating the forms it is to assume tomorrow. At the present moment an average man, taken as a standard, has three units of mental life - sensation, representation and concept. Observation further shows us that in some people at certain moments there appears, as it were, a fourth unit of mental life, which different authors and schools call by different names, but in which the element of perception or the element of ideas is always connected with the emotional element. If Kant's idea is true, if space with its characteristics is a property of our consciousness and not a property of the external world, then the three dimensionality of the world must in some way be dependent on the constitution of our mental apparatus. Concretely, the question may be put in this way: What is the relation of the three-dimensional extension of the world to the fact that our mental apparatus contains sensations, representations and concepts, and that they stand exactly in this order? We have a mental apparatus of this kind and the world is three dimensional. How to prove that the three-dimensionality of the world depends on this particular constitution of our mental apparatus? To prove or refute this conclusively would be possible only through experience. If we were able to alter our mental apparatus and observe that the world around us changed with these alterations, this would prove to us the dependence of the properties of space on the properties of our mind. For instance, if the above-mentioned higher form of inner life, which now appears only accidentally, as it were, depending on some little-known conditions, could be rendered as definite, as precise, as obedient to our will as a concept, and if, through this, the number of characteristics of space increased, i.e. if space, instead of being three-dimensional, became four dimensional, this would confirm our supposition and prove Kant's idea that space with its properties is the form of our sense-perception. Or, if we could reduce the number of units of our mental life and deliberately deprive ourselves or some other man of concepts, leaving his or our mind to operate by representations and sensations alone; and if, through this, the number of characteristics of the space surrounding us diminished, i.e. if for that man the world were to become two-dimensional instead of three-dimensional and, with a further limitation of his mental apparatus, i.e. with depriving him of representations, it were to become one dimensional, this would confirm our surmise and Kant's thought could be regarded as proved. Thus, Kant's idea could be proved experimentally if we were able to ascertain that for a being possessing nothing but sensations the world is one dimensional; for a being possessing sensations and representations it is two dimensional; and for a being possessing, in addition to concepts and ideas, also higher forms of perception, the world is four-dimensional. To be more exact, Kant's proposition regarding the subjective character of the idea of space could be taken as proven, (a) if for a being possessing nothing but sensations, our entire world with all its variety of forms appeared as one line, if the universe of this being had one dimension, i.e. if this being were one-dimensional by virtue of the properties of his perception; and (b) if for a being possessing the capacity of forming representations in addition to his ability of experiencing sensations, the world had a two-dimensional extension, i.e. if our entire world with its blue skies, clouds, green trees, mountains and precipices, appeared to him merely as a plane; if the universe of this being had only two dimensions, that is, if this being were two dimensional by virtue of the properties of his perception. More briefly, Kant's proposition would be proved if we saw that for a given subject the number of characteristics of the world changed according to the change of his mental apparatus. It does not seem possible to carry out such an experiment of reducing mental characteristics, for we do not know how to restrict our own or someone else's mental apparatus with the ordinary means at our disposal. Experiments of augmenting mental characteristics exist but, for many different reasons, they are not sufficiently convincing. The main reason is that an increase of mental faculties produces in our inner world so much that is new, that this new masks any changes which take place simultaneously in our usual perceptions of the world. We feel the new but cannot exactly define the difference. A whole series of teachings and religious and philosophical doctrines have as their professed or hidden aim precisely this expansion of consciousness. This is the aim of mysticism of all times and all religions, the aim of occultism, the aim of the Eastern Yoga. But the question of the expansion of consciousness requires special study; the last chapters of this book are devoted to it. In the meantime, in order to prove the contention stated above about the change of the world as a result of a change in the mental apparatus, it is sufficient to examine the hypothesis about the possibility of a lesser number of mental characteristics. If we do not know how to carry out experiments in this direction, perhaps observation is possible. We must ask ourselves the question: Are there in the world beings whose mental life is below ours in the required sense? Such beings, whose mental life is below ours, undoubtedly exist. They are animals. We know very little about what constitutes the difference between the mental processes of an animal and the mental processes of a man; our ordinary 'conversational' psychology is altogether ignorant of it. As a rule we entirely deny the existence of reason in animals, or, on the contrary, we ascribe to them our own psychology, but 'limited' -though how and in what respect it is limited, we do not know. And then we say that an animal has no reason but has instinct. But we have a very hazy idea of what instinct may mean. I am speaking now not only of popular but also of 'scientific' psychology. Let us, however, try to examine what instinct is and what animal mentality is like. In the first place, let us examine the actions of an animal and determine in what way they differ from ours. If they are instinctive actions, what docs it mean? What actions are there in general and what is the difference between them? We distinguish in living beings reflex actions, instinctive actions, rational actions, automatic actions. Reflex actions are simply responses by motion, reactions to external irritations, always occurring in the same manner, irrespective of their usefulness or uselessness, expediency or inexpediency in a given instance. Their origin and laws are the outcome of the simple irritability of the cell. What is meant by irritability of the cell and what are these laws? By irritability of the cell is meant its capacity to respond by motion to external irritations. Experiments with the simplest living one-cell organisms proved that irritability is governed by strictly definite laws. The cell responds by motion to an external irritation. The force of the responsive motion is increased with the increase of the force of irritation, but it has not been possible to establish the exact ratio. In order to provoke a responsive motion, the irritation must be sufficiently strong. Every irritation experienced leaves a certain trace in the cell, rendering it more susceptible to further irritations. This is proved by the fact that to a repeated irritation of an equal force the cell responds with a stronger movement than to the first irritation. And, if irritations are further repeated, the cell will respond to them with an increasingly stronger motion, up to a certain limit. Having reached this limit, the cell becomes tired, as it were, and begins to respond to the same irritation by increasingly weaker reactions. The cell appears to become used to the irritation. It becomes for the cell part of its permanent surroundings and the cell ceases to react to it, for it reacts only to changes in the permanent conditions. If from the very beginning the irritation is too weak to produce a responsive motion, it still leaves a certain invisible trace in the cell. This is shown by the fact that, by repeating weak irritations, it is possible to make the cell react to them. Thus in the laws of irritability we see what seem to be the rudiments of the capacities of memory, fatigue and habit. The cell produces the illusion of a being, which, if not conscious and reasoning, is at least capable of remembering, capable of forming habits and of getting tired. If we are almost deceived by a cell, how much easier it is for us to be deceived by an animal with its complex life. But let us return to our analysis of actions. By reflex actions of an organism are meant actions where the whole organism or its separate parts act as the cell does, i.e. within the limits of the law of irritability. We observe such actions both in man and in animals. A shudder runs through a man from sudden cold or from an unexpected touch. He blinks if some object quickly approaches or touches him. If a man sits with his leg hanging loosely, his foot jerks forward if the tendon immediately below the knee is hit. These movements happen in-dependently of consciousness and may happen even contrary to consciousness. As a rule consciousness perceives them as an already accomplished fact. And these movements need not necessarily be expedient. The foot will jerk forward if the tendon is hit even if there is a knife or fire in front of it. By instinctive actions are meant actions which are expedient but performed without any consciousness of choice or consciousness of purpose. They arise with the appearance of an emotional quality in a sensation, i.e. from the moment when the feeling of pleasure or pain becomes connected with the sensation. And indeed, before the appearance of human intellect, 'actions' in all the animal kingdom are governed by the tendency to obtain or keep pleasure, or to avoid pain. We may say with the utmost certainty that instinct is pleasure-pain which, like the positive and negative poles of an electro-magnet, repels and attracts an animal in one or another direction, thus forcing it to perform a whole series of complicated actions, at times so expedient as to appear conscious; and not only conscious, but based on a foresight of the future almost bordering on clairvoyance, such as the migration of birds, the building of nests for the young still unborn, the finding of the way south in the autumn and north in the spring, and so on. But in actual fact all these actions are explained solely by instinct, i.e. by subordination to pleasure-pain. In the course of periods in which thousands of years may be counted as days, there was evolved in all animals, through selection, a type which lives according to this subordination. This subordination is expedient, i.e. its results lead to the required aim. It is quite clear why this is so. If the feeling of pleasure proceeded from something harmful, a given species could not live and would soon die out. Instinct is the guiding factor of its life; but only so long as instinct is expedient. As soon as it ceases to be expedient, it becomes the guiding factor of death, and the species very soon dies out. Normally, 'pleasure-pain' is pleasant and unpleasant not for the usefulness or the harm it brings, but as a consequence of it. Influences which had proved useful to a given species during its vegetable life begin to be experienced as pleasant with the transition to animal life; harmful influences are experienced as unpleasant. One and the same influence - say a certain temperature - may be useful and pleasant for one species and harmful and unpleasant for another. It is clear, therefore, that subordination to 'pleasure-pain' should be expedient. The pleasant is pleasant because it is useful; the unpleasant is unpleasant because it is harmful. The next stage after instinctive actions consists of rational and automatic actions. By rational action is meant an action known to the acting subject before it is performed — an action which the acting subject can name, define, explain and whose cause and purpose he can point out -before it has taken place. By automatic actions are meant actions which have been rational for a given subject but have since become customary and unconscious through frequent repetition. The automatic actions learned by trained animals were previously rational not in the animal but in the trainer. Such actions often seem quite rational, but this is pure illusion. The animal remembers the order of actions and so its actions appear to be thought out and expedient. And it is true they were thought out, but not by it. Automatic actions are often confused with instinctive actions; and indeed they do resemble the instinctive, but at the same time there is an enormous difference between them. Automatic actions are created by the subject in the course of his own life. And, before becoming automatic, they must for a long time remain rational for him or for another person. Instinctive actions are created during the lifetime of a species and the capacity to perform them is handed down, in a ready-made form, through heredity. Automatic actions may be called the instinctive actions which a given subject has evolved for himself. Instinctive actions cannot be called automatic actions evolved by a given species, because they never were rational for separate individuals of that species, but are the result of a complex series of reflexes. Reflexes, instinctive actions and 'rational' actions may be regarded as reflected, i.e. as not independent. The first, the second and the third come not from man himself but from the external world. A man is merely a transmitting or transforming station of forces; all his actions belonging to these three categories are produced by impressions coming from the external world. In these three kinds of actions man is actually an automaton, either unaware or aware of his actions. Nothing comes from himself. Only the highest category of actions, i.e. conscious actions (which, generally speaking, we do not observe, since we confuse them with rational actions, mainly because we call 'rational' actions conscious) -only these actions depend not only on the impressions coming from the external world, but on something else besides. But the capacity for such actions is very rarely met with and only very few people have it. These people may be defined as the HIGHER TYPE OF MAN. Having established the difference between actions, we must now return to the question: How does the mental apparatus of an animal differ from that of a man? Of the four categories of actions only the two lower ones are accessible to animals. The category of 'rational' actions is not accessible to them. This is proved, first of all, by the fact that animals do not speak as we do. It was shown earlier that the possession of speech is indissolubly connected with the possession of concepts. Consequently, we may say that animals do not possess concepts. Is this true, and is the possession of instinctive reason possible without possessing concepts? All that we know about instinctive reason tells us that it operates while possessing only representations and sensations, and on the lower levels possessing only sensations. The mental apparatus which thinks by means of representations must be identical with instinctive reason which enables it to make that selection from among the available representations which, from outside, produces the impression of reasoning and drawing conclusions. In reality, an animal does not think out its actions, but lives by emotions, obeying the emotion which is strongest at a given moment. Although it is true that in the life of an animal there may be very acute moments, when it is faced with the necessity of making a selection from a certain series of representations. In that case, at a given moment, its actions may appear to be reasoned out. For instance, an animal, faced with danger, often acts with surprising caution and intelligence. But in reality the actions of an animal are governed not by thoughts but mostly by emotional memory and motor representations. It has been shown earlier that emotions are expedient and, in a normal being, obedience to them should also be expedient. In an animal, every representation, every remembered image is connected with some emotional sensation and emotional recollection; there are no unemotional cold thoughts or images in the nature of an animal. Or, if there are some, they are inactive, incapable of moving it to any action. Thus, all the actions of animals, at times very complex, expedient and seemingly rational, can be explained without assuming the existence in them of concepts, reasoning and mental conclusions. On the contrary, we must admit that animals have no concepts. 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 settle them to live together, they will immediately find means of communicating with each other. One would draw with his finger a circle, the other would draw another circle alongside the first. This is enough to establish that they can understand one another. If a thick stone wall were to separate people, again it would not deter them. One would knock three times; the other would also knock three times in reply - communication is established. The idea of communication with the inhabitants of another planet is based precisely on the system of light signals. On the earth it is proposed to make an enormous luminous circle or square. It should be noticed on Mars or somewhere over there and should be answered by a similar signal. With animals we live side by side, yet we are unable to establish such communication with them. Evidently, the distance between us is greater, the difference deeper than between people separated by ignorance of language, stone walls and enormous distances. Another proof of the absence of concepts in an animal is its incapacity of using a lever, i.e. its incapacity of arriving independently at an understanding of the significance and the action of a lever. The usual argument that an animal does not know how to use a lever simply because its organs - paws, etc. - are not adapted for such actions, does not bear criticism, because any animal can be taught to use a lever. This means that organs have nothing to do with it. The thing is simply that by itself an animal cannot arrive at the idea of a lever. The invention of a lever at once separated primitive man from the animals and it was inseparably connected with the appearance of concepts. The mental side of understanding the action of a lever lies in the construction of a correct syllogism. Without mentally constructing a syllogism it is impossible to understand the action of a lever. Without concepts it is impossible to construct a syllogism. In the mental sphere a syllogism is literally the same thing as a lever in the physical sphere. The application of a lever distinguishes man from the animal as drastically as does speech. If some Martian scientists were to look at the earth and study it objectively through a telescope, not hearing speech from afar nor entering into the subjective world of the inhabitants of the earth and without any contact with it, they would divide the beings living on the earth into two categories: those familiar with the action of a lever and those unfamiliar with it. On the whole the psychology of animals is very obscure to us. The infinite number of observations made of all animals, from elephants to spiders, and the infinite number of anecdotes about the intelligence, perspicacity and moral qualities of animals change nothing in this respect. We represent animals either as living automatons or as stupid human beings. We are too shut up in the circle of our own mentality. We have no idea of any other mentality and involuntarily we think that the only kind of mentality possible is the one we possess. But this is an illusion which prevents us from understanding life. If we were able to enter into the inner world of an animal and understand how it perceives, understands and acts, we would see many extremely interesting things. For example, if we could represent to ourselves and re-create mentally the logic of the animal, it would greatly help us to understand our own logic and the laws of our thinking. Above all we would understand the conditional and relative character of our whole idea of the world. An animal must have a very peculiar logic. Of course, it would not be logic in the true sense of the word, for logic presupposes the existence of logos, i.e. word or concept. Our usual logic, the one we live by, without which 'the cobbler will not be able to make shoes' can be brought down to the simple scheme formulated by Aristotle in those writings which were published by his pupils under the general title of Organon, i.e. the 'Instrument' (of thought). This scheme consists in the following: A is A. A is not not-A. Everything is either A or not-A. The logic contained in this scheme - Aristotle's logic - is quite sufficient for observation. But for experiment it is insufficient, for experiment, takes place in time, whereas Aristotle's formulae do not take time into account. This was observed at the very dawn of the establishment of our experimental knowledge; it was noted by Roger Bacon and, some centuries later, was formulated by his famous namesake, Francis Bacon, in the treatise Novum Organum — 'New Instrument' (of thought). Briefly Bacon's formulation may be reduced to the following: That which was A, will be A. That which was not-A, will be not-A. Everything was and will be either A or not-A. All our scientific experience is built on these formulae, whether they are taken or not taken into account by our mind. And these same formulae actually serve as a basis for making shoes, for if a cobbler could not be sure that the leather bought yesterday would be leather tomorrow, he would probably not venture to make shoes but would look for some other more secure profession. Logical formulae, both those of Aristotle and Bacon, are simply deduced from observation of facts and embrace nothing but the contents of these facts - and can embrace nothing more. They are not laws of thinking but merely laws of the external world as it is perceived by us, or laws of our relationship to the external world. If we were able to represent to ourselves the 'logic' of an animal, we would understand its relationship to the external world. Our chief mistake as regards the inner world of an animal lies in our ascribing to it our own logic. We think that there is only one logic, that our logic is something absolute, something existing outside us and apart from us. Yet, in actual fact, it is merely the laws of the relation of our inner life to the outside world or the laws which our mind finds in the outside world. A different mind will find different laws.
The first difference between our logic and that of an animal is that the latter is not general. It is a particular logic in every case, for every separate representation. For animals there exists no classification according to common properties, i.e. classes, varieties and species. Every single object exists by itself, all its properties are specific properties.
This house and that house are for an animal totally different objects, because the one is his house and the other an alien house. Generally speaking, we recognize objects by their similarity; an animal must recognize them by their differences. It remembers every object by the signs which have had for it the greatest emotional significance. In this form, i.e. with emotional qualities, representations are preserved in the memory of an animal. It is easy to see that it is much more difficult to preserve such representations in memory; consequently the memory of an animal is much more burdened than ours, although in the amount of knowledge and the number of things preserved in the memory an animal is far below us.
Having once seen an object, we refer it to a certain class, variety and species, attach it to one or another concept and connect it in our mind with one or another 'word', i.e. with an algebraic sign, then with another, defining it, and so on.
An animal has no concepts, it has no mental algebra with the help of which we think. It must know a given object and remember it with all its characteristics and peculiarities. Not a single forgotten characteristic will come back. But for us the main characteristics are implied in the concept with which we have connected the given object, and we can find it in our memory by any of its characteristic signs.
It is clear from this that an animal's memory is more burdened than ours and that this is precisely the main cause which hinders the mental evolution of an animal. Its mind is too occupied. It has no time to move forward. It is possible to arrest the mental development of a child by making it learn by heart series of words and series of figures. An animal is exactly in the same position. And this explains the strange fact that an animal is more intelligent when young. In a man the peak of his intellectual power is reached at a mature age, very often even in old age; in the case of an animal it is just the reverse. It is receptive only while it is young. With maturity its development becomes arrested and in old age it undoubtedly becomes retrogressive. The logic of an animal, if we attempt to express it in formulae similar to those of Aristotle and Bacon, would be as follows. The animal will understand the formula A is A. It will say: I am I, and so on. But it will not understand the formula A is not not-A, for not-A is a concept. The animal will say: This is this. That is that. This is not that. or This man is this man. That man is that man. This man is not that man. Later on I shall have to return to the logic of animals. For the moment it was only necessary to establish the fact that the psychology of animals is very distinctive and fundamentally different from ours. And it is not only distinctive but also very varied.
Among the animals known to us, even among domestic animals, psychological differences are so great as to put them on totally different levels. We do not notice this and put them all under one head - 'animals'.
A goose has put its foot on a piece of watermelon rind, pulls at it with its beak but cannot pull it out, and it never occurs to it to lift its foot off the rind. This means that its mental processes are so vague that it has a very imperfect knowledge of its own body and does not properly distinguish it from other objects. This could not happen either with a dog or a cat. They know their bodies perfectly well. But in their relations to outside objects a dog and a cat are very different.
I have observed a dog, a 'very intelligent' setter. When the little rug on which he slept got rucked up and became uncomfortable to lie on, he understood that the discomfort was outside him, that it was in the rug and, more precisely, in the position of the rug. So he kept on worrying the rug with his teeth, twisting it and dragging it here and there, all the while growling, sighing and groaning until someone came to his assistance. But he could never manage to straighten out the rug by himself.
With a cat such a question could never even arise. A cat knows its body perfectly well, but everything outside itself it takes for granted, as something given. To correct the outside world, to accommodate it to its own comfort, would never occur to a cat. Maybe this is so because a cat lives more in another world, the world of dreams and fantasies, than in this one. Therefore, if there were something wrong with its bed, a cat would itself turn and twist a hundred times until it could settle down comfortably; or it would go and settle down in another place.
A monkey would of course spread out the rug quite easily.
Here are four beings, all quite different. And this is only one example of which one could easily find hundreds. And yet for us all this is an animal. We mix together many things that are totally different; our divisions are very often wrong and this hinders us in our examination of ourselves.
Moreover it would be quite incorrect to assert that the differences mentioned determine 'evolutionary stages', that animals of one type are higher or lower than others. The dog and the monkey by their reason, their ability to imitate and (the dog) by his fidelity to man seem to be higher than the cat, but the cat is infinitely superior to them in its intuition, its aesthetic sense, its independence and willpower. The dog and the monkey manifest themselves in their entirety. All that there is in them can be seen. But it is not without cause that the cat is regarded as a magical and occult animal. There is much in it that is hidden, much that it does not itself know. If one is to speak in terms of evolution it would be much more correct to say that these are animals of different evolutions, just as, in all probability, not one but several evolutions go on in mankind.
The recognition of several independent and, from a certain point of view, equivalent evolutions, developing entirely different properties, would lead us out of the labyrinth of endless contradictions in our understanding of man and would show the way to the understanding of the only real and important evolution for us, the evolution towards superman.