, or at any
rate may interfere with the freedom of his ordinary life, and he
withdraws as far as he can from this new peril or injury, and seeks to
defend himself from the malice of his enemy by special arts. In this
case, the external subject or thing is what his own objective sense
conceives it to be, and his inward perception corresponds to an actual
cosmic reality.

Suppose that instead of this, the neighbourhood of a fierce fire, or
violent rain and hail, or a stormy wind, or some other natural
phenomenon, surprises or injures such creatures; these facts do not
affect them as if they were merely occurrences in accordance with cosmic
laws, for such a simple conception of things is not grasped by them.
Such phenomena of nature are regarded by animals as living subjects,
actuated by a concrete and deliberate purpose of ill-will towards them.
Any one who has observed animals as I have done for many years, both in
a wild and domestic state, and under every variety of conditions and
circumstances, will readily admit the fact.

This truth, which clearly appears from an accurate analysis of facts,
and from experiments, can also be demonstrated by the arguments of
reason. Since animals have no conception of the purely cosmic reality of
the phenomena and laws which constitute nature, it follows that such a
reality must appear to their inner consciousness in its various effects
as a subject vaguely identical with their own psychical nature. Hence
they regard nature as if she were inspired with the same life, will, and
purpose, as those which they themselves exercise, and of which they have
an immediate and intrinsic consciousness.

It is true that after long experience animals become accustomed to
regard as harmless the phenomena, objects, and forces by which they were
at first sympathetically excited and terrified. Of this we have
innumerable examples both among wild and domestic animals; but although
suspicion and anxiety are subdued by habit and experience, yet these
objects and phenomena are not thereby transformed into pure and simple
realities. In the same way, if they are at first frightened by the sight
and companionship of some other species or object, habit and experience
gradually calm their fears and suspicions, and the association or
neighbourhood may even become agreeable to them. I have often observed
that different species, both when at liberty and in confinement, are
affected by the most lively surprise an