assions. And this is the reason why
passion, when it speaks, always wins credence, no matter what the
passion may be; and rightly so. For the same reason the passions are the
main theme of poets and the stalking horse of actors. The
conspicuousness of the will in the lower order of animals explains the
delight we take in dogs, apes, cats, etc.; it is the entirely naive way
in which they express themselves that gives us so much pleasure.

The sight of any free animal going about its business undisturbed,
seeking its food, or looking after its young, or mixing in the company
of its kind, all the time being exactly what it ought to be and can
be,--what a strange pleasure it gives us! Even if it is only a bird, I
can watch it for a long time with delight; or a water rat or a hedgehog;
or better still, a weasel, a deer, or a stag. The main reason why we
take so much pleasure in looking at animals is that we like to see our
own nature in such a simplified form. There is only one mendacious being
in the world, and that is man. Every other is true and sincere, and
makes no attempt to conceal what it is, expressing its feelings just as
they are.

* * * * *

Many things are put down to the force of habit which are rather to be
attributed to the constancy and immutability of original, innate
character, according to which under like circumstances we always do the
same thing: whether it happens for the first or the hundredth time, it
is in virtue of the same necessity. Real force of habit, as a matter of
fact, rests upon that indolent, passive disposition which seeks to
relieve the intellect and the will of a fresh choice, and so makes us do
what we did yesterday and have done a hundred times before, and of which
we know that it will attain its object. But the truth of the matter lies
deeper, and a more precise explanation of it can be given than appears
at first sight. Bodies which may be moved by mechanical means only are
subject to the power of inertia; and applied to bodies which may be
acted on by motives, this power becomes the force of habit. The actions
which we perform by mere habit come about, in fact, without any
individual separate motive brought into play for the particular case:
hence, in performing them, we really do not think about them. A motive
was present only on the first few occasions on which the action
happened, which has since become a habit: the secondary after-effect of
thi