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 and perturbation when some new phenomenon has startled them; they act as if it were really a living and insidious subject, and then they gradually become calm and quiet, and regard it as some indifferent or beneficent power.