LETTER VIII. THE DISCOVERY OF LIFE. BECKONING THE CHICKENS. Because he lives himself, the child But when his life, outreaching, meets His wistful eyes are lit with joy That comrades he has found. HENRIETTA R. ELIOT. DEAR BECKONING THE CHICKENS. Tiny fingers in a row, Beckon to the chickens-so. Downy little chickens dear, Fingers say, "Come here! come here!" Chick chick! chick! chick! Fingers say, "Come here! come here!" Do not fear-we love you all! EMILY HUNTINGTON MILLER. : In his Descent of Man Mr. Dar win relates a story which seems to indicate that germs of the animism characteristic both of chil 66 dren and savages may exist even in animals. My dog," he writes, "a full-grown and very sensible animal, was lying on the ground during a hot and still day, but at a little distance a slight breeze occasionally moved an open parasol which would have been wholly disregarded by the dog had any one stood near it. As it was, every time that the parasol slightly moved the dog growled fiercely and barked. He must, I think, have reasoned to himself in a rapid and unconscious manner that movement without any apparent cause indicated the presence of some strange living agent, and no stranger had a right to be on his territory.' An even more remarkable example of canine intelligence is given by Mr. Fiske in Myths and Myth Makers. A skye terrier accustomed to obtain favors from his master by sitting on his haunches sat repeatedly before his pet India-rubber ball placed on the chimney-piece, evidently beseeching it to jump down and play with him. Can we explain his action without assuming that he believed his ball to be amenable to the same sort of appeal as his master? I have referred to these stories because in some * Cited in Myths and Myth Makers, p. 222. studies of childhood the habit of imputing life to inanimate objects is invested with a significance to which it has no valid claim. We are prone to credit animism with the conscious recognition of soul, but it is evident that the dogs in these stories neither imputed souls to the ball and umbrella nor suspected souls in themselves. They simply lacked ability to discriminate between living, self-moving objects and objects not alive. Animism is a realm of confusions, a morning twilight of intelligence in whose obscurity all objects lose clear outline. The soul in the animistic stage of development is not awake, but on the verge of awakening. It is a dreamer knowing not that it dreams; a somnambulist, living, moving, thinking, in its sleep. It is a momentous crisis when the soul makes the discovery of life, when emerging, as it were, from its trance, it recognizes a difference between moving and sentient creatures, and objects that are inert and devoid of feeling. Until we understand the marvel of this revelation we can never explain that most singular phenomenon of history-the worship of animals by nations in a relatively high state of culture. Of all peoples prior to the Greeks the Egyptians were the most advanced intellectually, yet, in contrast with the Persians, who worshiped light, their religion was zoölatry. "To us," says Hegel, "zoölatry is repulsive. We may reconcile ourselves to the adoration of the material heaven, but the worship of brutes is alien to us. Yet it is certain that the nations who worshiped the sun and stars by no means occupy a higher grade than those who adored brutes. Quite the contrary is the truth, for in the brute world the Egyptians adored a hidden and incomprehensible principle. We also, when we contemplate the life and actions of brutes, are astonished at their instinct, the adaptation of their movements to the objects intended, their restlessness, excitability, and liveliness, for they are exceedingly quick and discerning in pursuing the ends of their existence, while they are at the same time silent and shut up within themselves. We can not make out what possesses these creatures. A black cat, with its glowing eyes and its now gliding, now quick and darting movement, has been deemed the presence of a malignant being, a mysterious reserved specter; the dog, the canary bird, on the contrary, appear friendly and sympathizing. The lower animals are the truly incomprehensible." The worship of animals means that men have |