It will be seen from this summary that Plutarch traversed the whole field of speculation on animal intelligence which has not really extended its boundaries since the time when he wrote, though it is possible that we are now on the verge, if not of new discoveries, at least of the admission of a new point of view. The study of the dual element in man, the endeavour to establish a line of demarcation between the conscious and subliminal self, may lead to the inquiry, how far the conscious self corresponds with what was meant, when speaking of animals, by “reason,” and the subliminal self with what was meant by “instinct”? But the use of a new terminology would not alter the conclusion: call it reason, consciousness, spirit; some of it the “paragon of animals” shares with his poor relations. The case is put in a homely way but not without force by the heroine of a forgotten novel by Lamartine: the speaker is an old servant who is in despair at losing her goldfinch: “Ah! On dit que les bêtes n’ont pas l’âme,” she says. “Je ne veux pas offenser le bon Dieu, mais si mon pauvre oiseau n’avait pas d’âme, avec quoi done n’aurait-il tant aimée? Avec les plumes ou avec les pattes, peut-être?”
Plutarch reviews—to reject—the “Automata” argument, which had already some supporters. Certain naturalists, he says, try to prove that animals feel neither pleasure nor anger nor yet fear; that the nightingale does not meditate his song, that the bee has no memory, that the swallow makes no preparations, that the lion never grows angry, nor is the stag subject to fear. Everything, according to these theorists, is merely delusive appearance. They might as well assert that animals cannot see or hear; that they only appear to see or hear; that they have no voice, only the semblance of a voice; in short, that they are not alive but only seem to live.
The moral aspects of any problem are those which to a moralist seem the most important, and Plutarch did not seek to deny the force of the objection: If virtue be the true aim of reason, how can Nature have bestowed reason on creatures which cannot direct it to its true object? But he denied the postulate that animals have no ethical potentialities. If the love of men for their children is granted to be the corner-stone of all human society, shall we say that there is no merit in the affection of animals for their offspring? He sums up the matter by remarking that the limitation of a faculty does not show that it does not exist. To pretend that every being not endowed at birth with perfect reason is, by its nature, incapable of reason of any kind, would be to ignore the fact that although reason is a natural gift the degree in which it is possessed by any individual depends on his training and on his teachers. Perfect reason is possessed by none because none has perfect rectitude and moral excellence.