ANIMALS are only instinctual machines, many believe. But as animal advocates attest, there is a palpable spiritual and intellectual substance to the kingdoms of nature.

Science is slowly acknowledging the fact. But the 17th Century, René Descartes, dubbed the “Father of Modern Philosophy,” started us thinking the wrong way round.

“Descartes held the living animal as being simply an automaton,” H. P. Blavatsky notes — “A ‘well wound up clock-work,’ according to Malebranche” — adding with cutting sarcasm:

“One, therefore, who adopts the Cartesian theory about the animal, would do as well to accept at once the views of the modern materialists.”

This post has been revised and updated.
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The Fires of Mind