Allan Kardec-THE Spirit's Book_ The Principles of Spiritist Doctrine (1989)

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THE SPIRITS’ BOOK
may raise himself very high. As regards his physical nature, man is like the animals, and less
well provided for than many of them; for nature has given to them all that man is obliged to
invent with the aid of his intelligence for his needs and his preservation. His body is subject
to. destruction, like that of the animals; but his spirit has a destiny that he alone can
understand, because he alone ~s completely free. Poor human beings who debase yourselves
below the brutes! do you not know how to distinguish yourselves from them ? Recognise the
superiority of man by his possessing the notion of the existence of God."
593. Can the animals be said to act only from instinct?
"That, again, is a mere theory. It is very true that instinct predominates in the greater number
of animals; but do you not see some of them act with a determinate will ? This is intelligence;
but of narrow range."
It is impossible to deny that some animals give evidence of possessing, besides instinct, the power of
performing compound acts which denote the will to act in a determinate direction, and according to
circumstances. Consequently, there is in them a sort of intelligence, but the exercise of which is mainly
concentrated on the means of satisfying their physical needs, and providing for their own preservation.
There is, among them. no progress, no amelioration no matter what the art that we admire in their
labours, what they formerly did, that they do today neither better nor worse, according to constant forms
and unvarying proportions. The young bird isolated from the rest of its species none the less builds its
nest on the same model, without having been taught. If some of the animals are susceptible of a certain
amount of education, their intellectual development, always restricted within narrow limits, Is due to the
action of man upon a flexible nature, for they themselves have no power of progressing but that artificial
development is ephemeral and purely individual, for the animal, when left again to himself, speedily
returns within the limits traced out for it by nature.
594. Have animals a language?
"If you mean a language formed of words and syllables, no; but if you mean a method of
communication among themselves, yes. They say much more to one another than you
suppose; but their language is limited, like their ideas, to their bodily wants."
-There are animals who have no voice; have they no language?
"They understand one another by other means. Have men no other method of communicating
with one another than by speech ? And the dumb, what do you say of them ? The animals,
being endowed with the life of relation, have means of giving one another information, and of
expressing the sensations they feel. Do you suppose that fishes have no understanding among
themselves ? Man has not the exclusive privilege of language; but that of the animals is
instinctive and limited to the scope of their wants and