On instinct in animals
121:19
Book Subtitle: Seneca's timeless letters of advice and wisdom.
Book Description: The final volume of Seneca's moral letters. Common Stoic themes emerge again and again: the unreliability of fortune, the ability to form Stoic resolve, and the importance of virtue.
19.
People may ask: “How can an animal at birth have an understanding of things wholesome or destructive?” The first question, however, is whether it can have such understanding, and not how it can understand.
And it is clear that they have such understanding from the fact that, even if you add understanding, they will act no more adequately than they did in the first place.
Why should the hen show no fear of the peacock or the goose, and yet run from the hawk, which is a so much smaller animal not even familiar to the hen?
Why should young chickens fear a cat and not a dog?
These fowls clearly have a presentiment of harm—one not based on actual experiments; for they avoid a thing before they can possibly have experience of it.
Book: Moral Letters Vol III
Subtitle: Seneca's timeless letters of advice and wisdom.
Author: Seneca
Chapter: On instinct in animals
Location: Chapter 121, Section 19
Content:
19.
People may ask: “How can an animal at birth have an understanding of things wholesome or destructive?” The first question, however, is whether it can have such understanding, and not how it can understand.
And it is clear that they have such understanding from the fact that, even if you add understanding, they will act no more adequately than they did in the first place.
Why should the hen show no fear of the peacock or the goose, and yet run from the hawk, which is a so much smaller animal not even familiar to the hen?
Why should young chickens fear a cat and not a dog?
These fowls clearly have a presentiment of harm—one not based on actual experiments; for they avoid a thing before they can possibly have experience of it.