Tertium Organum

have no concepts.
The proof of this is that they have no 
speech. 
If we take two 
men
of different nationalities, different races, each ignorant 
of the language of the other, and settle them to live together, they will 
immediately find means of communicating with each other. 

---

One would draw with his finger a circle, the other would draw another circle 
alongside the first. This is enough to establish that they can understand one 
another. If a thick stone wall were to separate people, again it would not deter 
them. One would knock three times; the other would also knock three times 
in reply - communication is established. The idea of communication with the 
inhabitants of another planet is based precisely on the system of light signals. 
On the earth it is proposed to make an enormous luminous circle or square. It 
should be noticed on Mars or somewhere over there and should be answered 
by a similar signal. With animals we live side by side, yet we are unable to 
establish such communication with them. Evidently, the distance between us 
is greater, the difference deeper than between 
people 
separated by ignorance 
of language, stone walls and enormous distances. 
Another proof of the absence of concepts in an animal is its incapacity of 
using a lever, i.e. its incapacity of arriving independently at an understanding
of the significance and the action of a lever. The usual argument that an 
animal does not know how to use a lever simply because its organs - paws, 
etc. - are not adapted for such actions, does not bear criticism, because any
animal can be 
taught 
to use a lever. This means that organs have nothing to 
do with it. The thing is simply that 
by itself
an animal cannot arrive at the 
idea of a lever. 
The invention of a lever at once separated primitive man from the animals 
and it was inseparably connected with the appearance of concepts. The 
mental side 
of understanding the action of a lever
lies in the construction of a 
correct syllogism. Without mentally constructing a syllogism it is impossible 
to understand the action of a lever. Without concepts it is impossible to 
construct a syllogism. In the mental sphere a syllogism is literally the same 
thing as a lever in the physical sphere. 
The application of a lever distinguishes man from the animal as drastically 
as does speech. If some Martian scientists were to look at the earth and study
it objectively through a telescope, not hearing speech from afar nor entering
into the subjective world of the inhabitants of the earth and without any 
contact with it, they would divide the beings living on the earth into two 
categories: those familiar with the action of a lever and those unfamiliar with 
it. 
On the whole the psychology of animals is very obscure to us. The infinite 
number of observations made of all animals, from elephants to spiders, and 
the infinite number of anecdotes about the intelligence, perspicacity and 
moral qualities of animals change nothing in 

---

this respect. We represent animals either as living automatons or as stupid human 
beings. 
We are too shut up in the circle of 
our own 
mentality. We have no idea of any other 
mentality and involuntarily we think that the only kind of mentality possible is the one 
we possess. But this is an illusion which prevents us from understanding life. If we 
were able to enter into the inner world of an animal and understand 
how
it perceives, 
understands and acts, we would see many extremely interesting things. For example, if 
we could represent to ourselves and re-create mentally the 
logic
of the animal, it would 
greatly help us to understand our own logic and the laws of our thinking. Above all we 
would understand the conditional and relative character of our whole idea of the world. 
An animal must have a very peculiar logic. Of course, it would not be logic in the 
true sense of the word, for logic presupposes the existence of 
logos, 
i.e. word or 
concept. 
Our usual logic, the one we live by, without which 'the cobbler will not be able to 
make shoes' can be brought down to the simple scheme formulated by Aristotle in 
those writings which were published by his pupils under the general title