Tertium Organum

species
and the capacity to perform them is handed down, in 
a ready-made form, through heredity. Automatic actions 
may
be called the 
instinctive actions which a given subject has evolved for himself. Instinctive 
actions 
cannot 
be called automatic actions evolved by a given species, 
because they 
never were
rational for separate individuals of that species, but 
are the result of a complex series of reflexes. 
Reflexes, instinctive actions and 'rational' actions may be regarded as 
reflected, i.e. as not independent. The first, the second and the third come not 
from man himself but from the external world. A man is merely a 
transmitting or transforming station of forces; all his actions 
belonging to 
these three categories
are produced by impressions coming from the external 
world. In these three kinds of actions man is actually an automaton, either 
unaware or aware of his actions. Nothing comes from himself. 
Only the highest category of actions, i.e. conscious actions (which, 
generally speaking, we do not observe, since we confuse them with rational 
actions, mainly because we call 'rational' actions conscious) -only these 
actions depend not only on the impressions coming from the external world, 
but on something else besides. But the capacity for such actions is very rarely 
met with and only very few people have 

---

it. These people may be defined as the 
HIGHER TYPE OF MAN
. 
Having established the difference between actions, we must now return to 
the question: 
How does the mental apparatus of an animal differ from that of 
a man?
Of the four categories of actions only the two lower ones are 
accessible to animals. The category of 'rational' actions is not accessible to 
them. This is proved, first of all, by the fact that animals do not speak as we 
do. 
It was shown earlier that the possession of speech is indissolubly 
connected with the possession of concepts. Consequently, we may say that 
animals do not possess concepts. 
Is this true, and is the possession of instinctive reason possible without 
possessing concepts? 
All that we know about instinctive reason tells us that it operates while 
possessing only representations and sensations, and on the lower levels 
possessing only sensations. The mental apparatus which thinks by means of 
representations must be identical with instinctive reason which enables it to 
make that 
selection
from among the available representations which, from 
outside, produces the impression of reasoning and drawing conclusions. In 
reality, an animal does not think out its actions, but lives by emotions, 
obeying the emotion which is strongest at a given moment. Although it is true
that in the life of an animal there may be very acute moments, when it is 
faced with the necessity of making a 
selection
from a certain series of 
representations. In that case, at a given moment, its actions may appear to be 
reasoned out. For instance, an animal, faced with danger, often acts with 
surprising caution and intelligence. But in reality the actions of an animal are 
governed not by thoughts but mostly by emotional memory and motor 
representations. It has been shown earlier that emotions are expedient and, in 
a normal being, obedience to them should also be expedient. In an animal, 
every representation, every remembered image is connected with some 
emotional sensation and emotional recollection; there are no 
unemotional 
cold thoughts or images in the nature of an animal. Or, if there are some, they
are inactive, incapable of moving it to any action. 
Thus, all the actions of animals, at times very complex, expedient and 
seemingly rational, can be explained without assuming the existence in them 
of concepts, reasoning and mental conclusions. On the contrary, we must 
admit that animals