2. It Seems that No Sense Operation is to be Posited in the Sense Part that Cannot be Conceded to a Brute

101. Again, one should not posit in the sense part any sense operation that cannot be conceded to a brute (the proof of this is that there can be a sense part in some brute that excels as to all the sense acts that we experience); but this remembering cannot be proved to exist in a brute from a brute’s acts.

102. Proof of the minor [n.101]:

There are all these acts of brutes we see from which the conclusion [sc. brutes have remembering] could the more be drawn, as those that seem to be acts of prudence or foresight, as is plain of ants gathering grain to the same place and at a definite time (as in summer).

103. Similarly, acts of revenge or exacting justice, as it were, such as yielding to benefactors and punishing those that offend, seem to belong to brutes insofar as they know the past as past.

104. Likewise, third, about acts pertaining to preservation of the species (as the nest-building of birds and feeding young and the like), which do not seem regularly to belong to them without knowledge of the past as past.

105. Fourth, because some brutes are teachable (as the Philosopher maintains On Memory 1.430a15-22 and On Sense 1.437a9-14), but teaching is not without memory of the past as past.

106. Now all these acts can be carried out without remembrance of the past as past; therefore, no act proves that this act of remembrance exists in brutes.

107. The minor of this argument [n.106] is proved by running through the acts in question.

For as to uniformity with respect to place and time (as appears in ants [n.102]), this can be saved by mere apprehension and retention of a species of what is delightful, without apprehension of the past as past. For if it was delightful to this ant to deposit grain here, and if the delightful species remains in imagination, it will move the sense appetite to seeking it as delightful, and so to coming again to this place. But as to why ants gather at one time and not at another, explanation must be given from the side of their [bodily] complexion, or why it is delightful for them to gather grain in this way and not in that. And whether this is attributed to natural industry or some other cause, at least this does not prove remembrance of time, for although an ant born this year has never experienced want in winter it gathers in summer just like an ant ten years old (if an ant could live so long); therefore it does not get this act for such time from the remembrance of the past. But if the frequenting of the same place shows it comes from the past, the response is that it comes from the delightful previously apprehended, without apprehension of the past as past.

108. Similarly to the second [n.103], about revenge or benefit from a wounded or placated animal for, in brief, the delightful image of what pleases, or the saddening image of what offends, is formally impressed and always pushes the sense appetite to motion in conformity with the object (namely of avenging or benefiting), at least when any other delightful or saddening thing ceases that was moving more strongly. Therefore, if in the intermediate time this action is suspended by something present, at the end of the time the phantasm at once moves, and there follows in the sense appetite a motion proportioned to the object, which motion did not follow before because it was impeded by some object moving more strongly. There is here, then, no apprehension of the past as past but only of the thing that is past, whose persisting species moves to revenge or thanks when some other thing that was moving more strongly ceases.

109. Likewise about the third [n.104]: because [building nests and feeding young] is delightful to these brutes wherever they are from, it is necessary that at least some intrinsic cause (from a [bodily] complexion disposed or altered now in this way) must convince them to gather such and such twigs for making a nest and for constructing it in such and such way; and this is not delightful otherwise, when their complexion is disposed differently; and from this delight they operate, not from the apprehension of the past as past. The proof of this is that if there were a brute animal propagated in its first year, it would just as much provide for itself things necessary for building a nest as if it were however many years in age; therefore nest building is not from knowledge of the past as past.

110. Fourth, about learning [n.105], this is more easily solved, as it goes along with the second [nn.103, 108]. And it is solved by the fact that, from frequent sensing of things delightful and saddening conjoined, there is impressed on the animal a delightful and saddening phantasm, and in the following way, that when one of them moves it, the other from the conjunction at once moves it. Therefore, when present food moves the appetite to consume, at once the phantasm of a rod beating it moves it at the same time, and consequently moves it as something saddening to be fled from; and if from much frequency the phantasm of the latter is impressed on it as very saddening, the brute withdraws itself from the delightful thing more than the delightful thing attracts it.