and with discretion, the capacity of dissimulation, which throws a veil over the operations of the will.  And in mankind, consequently, the will appears without its mask only in the affections and the passions.  And this is the reason why passion, when it speaks, always wins credence, no matter what the passion may be; and rightly so.  For the same reason the passions are the main theme of poets and the stalking horse of actors.  The conspicuousness of the will in the lower order of animals explains the delight we take in dogs, apes, cats, etc.; it is the entirely naive way in which they express themselves that gives us so much pleasure.

The sight of any free animal going about its business undisturbed, seeking its food, or looking after its young, or mixing in the company of its kind, all the time being exactly what it ought to be and can be,—­what a strange pleasure it gives us!  Even if it is only a bird, I can watch it for a long time with delight; or a water rat or a hedgehog; or better still, a weasel, a deer, or a stag.  The main reason why we take so much pleasure in looking at animals is that we like to see our own nature in such a simplified form.  There is only one mendacious being in the world, and that is man.  Every other is true and sincere, and makes no attempt to conceal what it is, expressing its feelings just as they are.

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Many things are put down to the force of habit which are rather to be attributed to the constancy and immutability of original, innate character, according to which under like circumstances we always do the same thing:  whether it happens for the first or the hundredth time, it is in virtue of the same necessity.  Real force of habit, as a matter of fact, rests upon that indolent, passive disposition which seeks to relieve the intellect and the will of a fresh choice, and so makes us do what we did yesterday and have done a hundred times before, and of which we know that it will attain its object.  But the truth of the matter lies deeper, and a more precise explanation of it can be given than appears at first sight.  Bodies which may be moved by mechanical means only are subject to the power of inertia; and applied to bodies which may be acted on by motives, this power becomes the force of habit.  The actions which we perform by mere habit come about, in fact, without any individual separate motive brought into play for the particular case:  hence, in performing them, we really do not think about them.  A motive was present only on the first few occasions on which the action happened, which has since become a habit:  the secondary after-effect of this motive is the present habit, and it is sufficient to enable the action to continue:  just as when a body had been set in motion by a push, it requires no more pushing in order to continue its motion; it will go on to all eternity, if it meets with no friction.  It is the same in the case of animals:  training