Whether Hope Is in Dumb Animals?
Objection 1: It would seem that there is no hope in dumb animals.
Because hope is for some future good, as Damascene says (De Fide
Orth. ii, 12). But knowledge of the future is not in the competency
of dumb animals, whose knowledge is confined to the senses and does
not extend to the future. Therefore there is no hope in dumb animals.
Obj. 2: Further, the object of hope is a future good, possible of
attainment. But possible and impossible are differences of the true
and the false, which are only in the mind, as the Philosopher states
(Metaph. vi, 4). Therefore there is no hope in dumb animals, since
they have no mind.
Obj. 3: Further, Augustine says (Gen. ad lit. ix, 14) that "animals
are moved by the things that they see." But hope is of things unseen:
"for what a man seeth, why doth he hope for?" (Rom. 8:24). Therefore
there is no hope in dumb animals.
_On the contrary,_ Hope is an irascible passion. But the irascible
faculty is in dumb animals. Therefore hope is also.
_I answer that,_ The internal passions of animals can be gathered
from their outward movements: from which it is clear that hope is in
dumb animals. For if a dog see a hare, or a hawk see a bird, too far
off, it makes no movement towards it, as having no hope to catch it:
whereas, if it be near, it makes a movement towards it, as being in
hopes of catching it. Because as stated above (Q. 1, A. 2; Q. 26, A.
1; Q. 35, A. 1), the sensitive appetite of dumb animals, and
likewise the natural appetite of insensible things, result from the
apprehension of an intellect, just as the appetite of the
intellectual nature, which is called the will. But there is a
difference, in that the will is moved by an apprehension of the
intellect in the same subject; whereas the movement of the natural
appetite results from the apprehension of the separate Intellect, Who
is the Author of nature; as does also the sensitive appetite of dumb
animals, who act from a certain natural instinct. Consequently, in
the actions of irrational animals and of other natural things, we
observe a procedure which is similar to that which we observe in the
actions of art: and in this way hope and despair are in dumb animals.
Reply Obj. 1: Although dumb animals do not know the future, yet an
animal is moved by its natural instinct to something future, as
though it foresaw the future. Because this instinct is planted in
them by the Divine Intellect that foresees the future.
Reply Obj. 2: The object of hope is not the possible as
differentiating the true, for thus the possible ensues from the
relation of a predicate to a subject. The object of hope is the
possible as compared to a power. For such is the division of the
possible given in _Metaph._ v, 12, i.e. into the two kinds we have
just mentioned.
Reply Obj. 3: Although the thing which is future does not come under
the object of sight; nevertheless through seeing something present,
an animal's appetite is moved to seek or avoid something future.
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