ABSTRACT
Animals must either have souls, which would have awkward consequences such as sending them to heaven and entitling them to considerate treatment, or they must simply be material machines. Warning cries, for instance, are understood everywhere, even across the very deep canyon of evolutionary time that divides mammals from birds. The rich development of these signalling powers on both sides is one of those fascinating convergences that show the shared directions that underlie all of evolution. Wolves, for instance, display all the domestic virtues and do not go ravening out of savagery but simply for survival. The beasts were being used as figures onto which all sorts of fears and fantasies could be projected. The scientist who eventually broke this monopoly and produced a more realistic approach was Konrad Lorenz, an Austrian ethologist who understood animals deeply and did not care in the least what his colleagues thought of him.
