Plutarch. The Cynic's point of view, since it
deprecated the use of reason, did not include any
theory of animal rationality. But at the beginning of
the Christian period Plutarch wrote a dialogue (usually
called Gryllus, from the name of the protagonist) in
which Odysseus, cast up on the witch Circe's island,
is allowed to speak with some of the Greeks whom
Circe has turned into animals; if any wish to regain their
human shapes, they may do so. Gryllus is a pig. He
is far from wishing to become a man again. To begin
with, the life of the beasts is more natural than that
of human beings, for the souls of the beasts are able
to produce that virtue which is peculiar to each species
without any instruction. Animals moreover have more
wisdom and prudence than men, for these virtues are
implanted in animals by Nature, not by art. If you do
not want to call this reason, says Gryllus, “it is time
for you to find out a finer and more honorable name
for it as, it cannot be denied, it exhibits a power greater
in its effects and more wonderful than either.” Animals
all reason, but some are more rational than others. “I
do not believe,” says Gryllus (in a sentence that was
to be reproduced by Montaigne and to echo through
the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries), “there is
such difference between beast and beast in reason and
understanding and memory, as between man and man.”
