“Animals and plants cannot understand our business, so we have denied that they can understand their own.”

Organic and Inorganic
The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1912), Part VI - Mind and Matter
Context: Animals and plants cannot understand our business, so we have denied that they can understand their own. What we call inorganic matter cannot understand the animals’ and plants’ business, we have therefore denied that it can understand anything whatever.

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Samuel Butler 232
novelist 1835–1902

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