A look at the seven emotional systems of the brain by the researcher who discovered …
The position that brain and mind are separate entities was Rene Descartes’ greatest error, to borrow Antonio Damasio’s (1994) famous turn of phrase. Another of Descartes’ big errors was the idea that animals are without consciousness, without experiences, because they lack the subtle nonmaterial stuff from which the human mind is made. This notion lingers on today in the belief that animals do no think about nor even feel their emotional responses. Most who study animal brains have not yet learned how to discuss and study animal minds, especially their emotional feelings, as systematically and superbly as they study learned behaviours. Animals’ primal feelings are best studied ethologically—by monitoring their own emotional tendencies.
— Archaeology of Mind by Jaak Panksepp, Lucy Biven (Page 1)
Ethologically: the science of animal behaviour; also the study of human behaviour and social organization from a biological [Interesting] perspective
"Subtle nonmaterial stuff" really reminds me of how Philip Pullman would describe something. Lingering holdover of Christianity — Descartes was a devout Catholic, and according to Thomas d'Aquin: « l'âme des bêtes est-elle détruite avec les corps… L'âme des bêtes est produite par une énergie naturelle, mais l'âme humaine par Dieu »