automata

Lafcadio Hearnの "KOKORO" を読んでいます。

That the idea, which has been for thousands of years so vast a factor in Oriental thought-life, should have failed to develop itself in the West till within, our own day, is sufficiently explained by Western theology. Still, it would not be correct to say that theology succeeded in rendering the notion of pre-existence absolutely repellent to Occidental minds. Though Christian doctrine, holding each soul specially created out of nothing to fit each new body, permitted no avowed beliefs in pre-existence, popular common-sense recognized a contradiction of dogma in the phenomena of heredity. In the same way, while theology decided animals to be mere automata, moved by a sort of incomprehensible machinery called instinct, the people generally recognized that animals had reasoning powers. The theories of instinct and of intuition held even a generation ago seem utterly barbarous to-day.

動物は 'incomprehensible machinery called instinct' で動く "automata" と述べている様ですが、"automation" と似ている "automata" は何でしょう？ 辞書を見ます。
"automata" は複数形で単数形は "automaton" でした。

・Collins Dictionary: If you say that someone is an automaton, you are critical of them because they behave as if they are so tired or bored that they do things without thinking.: I get sick of being thought of as a political automaton.
・Cambridge English Dictionary: a machine that operates on its own without the need for human control, or a person who acts like a machine, without thinking or feeling: I take the same route to work every day, like some sort of automaton.
・Merriam-Webster: an individual who acts in a mechanical fashion: He is an unfeeling automaton.

本能的かも知れないが、動物も考えて動いているのは確かだ。又、AIを搭載したこれからのロボットは考えてはいないとは言えなくなるでしょう。