Whether or not the guess is right that in that hubbub among the
monkeys in the Simla trees there was a rudimentary heresy hunt, or, in
other words, that the monkeys were screeching whatever in monkey
language intimated, "Bad form, bad form," "Order, order," it cannot be
surprising to find solidarity such as theirs facilitated, or even made
possible, by what can only be called a kind of language. If Max Müller
had been beside Dr Murphy one day in 1905 in Simla, and seen what
Dr Murphy then saw, he would probably have abandoned the proud claim
he has made for humanity to a monopoly of speech. We must be content
with the more modest boast of developing it.
The doctor noticed a monkey sitting on the flat roof of a small house
in Simla, where lived a man who roasted gram and sold it. The little
brown fellow was visibly hankering after the gram exposed for sale on
a tray before the door. He leaned over and looked long at the man
beside it. Then the doctor saw him go to a short distance and confer
with four or five others, two of whom returned with him, and three
little heads bent over the roof to study the situation and the
unconscious seller of gram.
Then one of them went down the water-pipe behind the house, walked
boldly round to the front of it, and openly, before the eyes of the
astonished man, took a handful and ran away. The man snatched a stick
and chased him; and Dr Murphy noticed with surprise that, of two
possible roads, the fugitive took the least convenient for himself,
but the one that best kept the man out of sight and reach of his
stall. As soon as he was gone, the two remaining monkeys hurried down
and helped themselves to handfuls and escaped away, to be presently
rejoined by their daring colleague, who had drawn away the man.
It would be difficult to exaggerate the significance of this incident.
These monkeys must somehow have been able to speak together and trust
each other. To every union of several we may apply what Heraclitus
said of every unit,--"Its character is its fate." Solidarity is
possible in exact proportion to the degree of honesty prevailing. So
the monkeys must have had a rudimentary kind of honesty as well as a
rudimentary kind of speech; and that was why they could act on
Moltke's maxim--"Erst wägen, dann wagen" ("First ponder, then dare,"
or, in commoner words, "Think before you act"), and then carry out
their plans and co-operate well. We would be absent-minded beggars
indeed if we did not see here the germ of that tribal solidarity from
which all human civilisation has gradually evolved. Let us never
forget our humble beginnings, or despise our poor relations.