The Faculty of Thought--Emotion and Thought--Instinct and
Reason--Monkeys Reason--Some Examples.
The study of biology has revealed many facts which conspire to show that
the incipient forms of animal and vegetable life are the same in those
two great kingdoms; and parallel with this fact, I think it can be shown
that the faculty of expression goes hand in hand with life. And why
should not this be the case? From the standpoint of religion, I cannot
see why the bounty of God should not be equal to such a gift, nor can I
conceive of a more sublime act of universal justice than that all things
endowed with thought, however feeble, should be endowed with the power
of expressing it. From the standpoint of evolution, I cannot understand
by what rule Nature would have worked to develop the emotions,
sensations, and faculties alike in all these various forms, and make
this one exception in the case of speech. It does not seem in keeping
with her laws. From the standpoint of chance, I cannot see why such an
accident might not have occurred at some other point in the scale of
life, or why such anomalies are not more frequent. Man appears to be the
only one. From any point of view we take, it does not seem consistent
with other facts. All other primates think and feel, and live and die
under like conditions and on like terms with man; then why should he
alone possess the gift of speech?
[Sidenote: FACULTY OF THOUGHT]
I confess that such an inference is not evidence, however logical; but I
have many facts to offer in proof that speech is not possessed by man
alone. It is quite difficult to draw the line at any given point between
the process of thought and those phenomena we call emotions. They merge
into and blend with each other like the colours in light, and in like
manner the faculty of speech, receding through the various modes of
expression, is for ever lost in the haze and distance of desire. The
faculty of reason blends into thought like the water of a bay blends
into the open sea; there is nowhere a positive line dividing them. When
we are in the midst of one we point to the other, and say, "There it
is;" but we cannot say at what exact point we pass out of one into the
other.
[Sidenote: THE POWER OF REASONING]
To reason is to think methodically and to judge from attending facts.
When a monkey examines the situation and acts in accordance with the
facts, doing a certain thing with the evident purpose of accomplishing a
certain end, in what respect is this not reason? When a monkey remembers
a thing which has passed and anticipates a thing which is to come; when
he has learned a thing by experience which he avoids through memory and
the apprehension of its recurrence, is it instinct that guides his
conduct? When a monkey shows clearly by his actions that he is aware of
the relation between cause and effect, and acts in accordance therewith,
is it instinct or reason that guides him? If there be a point in the
order of Nature where reason became an acquired faculty, it is somewhere
far below the plane occupied by monkeys. Their power of reasoning is far
inferior to that of man, but not more so than their power of thinking
and expression; but a faculty does not lose its identity by reason of
its feebleness. When the same causes under the same conditions prompt
man and ape alike to do the same act in the same way, looking forward to
the same results, I cannot understand why the motive of the one should
be called reason, and that of the other called instinct. Scholars have
tried so hard to keep the peace between theology and themselves, that
they have explained things in accordance with accepted belief in order
that they might not incur the charge of heresy. To this end they have
reconciled the two extremes by ignoring the means, and making a
distinction without a difference on which to found it.
Whatever may be the intrinsic difference between reason and instinct, it
is evident to my mind that the same motives actuate both man and ape in
the same way, but not to the same extent. I am aware that many acts
performed by Simians are meaningless to them and done without a
well-defined motive. The strong physical resemblance between man and ape
often causes one to attach more importance to the act than it really
justifies. In many cases the same act performed by some other animal
less like man would scarcely be noticed. To teach an ape or monkey to
eat with knife, fork, cup and spoon, to use a napkin and chair, or such
like feats, does not indicate to my mind a high order of reason; nor it
is safe to judge the mental status of these creatures from such data.
When he is placed under new conditions and committed to his own
resources, we are then better able to judge by his conduct whether he
is actuated by reason or not.
[Sidenote: CONNECTING CAUSES AND EFFECTS]
In any simple act where a monkey can see the cause connected with, and
closely followed by, the effect, he is actuated by reason, and while he
may not be able to explain to his own mind a remote or complex cause but
simply accepts the fact, it does not make the act any less rational in a
monkey than the same act would be in man where he fails to grasp the
ultimate cause. The difference is that man is able to trace the
connecting causes and effects through a longer series than a monkey can.
Man assigns a more definite reason for his acts than a monkey can; but
it is also true that one man may assign a more definite reason for his
acts than another man can for his when prompted by the same motives to
the same act.
The processes, motives, acts and results are the same with man and ape;
the degree to which they reason differs, but the kind of reason in both
cases is the same.
I shall here relate some instances in my experience and leave the reader
to judge whether reason or instinct guided the acts of the monkeys as I
shall detail them in the next few paragraphs. It will be remembered that
these were new conditions under which the monkeys acted.
I taught Nellie to drink milk from a bottle with a rubber nipple. While
I would hold the bottle, it was easy for her to secure the milk; but
when she undertook it alone, she utterly failed. The thing which puzzled
her was how to get the milk to come up to her end of the bottle. She
turned it in every way, and held it in every position that she could
think of, but the milk always kept at the other end of the bottle. She
would throw the bottle down in despair, and when she saw the milk flow
to the end having the nipple, she would go back and pick it up, and try
it again. Poor Nellie worried her little head over this, and again
abandoned it in despair. While trying to solve the mystery, she
discovered a new trick. While the bottle was partly inverted she caught
hold of the nipple, and squeezed it. By this means she accidentally
spurted the milk into the faces of some ladies who were watching her.
This afforded her so much fun that she could scarcely be restrained, and
while she remained with me she remembered this funny trick, and never
failed to perform it when she was allowed to do so. It was no trouble
for her to connect the immediate effect to the immediate cause. But she
could not for a long time understand that the position of the bottle or
the location of the milk in it had anything to do with the trick. In the
course of time, however, she learned to hold the bottle so that she
could drink the milk, and she also discovered that it had to be held in
a certain position in order to play her amusing trick.
Another instance was in the case of a little monkey, heretofore
described by the name of Jennie. When you would throw a nut, just out
of her reach, she would take a stick which had a nail in the end, and
rake the nut to her. She never took the wrong end of the stick, and
never placed the nail on the wrong side of the nut. Her master assured
me that she had not been taught this, but had found the stick and
applied it to this use. When she did not want any one to play with her
or handle her, she would coil her chain up and sit down on it to keep
any one from taking hold of it.
It is not an uncommon thing for monkeys to discover the means by which
their cage is kept fastened, and they have frequently been known to
untie a knot in a rope or chain, and thus release themselves. I have
known a monkey that learned to reach its hand through the meshes of the
cage, and withdraw the pin which fastened the hasp and thus open the
door and get out. The keeper substituted a small wire, which he twisted
three or four times in order that it could not be released. The monkey
realised that the wire performed the duties of the pin and prevented
the door from opening. He also knew that the wire was twisted and that
this was the reason he could not remove it. I have seen him put his hand
through the meshes of the cage, catch the loose end of the wire and turn
it as though he was turning a crank. He evidently knew that the twist in
the wire was made by such a motion and his purpose was to untwist it,
but so far as I know he never succeeded in doing so. I have frequently
seen a monkey gather up his chain and measure his distance from where he
stood to the point at which he expected to alight, with the skill and
accuracy of an engineer.
A gentleman of my acquaintance assured me recently that during his
sojourn of two years in the Island of Sumatra, he had in his service a
large orang. This ape did many chores about the place, and performed
many simple duties as well as the other domestics did.
On one occasion, this ape was induced to go aboard a steamer which lay
in the harbour. The purpose was to kidnap him and carry him to Europe.
Either through fear, instinct, reason, or some other cause, this ape
jumped overboard and swam ashore, although he was naturally afraid of
water. From that time on to the end of the gentleman's residence there,
he assures me that whenever a steamer made its appearance in the
harbour, the ape would take flight to the forest, where he would stay as
long as the vessel remained in sight. He was seen from time to time, but
could not be induced to return to the house until the vessel had
departed.
A few years ago, I saw on board the United States receiving ship
_Franklin_, a bright little monkey which was kept chained in a temporary
workshop built on the gun-deck. Her chain was just long enough to allow
her to reach the stove. The day was pleasant outside, but in the shade a
trifle chilly. The little monk descended from the sill on which she
usually sat and carefully felt the top of the stove with her hands.
Finding it slightly warm, although the fire had died out, she mounted
the stove and laid the side of her head on the warm surface. She would
turn first one cheek and then the other, and continued rubbing the stove
with her hands. Not finding it warm enough, she jumped down on the
floor, opened the stove door with her hand, and slammed it two or three
times. She then picked up a stick of wood lying within reach, and tried
to lift it to the stove. The stick was too heavy for her to handle, so
she would lift up one end of it and drop it heavily on the floor with
the evident purpose of attracting the attention of her master. Again she
would open and slam the door, lift up the end of the stick and drop it,
and utter a peculiar sound, showing in every possible way that she
wanted a fire. She finally picked up a small stick and stuck the end of
it into the ashes in the front of the stove. She knew that it was
necessary to put the wood into the stove; she knew where to put it in,
and, while she could not do it herself, she knew who could put it in.
Her master told me that she would gather up the shavings from the floor
when they came within her reach and pile them up by the stove. He also
told me that he frequently gave her a lighted match when he had prepared
the fuel for building a fire, and that she would touch the match to the
shavings and start the fire. She never ventured to get on the stove
without first examining it to ascertain how hot it was.
Another feat which she performed was to try to remove some tar from the
cup in which he gave her water and milk. The cup had been lined with tar
as a sanitary measure to prevent consumption, and she was aware that the
tar imparted an unpleasant taste and odour, hence she tried very hard to
remove it from the cup. Was this instinct?