The Washington times., 1919-04-13

This question is Of more serious impol
lance to mankind than merely the settling
Of a dry scientific problem.
II the ape can be taught to THINK be
can be taught to WORK. And if he can be
made to work he can DO the drUdgery OF
the world.
Much of the necessary work of the world
like sweeping streets, shovelling coal, dig.
ging bitches, wedding cultivated crops and
picking fruit could be done by apes. They
are big enough and strong enough. In fact,
some success has already been achieved
by Prof James R. Leamon, the distin-
guished British naturalist, in making apes
pick cocoanuts, pluck chickens, geese and
ducks and operate simple mechanical sp-
pIiances.
Whether the higher monkeys, prop
erIy called apes, have glimmering of the
divine reasoning faculty Of man is one
Of the most interesting problems now alb
sorbing the attention Of science and as al
ready explained, the question has a very
practical side to It.
The evidence in favor Of the apes is
much stronger than most people would
expect
Il happens that Just now in the circus
in Madison Square Garden curious thing
has occurred. The Ringing Brothers Circus
combined with the Barnum and Bailey Cir
Gus and thus brought together the largest
andanost intelligent chimpanzee in captiv-
fly and q negro native of Gaboon, Africa,
who Is Of the very lowest type Of human
intelligence. Sally, the chimpanzee, be-
longed to one circus and the African "Ape
Man. belonged to the other.
When the two great shows Joined Sally
met ,the APE Man" and they seemed to
recognize in each other common level Of
intelligence The attention Of some scien-
tiic Investigators was drawn to this curious
pair and arrangements were made for
some very interesting tests, some Of which
have already been made and indicate that
the ape, Sally, has q better mental equip
ment than her friend the Ape Man"
Among the distinguished scientists who
have rrecently been looking into the ape
mind are Professor Robert Mearns Yerkes,
Of Harvard University, and DR.. Henry
jones Mulford, of Buffalo
In the first place, it should be understood
that the scientists have not been able to
find proof that the other animals below
the apes, even the most intelligent Of them,
such as the cat, horse and dog, have the
slightest power to think in the human
sense Their actions are merely automatic
responses to external stimuli, guided by
instinct, habit and experience. They can
not reason or deliberate. It must be ad-
mitted, however, that they solve some
rather difficult problems by their in
stinctive, responsive trial and error
methods. The cat, for instance, always
finds out quickly how to open door, when
the operation does not require real hand.
With regard to the ape the case is essen
tally different. Science has accepted as
proved that man is descended from an ape
HEe animal and that the existing apes, Of
which the chimpanzee is the highest
species, are in a sense our cousins.
Science now looks more and more into
the apes brain and body and finds his re-
semblance to man remarkably close, going
much deeper than the very striking exter-
nal resemblance. The chimpanZee has the
same kind Of nervous system and brain as
man, although there are important differ
ences Of development in the latter. There
is, for instance, no differentiation of func-
tion between the right and left halves Of
an apes brain. The ape is not right-hand-
ed or left-handed, but right or left is just
the same to him.
Dr.. A W. Campbell, Of the Royal Society
Of London, has found that the cellular and
the fibre structure Of the cerebral centres
in mans brain are practically duplicated
in the chimpanzee's brain, the difference
between the two being merely one of de-
gree. The chimpanzee brain, mainly an
animal brain one-third the size Of the mans
hro9 ho1 bn fha
opment Of the other.
In the Quarterly Journal of Experimental
Physiology Professors Leyton and Sher-
rington, describing experiments in brain
localization upon man-like apes, state that
the motor responses induced by electric
currents to the ape brain are very varied,
approaching the movements Of man in
number and far more than those obtained
from the dog or the macaQue, a species Of
monkey considered intelligent.
The chimpanZee then has the same kind
OF sensory nerves as man leading from his
fingers. his toes, his eyes, his ears, ETC., to
his brain. The nerves pass through the
base Of the brain-the medu,la oblongata--
and thence to the motor areas in the back
part Of the brain, which are practically
identical in this ape and the human brain.
But from the motor areas in man the
nerve fbres pass on to our higher centres,
where all the higher operations of mans
mind are performed-his reasoning, his
will to act, his moral conceptions, his love,
his memory, his religious feelings, his love
OF art and beauty, his patriotism and so
forth.
There is no proof that the lower animals
below the ape act otherwise than auto
matically. They do not reason or reflect.
L Is the distinguishing quality Of mans
mind that he can receive and store up i'm