The Mental Life of the Monkeys 215 



This makes the results appear less elegant and definitive but 

 really increases their value for purposes of interpretation. 



The thoughtful reader will not expect from my experi- 

 ments any perfectly rigorous demonstration of either the 

 presence or the absence of imitation of human acts as a 

 means of learning. The general trend of the evidence, it 

 seems to me, is decidedly towards justifying the hypothesis 

 that the monkeys did not learn acts from seeing me do 

 them. 



I will first describe a sample experiment and then present 

 a summary of all those made. 



On January i2th I put box Epsilon (push down) in No. 

 3's cage, the door of the box being open. I put a bit of food 

 in the box. No. 3 reached in and took it. This was re- 

 peated three times. I then put in a bit of food and closed the 

 door. No. 3 pulled and bit the box, turned it over, fingered 

 and bit at the hole where the lever was, but did not succeed 

 in getting the door open. After ten minutes I took the box 

 out. Later I took No. 3 out and let him sit on my knees (I 

 sitting on the floor with the box in front of us). I would 

 then put my hand out toward the box and when he was 

 looking at it would insert my finger and depress the lever 

 with as evident a movement as I could. The door, of 

 course, opened, and No. 3 put his arm in and took the 

 bit of food. I then put in another, closed the door and de- 

 pressed the lever as before. No. 3 watched my hand pretty 

 constantly, as all his experiences with me had made such 

 watching profitable. After ten such trials he was put back 

 in the cage and the box put in with a large piece of food in it 

 and its door closed. No. 3 failed in five minutes and the 

 box was taken out. He was shown fifteen times more and 

 then left to try himself. I tried him for a couple of minutes 

 under just the same circumstances as existed during the 



