238 Animal Intelligence 



Even the casual observer, if he has any psychological in- 

 sight, will be struck by the general, aimless, intrinsically 

 valuable (to the animal's feelings) physical activities of a 

 monkey compared with the specialized, definitely aroused, 

 utilitarian activities of a dog or cat. Watch the latter and 

 he does but few things, does them in response to obvious 

 sense presentations, does them with practical consequences 

 of food, sex-indulgence, preparation for adult battles, etc. 

 If nothing that appeals to his special organization comes 

 up, he does nothing. Watch a monkey and you cannot 

 enumerate the things he does, cannot discover the stimuli 

 to which he reacts, cannot conceive the raison d'etre of 

 his pursuits. Everything appeals to him. He likes to be 

 active for the sake of activity. 



The observer who has proper opportunities and takes 

 proper pains will find this intrinsic interest to hold of men- 

 tal activity as well. No. i happened to hit a projecting 

 wire so as to make it vibrate. He repeated this act hun- 

 dreds of times in the few days following. He did not, could 

 not, eat, make love to, or get preliminary practice for the 

 serious battles of life out of, that sound. But it did give 

 him mental food, mental exercise. Monkeys seem to enjoy 

 strange places; they revel, if I may be permitted an an- 

 thropomorphism, in novel objects. They like to have 

 feelings as they do to make movements. The fact of men- 

 tal life is to them its own reward. 



It is beyond question rash for any one to venture hy- 

 potheses concerning the brain parallel of mental conditions, 

 most of all for the ignoramus in the comparative histology 

 of the nervous system, but one cannot help thinking that 

 the behavior of the monkeys points to a cerebrum that is no 

 longer a conservative machine for making a few well-defined 

 sorts of connections between sense-impressions and acts, 



