THE WAYS OF MONKEYS. 245 



made up ; he touched her cheek with one finger and then offered her 

 his hand in friendship. My chimpanzee conversed very little with 

 other animals ; like the apes in general, he was afraid of the big ones 

 and despised the smaller ones. He was always around us, and we, on 

 our side, did not make any difference between him and a man. 



The animal fell ill of mumps, followed by pneumonia. I had seen 

 many sick chimpanzees, but never one of them behaved as he did. I 

 engaged two competent physicians to take charge of him. He knew 

 them from the first day, allowed them to feel his pulse, showed 

 his tongue, and directed the hand of the attendant doctor to the pain- 

 ful swelling, which had to be cut open afterward, there being danger 

 of suffocation. The doctors would not use chloroform, out of regard 

 to the affection of the lungs ; but, fearing the chimpanzee would not 

 keep quiet during the operation, engaged four strong men to hold him. 

 The sick animal did not submit to that rough treatment, but excitedly 

 pushed the men aside, and then, without any compulsion whatever, but 

 in compliance with the fondling words of his nurse, in whose lap he was 

 sitting, offered his throat. The operation was performed, the ape never 

 flinching or complaining. He felt afterward much relieved, and ex- 

 pressed his gratitude by pressing fervently the hands of the physicians 

 and kissing his nurse. But his life was not spared ; he died from pneu- 

 monia. Meekly and patiently he bore his long agony and died more like 

 a man than an animal. The doctor told me that never in his life, at 

 any death-bed, had he felt an emotion similar to that which seized him 

 at the humble couch of the poor monkey. In Berlin, many beautiful 

 eyes shed tears when the news of the sad end of my widely known and 

 generally petted chimpanzee was spread. 



Was the ancestor of the human race a monkey ? That is the vexed 

 question which still raises so much dust. 



There is no doubt that man is not more and not less than the chief 

 creature in the animal kingdom, and that the monkeys are his immedi- 

 ate neighbors ; but I can not see why this fact should logically involve 

 the assumption that our great-great-uncles were gamboling in paradise 

 in the shape of apes. The doctrine of gradual evolution may seem trust- 

 worthy in the highest degree and beautiful from the scientific stand- 

 point, but it is based upon a simple hypothesis, and a hypothesis is not 

 a proof ; and here I wish not to be misunderstood. Even if the physi- 

 cal and intellectual development and perfection of humanity through- 

 out the succession of thousands of centuries is a fact, there is no 

 authority for the inference that, eo ipso, a monkey-nest was the cradle 

 of mankind. 



Darwin's treatise on the variation of species gave rise to the ardent 

 controversy of our days. Darwin used the wrong word. It is not 

 " species " he ought to have said, but " varieties " ; for species never 

 interbreed with each other. Man and monkey, though belonging to 

 the same group, represent two distinct species. There is, consequently, 



