THE HUMAN SIDE OF APES 



had to content himself with the scattered and often rather 

 casual observations of many naturalists. He collected sev- 

 eral anecdotes that show the intelligence of apes, their 

 power of imitation, their strong parental affection, their 

 mutual sympathy, their grief over the loss of their young, 

 and their services to one another in times of danger or dis- 

 tress. He showed that the apes share with us all the common 

 basic emotions and that they express their emotions by much 

 the same bodily signs. No one can read Darwin's book on 

 The Expression of the Emotioiis in Man and Afiimals 

 without experiencing a sense of the fundamental kinship of 

 the human and the animal' mind and of the likeness in their 

 expression of the emotions. Anger, fear, affection, astonish- 

 ment, grief, pride, disappointment, and disgust are expressed 

 in much the same way, not only by all the varied races of 

 mankind but by the apes and monkeys. The language of 

 the emotions is a universal mode of communication. The 

 frown has the same meaning in man and apes and is caused 

 by the contraction of the same muscles. The broad similarity 

 in emotional life and in its expression that we share with 

 our simian relatives is as strong an evidence of common 

 origin as the similarity in the form of the skeleton or of the 

 brain. 



We now know considerably more of the mental life of 

 apes than was known in the time of Darwin. We are getting 

 better acquainted with our simian cousins, and our more 

 intimate acquaintance has led us to a more generous appre- 

 ciation of their mental qualities. Many people habitually 

 think of animals as prompted only by feelings that corre- 

 spond to the lower passions of our own nature. The terms 

 bestiality, animality, and brutality are terms of reproach. The 

 words "ape" and "tiger" are synonyms of ruthless ferocity, 

 the antithesis of everything we regard as worthy in human 



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