CONCEPTUAL THOUGHT 167 



As would be expected in a close and prolonged study 

 such as Wolfe made of these animals, considerable indi- 

 vidual variation went into the record. Chimpanzees differ 

 widely in personality, probably as much as do humans. Velt 

 would work the labor-machine only as long as he could 

 spend the chips as soon as he earned them. He had no inter- 

 est whatever in the accumulation of wealth. Moos, the pre- 

 cocious member of the colony, and Bimba, a female, were 

 quite willing to work for chips even though they could not 

 be spent until a day or so later. iMoos was very impatient 

 with any deficiencies in the vending machine; when he 

 dropped a chip into the slot, he wanted immediate action 

 and any delay infuriated him. Once he nearly broke up the 

 machine when it failed to deliver a grape. Have we seen this 

 kind of behavior elsewhere in the animal kingdom? Moos 

 and Bimba were both quite money-mad and would amass 

 great piles of poker chip wealth if left free to operate the 

 work machine, even when extra-heavy weights were at- 

 tached. Greed and despotism were clearly demonstrated in 

 the behavior of these animals. When the chimpanzees lived 

 in the same cage, dominance of one individual invariably ap- 

 peared. Bimba was completely subdued by Bula who would 

 appropriate all the chips thrown into the cage, no difference 

 how many, and this in spite of the constant complaints and 

 whining of her cage mate. 



Moos and his ape friends, then, readily learned to respond 

 to poker chips as symbols and to adapt complexly to a new 

 situation in their lives. It is from such basic capacities that 

 man and his vastly more intricate behavior has arisen. Lan- 

 guage is no doubt the key to his success. Anthropologists are 

 in general agreement that language evolved in correlation 

 with culture and was probably the necessary antecedent of 

 culture. Ideas or generalizations are basic to even the sim- 

 plest of human cultures, and, apparently, it is only through 

 speech that such ideas or generalizations can be transmitted. 

 Culture functions on the basis of abstraction, the symbolism 



