204 THE ANATOMY OF SCIENCE 



acquired habits, instinct, knowledge, skill; the 

 second includes ability to meet new situations, 

 to learn something from each encounter with a 

 new problem, and thus to accumulate knowledge 

 and skill. 



We find it nearly impossible to interpret the 

 behavior of animals except by ascribing to them 

 mental traits quite analogous to these human 

 traits, and we employ the same words with the 

 understanding that they are now being used 

 in a somewhat generalized or extended sense. 

 When we compare animals with man we are 

 tempted to assume naively that we can mark the 

 human mind one hundred per cent in each of 

 the several mental traits, and then rate the ani- 

 mal mind by finding how nearly it approaches 

 the human standard in each particular. Thus 

 we consider the animals most intelligent whose 

 behavior is most nearly human. I have just been 

 reading two books (admirably exemplifying a 

 new and most hopeful movement in psychol- 

 ogy),^ which show the extraordinary aptitude 

 of the anthropoid ape in the use of tools, lad- 

 ders, and other external means for securing its 

 ends. We are tempted to say that these apes, 

 next to man, are the most intelligent of animals. 



3 Kohler, The Mentality of Apes; Yerkes, Almost Human. 



