THE SUMMIT OF THE YEARS 



of thought and does not use its brain as we do, when 

 we see one unable to obtain a banana placed just 

 beyond its reach, though a tool in the shape of a 

 small rake be placed in its hand! It is hungry for 

 the fruit, and were it within reach of its own arm, 

 it would quickly seize it, but the artificial extension 

 of the arm by means of the rake, it has not the wit 

 to avail itself of. It cannot use a tool. Its keeper 

 takes hold of its hand, holding the rake, and shows 

 it how to get the fruit; he repeats the act over and 

 over, and yet the monkey left to itself does not use 

 the rake. Its poor little noddle is too small or too 

 dark to take in even so trifling a conception as that; 

 it cannot form the simplest idea. If it learns finally 

 to use the rake, it does it in an automatic way, it 

 does not see why it should use the rake, it does not 

 perceive any relation between its hand and the 

 rake and the fruit. Poor thing! one thinks of its 

 skull as pressing down close upon its brain, leaving 

 not the least room for ideas. 



When an animal has a special tool in its organi- 

 zation, its whole life centres in and revolves about 

 that tool. I used to sit on a balcony in southern 

 California day after day and see the native brown 

 thrasher digging up the lawn or the garden with 

 that long hooked beak of his. He uses it like a 

 pick-axe, and he can make the turf and soil fly. He 

 does nothing else while he is in my sight. "Give 

 me a place to dig, to use my tool," he seems to say 

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