262 MENTAL LIFE OF APES AND MONKEYS 
method of learning, according to Thorndike, “the monkeys do 
not advance far beyond the generalized mammalian type.” 
Like his cats and dogs, Thordike’s monkeys failed to learn 
acts by being put through them. They also failed to 
learn acts which they had seen the experimenter perform a 
large number of times. Neither did they appear to imi- 
tate one another. If one monkey had learned to get into 
a puzzle box, other monkeys failed to learn to do so after 
witnessing his successful performance. The traditional belief 
in the propensity of monkeys to imitate, therefore, receives 
no justification at Thorndike’s hands. 
The poor opinion of the monkey mind to which Thorndike 
was led by his experiments is very different from the one 
commonly held, and most people would be inclined to regard 
the individuals he experimented with as rather sorry speci- 
mens of the monkey family. Experiments on one species 
form an inadequate basis upon which to base conclusions 
regarding simian intelligence in general, and it is not sur- 
prising that other investigators of the behavior of monkeys 
should have obtained results more creditable to the mental 
ability of these animals. Some very interesting investiga- 
tions have been conducted by Hobhouse upon a rhesus 
monkey which he called Jimmy, and a chimpanzee which 
for reasons of his own he named the Professor. Jimmy wasan 
active creature of rather irritable temper and very fond of 
baked potato, which proved an excellent incentive to the 
overcoming of obstacles. The Professor, on the other hand, 
was very timid and unsociable, and could be managed only 
with difficulty. 
Both of these monkeys showed a certain power of adapting 
means to ends in employing one object in order to get another 
within reach. The Professor when first received from the 
zoological gardens had already acquired the habit of throw- 
