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 was an 

 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- 



