278 MENTAL LIFE OF APES AND MONKEYS 



of grasping relations. A monkey which uses a stool to 

 enable him to reach an object, and which removes an obstacle 

 from his chain so that he may get a piece of food can scarcely 

 be said to be devoid of a certain power of representation. 

 Many features of the behavior of apes and monkeys mark 

 these animals as belonging to a distinctly higher psychic 

 level than cats and dogs. It is not likely that a cat or a dog, 

 with all due allowance for its physical disabilities, would 

 employ a tool with which to pull in a bit of food, much less 

 use a stick in order to get the tool for this purpose. The 

 monkey looks on the tool as a means to an end, and accord- 

 ingly goes after it. There is less evidence that objects have 

 such a meaning to cats and dogs. These animals might try 

 in various ways to reach food lying on a table; if a chair or 

 box were at hand they would doubtless mount upon it in 

 order to get the food. But even after seeing chairs and 

 boxes pulled around by human beings any number of times 

 it probably would not occur to one of these creatures to pull 

 the chair or box into position for its own use. 



The mind of the lower mammals is pretty closely chained to 

 its various objects of perception. It may have ideas, but 

 they are lacking in "articulateness." But the monkey 

 seems to be gifted with a certain degree of initiative; things 

 occur to him, and he apparently thinks about things in the 

 effort to attain a particular result. He shows a decided 

 approach to ourselves in many little ways of doing things. 

 He is not interested merely in the gratification of his appe- 

 tites; he is actuated by a sort of intellectual curiosity in re- 

 gard to objects. Miss Romanes' monkey would almost always 

 set an orange to spinning before eating it just for the fun 

 of seeing it go; he took great delight in breaking objects to 

 pieces and in overturning things; he removed a bell handle 

 from the mantel piece which involved unscrewing three 



