374 



scmwcE. 



[Vol. Vlll., No. 194 



size used in Birmingham, often intermittently, 

 renders the system peculiarly applicable to that 

 city. Although each thousand horse-power at the 

 central station may produce only five hundred 

 horse-power at the users' engines, it will displace 

 fully a thousand horse-power of small boiler 

 plant, etc., while the centralization of the power- 

 producing plant admits of the conversion of fuel 

 into power under conditions most favorable to 

 economy and efficiency. 



THE MENTAL FACULTIES AND SOCIAL 

 INSTINCTS OF APES. 



A WRITER in the Revue scientiflque (Aug. 38, 

 1886) has made an admirable resume of the sug- 

 gestive analogies between the mental habits of 

 the higher quadrumana and those of low 

 savage tribe?, and to some extent of civilized 

 children. The importance of this stage in mental 

 evolution has not been overlooked ; but much of 

 the material is unreliable, and direct observations 

 by good observers are few. Mtne. Clemence 

 Eoyer gives copious references to the best of these 

 observers, and thus succeeds in making a useful 

 presentation of the subject in a very few pages. 

 Even the mere summary which is here to follow, 

 of the points in common to the ape and the sav- 

 age man, will be sufficient to impress one with 

 the far-reaching extent and real significance of 

 tlais comparison. 



Sociability and the family. — The degree of so- 

 ciability varies greatly in different species. The 

 gorillas of West Africa live in small patriarchal 

 families, while the cynocephalus and many Amer- 

 ican species live in troupes, without any definite 

 sexual relations. Savage tribes showing each of 

 these forms of family life have been described. 

 Houzeau remarks that the patriarchal system is 

 maintained among many of the anthropoid apes 

 by subordination to the authority of a chief. Each 

 group has but one chief, — an adult male. The 

 females and young ones are subject to his control 

 until they tire of this dependence, and abandon or 

 kill the ruler. Among the chimpanzees and goril- 

 las, even smaller families, with a single pair at 

 the head, are found ; and here the feelings of 

 maternal and conjugal love are developed to a 

 high degree. Paternal affection is rare, but many 

 savages do not recognize the right of the father. 

 It is common to find them tracing descent through 

 the female line only, without any regard to pater- 

 nal instincts. Three authenticated examples of 

 conjugal love among apes are recorded. 



Language. — By this term must be understood, 

 not a finished systematized speech, but simply 

 some rudimentary mode of expressing emotional 



and mental states by sounds and gestures. Apes, 

 of course, have cries for all their common emo- 

 tions, — their desires, their fears, pains and pleas- 

 ures. These cries differ considerably in different 

 species. Houzeau records an instance in which 

 the animal used a sj^ecial cry when it was dis- 

 pleased by having an object given to it which was 

 not the one it wanted. 



The faculty for imitation is certainly character- 

 istic of the quadrumana, and has given us the 

 phrase 'to ape.' It is a trait common to savages, 

 to children, and to idiots ; in short, to low-type, 

 undeveloped minds. The attitudes and general 

 conduct of apes are so human, that some savages 

 believe that it is only out of spitefulness that 

 they do not speak. But even this poverty of 

 sounds is not without parallel in savages : many 

 have a very meagre alphabet of sounds, and help 

 themselves out with clicks and natural noises. 

 All apes (except, perhaps, the orang-outang) have 

 voice : they often repeat sounds, which are usual- 

 ly complex articulations involving gutturals and 

 harsh sounds, with little variation. But the New- 

 Zealanders lack twelve of our consonants, and 

 other tribes show similar imperfections. And, 

 curiously, it is just the labials so often found ab- 

 sent in the languages of the lowest species of men 

 that are never used by apes. But the labial m is 

 almost the first sound learned by the civilized 

 chief, as is shown in the word ' mamma.' 



Apes readily understand our language sufficient- 

 ly to be tamed, and trained to astonishing per- 

 formances ; and they are guided by sound as well 

 as by gesture. Perhaps they understand our 

 language somewhat as a child of fifteen or 

 eighteen months understands its mother. But of 

 course they lack every trace of a method of re- 

 cording mental conditions. If the most primitive 

 savage had not had some sort of record-making, 

 even so simple as the Peruvian quipus, we could 

 hardly know of his existence. 



The phrase of Rabelais, that ' laughing is a 

 peculiarity of the genus Homo,' is shown false by 

 the evidence of this power in apes. It may be 

 noted that many half -civilized people laugh very 

 seldom, such as the Turks, One can readily read 

 the expression on an ape's countenance. They 

 weep too, and have been observed to frown. 



Fetes and funeral rites. — Houzeau likens the 

 assemblages observed among the quadrumana to 

 those of the Hottentots and other people. The 

 apes of South America, when they have drained 

 the resources of a certain area, have a re-union 

 before they decide to emigrate. They jump and 

 run and shout ; the males running along the 

 trees, while the females carry the young ones 

 in their arms. Stories are told of the regularity 



