THE ERA OF HELPLESSNESS 63 



intelligence to suspect the multiform potential ap- 

 plicability of those articles. Besides, they are not 

 organically fitted to make skillful use of them. The 

 difference between their bodies and that of the two- 

 footed upright brute is sufficient to make them rather 

 clumsy and inaccurate in handling them. Such 

 habits have no survival value for them. 



Though they had learned their applicability long 

 before the upright brutes, yet have they, probably 

 for these reasons, never become articles of common 

 use among them, nor have they, as far as evidenced, 

 ever improved themselves in the manner of handling 

 them. 



How were the upright brutes taught to avail 

 themselves of these arms and tools? They learned 

 their application probably from observing the clumsy 

 and rare use made of them by their ape relatives. 

 Since it has been proven that these habits could 

 not have been acquired by the occurrence of acci- 

 dents or incidents in the natural course of events, 

 they must have been learned by some indirect 

 method. No other indirect method is so simple, 

 so natural, so suggested by the facts known in this 

 case. Therefore, on the rule of parsimony, this 

 explanation should not be rejected until a better 

 one has been found. 



This leads to a discussion of the nature of the 

 imitative faculty. This inheres in the nervous 

 system, and directly differs in degree as the sensi- 

 tiveness of its owner. It tends to reproduce in him 



