SOCIAL AND MENTAL QUALITIES 61 



becomes vicious and ill-tempered. All animals, in- 

 cluding man, have the same tendency. 



Mentally the chimpanzee occupies a high plane 

 within his own sphere of life, but within those limits 

 the faculties of the mind are not called into frequent 

 exercise, and therefore they are not so active as they 

 are in man. 



It is difficult to compare the mental status of the 

 ape to that of man, because there is no common 

 basis upon which the two rest. Their modes of life 

 are so unlike, as to afford no common unit of 

 measure. Their faculties are developed along 

 different lines. The two have but few problems in 

 common to solve. While the scope of the human 

 mind is vastly wider than that of the ape, it does not 

 follow that it can act with more precision in all 

 things. There are, perhaps, instances in which the 

 mind of the ape excels that of man, by reason of its 

 adaptation to certain conditions. It is not a safe 

 and infallible guide to measure all things by the 

 standard of man's opinion of himself. It is quite 

 true that, by such a unit of measure, the comparison 

 is much in favour of the man, but the conclusion is 

 neither just nor adequate. 



It is a problem of great interest, however, to 

 compare them in this manner, and the result would 

 indicate that a fair specimen of the ape is in about 

 the same mental horizon as a child of one year 

 old. But if the operation were reversed, and man 

 were placed under the natural conditions of the 

 ape, the comparison would be much less in his 



