s broad rivers and through woods does not enable
him to retrace the coils of a tangled rope. A monkey's talents, like our
own, are less infallible, but more versatile, and at the possessor's
discretion can be applied and perverted to all possible purposes. Hence
also that peculiar interest which the pranks of our mischievous
relatives excite even in spectators not apt to appreciate the comic
features of the spectacle. In the monkey-house of the Philadelphia Zoo I
have seen saturnine burghers stand motionless for hours together, and
contemplative children rapt in reveries that had little to do with the
hope of witnessing a beast-fight. They seemed to feel the spell of a
secret veiled in grotesque symbols, but disclosing occasional
revelations of its significance, like glimpses into the fore-world of
the human race.

In the fairy-tales of the old Hindoo scriptures monkeys figure as
counsellors of nonplussed heroes, and in the crisis of the Titan war the
Devas themselves condescend to seek the advice of the monkey Honuman,
who contrives to outwit the prince of the night-spirits. In the
international fable of "Reynard the Fox," a she-monkey on the eve of the
trial by battle suggests the stratagem that turns the scales against the
superior strength of the wolf Isegrim. The _mens aequa in arduis_ is,
indeed, a simian characteristic. Monkeys never have their wits more
completely about them than in the moment of a sudden danger, and a
higher development of the same faculty distinguishes the Caucasian from
all rival races, even from the sharp-witted Semites. After the conquest
of Algiers the French tried to conciliate the native element by
educating a number of young Arabs and giving them a chance to compete
with the cadets of St.-Cyr. They made excellent routine-officers, but
even their patron, General Clausel, admitted that they "could not be
trusted in a panic."

Dr. Langenbeck mentions a family of Silesian peasants who seemed to have
an hereditary predisposition to the abnormity known as microcephalism,
or small-headedness. They were not absolute idiots, but remarkably
slow-spoken and all extremely _averse to active occupations_. An active
disposition is generally a pretty safe gauge of mental capacity.
Intellectual vigor leads to action. To a person of mental resources
inactivity is more irksome than the hardest work, and sluggishness is
justly used as a synonyme of imbecility. Exertion under the pressure of
want is, howe