ver, not incompatible with an inert disposition, and
spontaneous activity, the love of busy-ness for its own sake, can be
ascribed only to men and monkeys; monkeys, at least, are the only
animals in whom repletion and old age cannot dampen that passion. After
a full meal an elephant will stand for hours in a sort of piggish
torpor; a gorged bird seeks the tree-shade; an overfed dog and nearly
every old dog becomes a picture of laziness. Monkeys rest only during
sleep. Old age does not affect their nimbleness; they can be fattened,
for I have seen baboons as sleek as seals, but, like Gibbon, Henry
Buckle, and Marshal Vendome, they prove that the energy of a strong will
can bear up under such burdens. Madame de Stael, too, managed to combine
a progressive _embonpoint_ with the undiminished brilliancy of her
genius, though it is certain that adipose tissue does not feed the flame
of every mind. Charles Dickens in his "American Notes" expresses the
opinion that no vigor of mental constitution could be proof against the
influence of solitary confinement; but the narrow monkey-cages of our
zoological prisons show that the minds of the little captives can stand
the test of even that ordeal. They play with their shadows, if the
nakedness of their four walls does not afford any other pastime.

Docility, on the other hand, is a rather ambiguous test of intelligence.
The willingness and the ability to learn may supplement their mutual
deficiencies, but differ as radically as patience and genius. Dogs
master the tasks of their education by their earnest endeavor to please
their master; Jacko excels them in spite of his waywardness. Some boys
win college-prizes by memorizing their lessons in conformity with the
wishes of a dreaded or beloved preceptor, others by dint of natural
aptitude and a love of knowledge based on spontaneous inquisitiveness;
and every circus-trainer knows that teachers who understand to avail
themselves of that gift can teach a monkey tricks which can neither be
coaxed nor kicked into the skull of the most docile dog. Besides, the
domestic dog is a considerably modified variety of the family to which
he belongs, and in order to appreciate the difference between the
_natural_ intelligence of the canines and the quadrumana we should
compare the docility of the monkey with that of the wolf or the jackal.
In the submissiveness of the dog the hereditary influence of several
thousand generations has developed a sort