n considering the case
from the point of view of mental development we find a similar
irresistible drawing toward the apes, as the most spontaneously
intelligent of the mammalia. While many of the lower animals are capable
of being taught, the ape stands nearly alone in the power of thinking
for itself, the characteristic of self-education.

Innumerable testimonials could be quoted from observers in evidence of
the superior mental powers of the apes. Hartmann says of them that
"their intelligence sets them high above other mammals," and Romanes
that they "certainly surpass all other animals in the scope of their
rational faculty." It is scarcely necessary here to give extended
examples of ape intelligence. Hundreds of instances are on record, many
of them showing remarkable powers of reasoning for one of the lower
animals. The ape, it is true, is not alone in its teachableness. Nearly
all the domestic animals can be taught, the dog and the elephant to a
considerable degree. And evidences of reasoning out some subject for
themselves now and then appear in the domesticated species; but these
are rare instances, not frequent acts as in the case of the apes.

The apes, indeed, rarely need teaching. They observe and imitate to an
extent far beyond that displayed by any others of the lower animals, and
the more remarkable from the fact that in nearly every instance the
animals concerned began life in the wild state, and had none of the
advantages of hereditary influence possessed by the domesticated dog and
horse. Among the most interesting examples of spontaneous acts of
intelligence of the ape tribe are those related by Romanes, in his
"Animal Intelligence," of the doings of a cebus monkey, which he kept
for several months under close observation in his own house. Instead of
selecting general examples of ape actions, we may cite some of the
doings of this intelligent creature.

The cebus did not wait to be shown how to do things, but was an adept in
devising ways to do them himself. He had the monkey love of mischief
well developed, and not much that was breakable came whole from his
hands. When he could not break an egg cup by dashing it to the ground,
he hammered it on the post of a brass bedstead until it was in
fragments. In breaking a stick, he would pass it down between a heavy
object and the wall, and break it by hanging on its end. In destroying
an article of dress, he would begin by carefully pulling out the
thr