Thomas Henry Huxley; A Sketch Of His Life And WorkMitchell, P. Chalmers (Peter Chalmers), Sir
Science
Thomas Henry Huxley; A Sketch Of His Life And Work
Mitchell, P. Chalmers (Peter Chalmers), Sir
Huxley, Thomas Henry, 1825-1895
"After eating, he at once begins to clean up. He holds a stick of
wood in front of him, or puts his hands in his master's slippers,
and slides about the room, then takes a cloth and scrubs the
floor. Scouring, sweeping, and dusting are his favourite
occupations; and, when he once gets hold of the cloth, he never
wants to give it up."
Falkenstein has given a detailed description of a gorilla which was
remarkable for his delicacy in eating.
"He would take a cup or glass with the greatest care, using both
hands to carry it to his mouth, and setting it down so carefully
that I do not remember having lost a single piece of crockery
through him, though we had never tried to teach him the use of
such vessels, wishing to bring him to Europe as nearly in his
natural condition as possible."
These and a multitude of similar observations which have been made
since Huxley wrote are typical of the increase of our knowledge on the
habits and capacities of the anthropoid apes. They all serve to show
that in them the instinct for experimental investigation of
everything with which they are surrounded, and their imitative
faculties are peculiarly great. The importance of this, from the point
of view of Huxley's argument, is great. The difference between the
instincts of the lower animals and the intelligence of man is that
instincts are to a large extent fixed and mechanical. The proper
performance of an instinct demands the presence of exactly the right
external conditions for its accomplishment. In the absence of these
conditions, the call to perform the instinctive action is equally
great, and results in useless performances. In many of the higher
animals these elaborate instincts are more general in their character,
and are supplemented by a considerable but varying aptitude for
modification of instinctive action to suit varieties of surrounding
circumstances. As this intelligence becomes more and more developed,
the blind, mechanical instinct becomes weaker. A large number of
instances might be given of such instincts modified by dawning
intelligence. The chief factors in producing the change are, as has
been shewn by Professor Groos, the possession of a general instinct to
imitate and to experiment, and the existence of a period of youth in
which the young creature may practise these instincts, and so prepare
itself for the more serious purposes of adult life. The anthropoid
apes seem to possess these experimental instincts to an extent much
greater than that observed in any other class of animals, and, as they
have a long period of youth, they have the opportunity of putting them
into practice to the fullest possible extent.
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