From North Pole to Equator: Studies of Wild Life and Scenes in Many Lands

by Alfred Edmund Brehm

The chimpanzee which I kept longest, and with the help of an intelligent, animal-loving keeper educated most carefully, was taken ill with inflammation of the lungs, accompanied by suppuration of the lymphatic glands of the neck. Surgical treatment of the glands was found necessary. Two surgeons, friends of mine who were on good terms with the chimpanzee, undertook to open the tumour on the neck, the more readily that the monkey believed that to be the cause of his suffering, and continually guided the surgeon’s hand towards it. But how was the necessary operation in such a dangerous spot to be performed without imperilling the monkey’s life? Anæsthetics were out of the question because of the lung disease, and the attempt to have the chimpanzee held down by several strong men had to be abandoned because of his intense excitement, and the strenuous resistance he offered. But where force failed persuasion succeeded. When the monkey was quieted and reassured by the coaxing and endearments of his keeper, he allowed a further examination of the swelling, and even submitted, without twitching an eyelid or uttering a complaint, to the use of the knife, and other painful treatment, including the emptying of the opened tumour. When this was done the distressingly laboured breathing became instantly less oppressive, an unmistakable expression of relief passed over the sufferer’s face, and he gratefully held out his hand to both physicians, and embraced his keeper, without having been asked to do either.

Unfortunately, the removal of the one trouble did not succeed in saving the animal’s life. The neck wound healed, but the inflammation of the lungs increased and killed him. He died fully conscious, gently and peacefully, not as an animal, but as a man dies.

These are features of the character and conduct of anthropoid apes which can neither be misunderstood nor cavilled at. When one considers that they can be observed in all anthropoids not yet full-grown but beyond the stage of childhood, one must undoubtedly grant those animals a very high place. For the opinion expressed by some one incapable observer, and thoughtlessly repeated by hundreds, that the monkey loses mental power with increasing age, that he retrogrades and becomes stupid, is completely false, and is disproved by every ape which is observed carefully, and without prejudice, from youth to age.[73] Even if we knew nothing more about full-grown anthropoids than that they erect shelters resembling huts rather than nests, in which to pass a single night, and that they drum on hollow trees for amusement, it would be enough to lead us to the same conclusion as we have arrived at by observation of the young members of this group; that is, that they must be regarded as by far the most gifted and highly developed of animals, and as our nearest relatives.

And the ape question? I might say that I have just answered it in what I have said; but I have no hesitation in expressing a more definite opinion.

Everyone must admit that man is not the representative of a new order of being, but is simply a member of the animal kingdom, and every unprejudiced person will also describe apes as the creatures most resembling man. If we compare them with one another, and then with man, the conviction is forced upon us, however we may strive against it, that there is a greater difference between the marmosets and the anthropoid apes than between the latter group and man. Zoologically, therefore, one cannot even relegate the apes and man to different orders of the highest class of animals. This has indeed been done, and is still done, man being classed as two-handed and monkeys as four-handed animals, but this leaves the most important aid to the classification of a mammal, the dentition, out of the question. For the dentition of man and monkeys is so essentially similar that it points imperatively to the necessity of placing the two types together. Nor is the distinction between two-handed and four-handed tenable, for although as regards the structure of hands and feet man and monkeys are certainly different, the difference does not imply any opposition; and the monkeys are just as much two-handed as we are. If we keep to the basis of classification adhered to without exception elsewhere, we are forced to place both in one order. I have given to it the name Hochtiere.

But though the characteristics which belong to all the higher animals as members of one order correspond thus accurately, a closer comparison reveals differences between man and apes which absolutely forbid a fusion of the two groups such as has been attempted in modern times. The symmetry of form, the comparative shortness of the arms, the breadth and mobility of the hands, the length and strength of the legs, as well as the flatness of the feet, the naked skin, and the less-developed canine teeth are external marks of man which must not be under-estimated, for they are important enough to justify putting him and the apes in different families, perhaps even different sub-orders. If, in addition, we take man’s endowments into due consideration, compare his movements, his articulate speech, his mental capacities with the corresponding gifts in the ape, the need for insisting on the boundaries between the two is confirmed.

Blind disciples of the Doctrine of Descent, as Darwin founded it and others developed it, do indeed cross these boundaries without hesitation, but they cannot possibly be regarded as giving a carefully thought-out and authoritative judgment on the actual state of the case. Satisfactory, not to say probable, as this doctrine is, it has not yet risen above the level of an ingenious hypothesis; and incontrovertible evidence for the correctness of this hypothesis has not yet been produced. Variation within the limits of species and breed can be proved, can even be brought about; but transformation of one species into another cannot be established in any case. As long as this is so we are justified in regarding man and apes as creatures of different nature, and disputing the descent of one from the other. No attempt to discover or establish a common ancestor, no undertaking to draw up a pedigree for man, alters this in the slightest; for true natural science is not satisfied with interpretative theories, it demands proofs; it does not want to believe, but to know.[74]

So we may without scruple give the apes the place in the scale of being which unprejudiced investigation points out. We may look upon them as the animals most resembling ourselves, and as our nearest relatives in the zoological sense; anything more than this we must deny. Much that is characteristic of man is to be found in the apes also; but a wide gulf still remains between them and true humanity. Physically and mentally they have many of the characteristics of man, but by no means all.

DESERT JOURNEYS.

On the fringe of the desert, under a thick group of palms, a small tent is pitched. Around it is a motley collection of bales and boxes, built into a sort of barricade. Outside this some Nubian boys are lounging or squatting. They are in holiday garb, so to speak, for their glossy skins have been freshly smeared with grease.