The various publications of Garner (1892, 1896, 1900) deal especially with the language habits of monkeys and apes, but observations bearing on ideation are reported.
Wallace (1869) describes certain features of the behavior of an infant orang utan whose mother he shot in Borneo. He also reports observations concerning the behavior of adult orang utans, many specimens of which were shot by him during his travels.
Early in the last century, Cuvier (1810) interested himself in studies of the intellectual characteristics of the orang utan, and his data, taken with those of Wallace, Sokolowski, and others similarly interested in the natural history of mind, give one a valuable glimpse of the life of the anthropoid ape.
Finally, the data brought together by Brehm (1864, 1875, 1888) in his famous Tierleben; by Darwin (1859, 1871) in "The Origin of Species," and other works, by Romanes (1900), especially in his books on mental evolution, by C. Lloyd Morgan (1906) in his several works on comparative psychology, and by Holmes (1911) in his discussion of the evolution of intelligence, contribute not unimportantly to our all too meagre knowledge of the mental life of the anthropoid apes.
My own results, viewed in the light of what one may learn from the literature, stand out as unique because of the method of research. Never before, so far as I have been able to learn, has any ape been subjected to observation under systematically controlled conditions for so long a period as six months. Moreover, my multiple-choice method has the merit of having yielded the first curve of learning for an anthropoid ape. This fact is especially interesting when one considers the nature of the particular curve. For so far as one may say by comparing it with the curves for various learning processes exhibited by other mammals, it is indicative of ideation of a high order, and possibly of reasoning. I do not wish to exaggerate the importance of my results, for as contrasted with what might be obtained by further study, and with what must be obtained if we are adequately to describe the mind of the orang utan, they are meager indeed.
Especially noteworthy, as evidences of ideation, in the results yielded by the multiple-choice method are (1) the use by the orang utan of several different methods in connection with each problem; (2) the suddenness of transition from method to method; (3) the final and perfect solution of problem I without diminution of the initial errors; (4) the dissociation of the act of turning in a circle from that of standing in front of a particular box.
To these features of behavior others of minor importance might be added. But as they have been sufficiently emphasized in the foregoing detailed descriptions, I need only repeat my conclusion, from the summation of evidence, that this young orang utan exhibited numerous free ideas and simple thought processes in connection with the multiple-choice experiment. His ultimate failure to solve the second problem is peculiarly interesting, although in the light of other features of his behavior by no means indicative of inferior intelligence.
The various supplementary experimental tests which I employed are in no wise importantly distinguished from those used by other observers. The box stacking experiment has, according to my private information, been used by Koehler. It is obviously important that such tests be applied in the same manner to individuals not only of the different genera of anthropoid apes, but of different ages, sex, and condition of training.
The box stacking experiment, although it yielded complete success only as a result of suggestion on my part, proved far more interesting during its progress than any other portion of my work. In connection with it, the orang utan exhibited surprisingly diverse and numerous efforts to meet the demands of the situation. It is fair to characterize him as inventive, for of the several possible ways of obtaining the banana which were evident to the experimenter, the ape voluntarily used all but two or three, and one of these he subsequently used on the basis of imitation.
Had Julius been physically and mentally mature, my results would undoubtedly have been much more impressively indicative of ideas, but even as matters stand, the survey of my experimental records and supplementary notes force me to conclude that as contrasted with the monkeys and other mammals, the orang utan is capable of expressing free ideas in considerable number and of using them in ways highly indicative of thought processes, possibly even of the rational order. But contrasted with that of man the ideational life of the orang utan seems poverty stricken. Certainly in this respect Julius was not above the level of the normal three-year-old child.