"The emotion of chimpanzees and orang-outangs is not very different from the emotion of man", said Dr. Wolfgang Koehler, Director of the Institute of Psychology of the University of Berlin, who has been visiting the University for the past week-end. "The only difference--if it is a difference--between the love of an ape and the love of a man, is that if you take the ape's girl into the next rom, he promptly forgets all about her." Dr. Koehler has spent several years in intimate study of apes in the Canary Islands.
In the apes, we are told by the German doctor, the form of intellect is the same as the form which we find in man, but not developed to anywhere near the high point of man. "Moreover," said Dr. Koehler, "there is a great breach between the intellectual development of the apes and of the smaller monkeys and other animals, such as dogs and cats. The reason that dogs often seem so intelligent is that they are more docile and willing to be taught than other animals."
Apes cannot be elevated from their position in the animal world, according to Dr. Koehler. The chimpanzees which we see on the stage, dressed up as men, and eating with knives and forks, are not really any more developed than their brethren who depend upon hair for clothing and their hands for table implements. The ape dresses because he is made or induced to, not because he wants to or sees any reason for doing so. Apes are apes the world over.
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A WINDOW ON THE WORLD