monkeys, then who does? Their own fortunes depend upon their
estimate of comparative mentality in the primates. Fortunately for
our purposes, the minds of the most intelligent and capable apes,
baboons, and monkeys have been partially developed and exploited
by stage trainers, and to a far less extent by keepers in zoological
parks. Some wonderful results have been achieved, and the best of
these have been seen by the public in theatres, in traveling shows
and in zoological parks. All these performances have greatly
interested me, because they go so far as measures of mental
capacity. I wish to make it clear that I take them very seriously.

[Illustration
with caption: PORTRAIT OF A HIGH-CASTE CHIMPANZEE "Baldy" was an
animal of fine intelligence and originality in thought. He was a
natural comedian]

While many of the acts of trained animals are due to their power
of mimicry and are produced by imitation rather than by original
thought, even their imitative work reveals a breadth of
intelligence, a range of memory and of activity and precision in
thought and in energy which no logical mind can ignore. To say
that a chimpanzee who can swing through thirty or forty different
acts "does not think" and "does not reason," is to deny the
evidence of the human senses, and fall outside the bounds of human
reason.

Training Apes for Performances. As will appear in its own chapter,
there is nothing at all mysterious in the training of apes. The
subject must be young, and pliant in mind, and of cheerful and
kind disposition. The poor subjects are left for cage life. The