Page:Creation by Evolution (1928).djvu/355
THE HUMAN SIDE OF APES
had to content himself with the scattered and often rather casual observations of many naturalists. He collected several anecdotes that show the intelligence of apes, their power of imitation, their strong parental affection, their mutual sympathy, their grief over the loss of their young, and their services to one another in times of danger or distress. He showed that the apes share with us all the common basic emotions and that they express their emotions by much the same bodily signs. No one can read Darwin’s book on The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals without experiencing a sense of the fundamental kinship of the human and the animal mind and of the likeness in their expression of the emotions. Anger, fear, affection, astonishment, grief, pride, disappointment, and disgust are expressed in much the same way, not only by all the varied races of mankind but by the apes and monkeys. The language of the emotions is a universal mode of communication. The frown has the same meaning in man and apes and is caused by the contraction of the same muscles. The broad similarity in emotional life and in its expression that we share with our simian relatives is as strong an evidence of common origin as the similarity in the form of the skeleton or of the brain.
We now know considerably more of the mental life of apes than was known in the time of Darwin. We are getting better acquainted with our simian cousins, and our more intimate acquaintance has led us to a more generous appreciation of their mental qualities. Many people habitually think of animals as prompted only by feelings that correspond to the lower passions of our own nature. The terms bestiality, animality, and brutality are terms of reproach. The words “ape” and “tiger” are synonyms of ruthless ferocity, the antithesis of everything we regard as worthy in human
[ 295 ]