Behavior of Chimpanzees
Robert A. Jones’ excellent article “Man, Ape: Blurring the Line” (Part I, Dec. 7) commendably attempts to make the point, by citing several well-known examples of animal behavior which strongly suggest that they are capable of more abstract thought and problem-solving behavior than they have customarily been credited for. The recent discovery that chimpanzees are capable of planning strategies, logistics, and even trickery, indeed appears to blur the line between the capacities of some primates and those of humans.
This is all to the good, for it will serve to lessen some of that oafishly arrogant superciliousness with which most people have thought of animals. However, in interpreting that behavior it is desirable to avoid the confusion which follows upon identifying a capacity with an ability. A capacity is a potentiality, an ability is a trained or developed potentiality. For example, we are all born with the potentiality for speech, but none of us would ever speak unless we were spoken to.
All primates, of course, have potentialities for behavior, which assembled from its various contributory causes will result in aggressive behavior, but this does not mean that such behavior is innate, or instinctive or inherited. The evidence is clear that for the development of aggressive behavior there must be external causative conditions.
In the case of chimpanzees who were formerly observed to live peaceably with each other and neighboring groups, who have “suddenly” become killers of the males in a splinter group, it is evident that the provisioning of food, introduced by humans with the best of intentions, led to the development of competition and extreme aggressive behavior. This sort of thing has occurred many times among other animals as well as among primates, and is always traceable to external causes, and not to innate ones.
It is important to make this unequivocally clear, especially for human beings, who have a tendency to attribute their ornery behavior to their animal inheritance. It is easy enough to attribute aggressive behavior to innate drives, or propensities, or even instincts, for then everything is “explained.” But such explanation only obscures the reality and that can be dangerous, for it diverts attention from the real causes of aggression.
What we may learn from the chimpanzees who become killers is that when conditions are introduced into a society which cause competition either between individuals or groups, aggressive behavior is likely to ensue. And if we are able to read it, therein lies a message for us all.
ASHLEY MONTAGU
Princeton, N.J.
