The Naked Ape (29 page)

The reaction of children to spiders takes a rather different course. Here there is a marked sex difference. In boys there is an increase in spider hatred from age four to fourteen, but it is slight. The level of the reaction is the same for girls up to the age of puberty, but it then shows a dramatic rise, so that by the age of fourteen it is double that of the boys. Here we do seem to be dealing with an important symbolic factor. In evolutionary terms, poisonous spiders are just as dangerous to males as to females. There may or may not be an inborn response to these creatures in both sexes, but it cannot explain the spectacular leap in spider hatred that accompanies female puberty. The only clue here is the repeated female reference to spiders being nasty, hairy things. Puberty is, of course, the stage when tufts of body hair are beginning to sprout on both boys and girls. To children, body hairiness must appear as an essentially masculine character. The growth of hair on the body of a young girl would therefore have a more disturbing (unconscious) significance for her than it would in the case of a boy. The long legs of a spider are more hair-like and more obvious than those of other small creatures such as flies, and it would as a result be the ideal symbol in this role.

These, then, are the loves and the hatreds we experience when encountering or contemplating other species. Combined with our economic, scientific and aesthetic interests, they add up to a uniquely complex inter-specific involvement, and one which changes as we grow older. We can sum this up by saying that there are ‘seven ages’ of inter-specific reactivity. The first age is the
infantile phase
, when we are completely dependent on our parents and react strongly to very big animals, employing them as parent symbols. The second is the
infantile-parental phase
, when we are beginning to compete with our parents and react strongly to small animals that we can use as child substitutes. This is the age of pet-keeping. The third age is the
objective pre-adult phase
, the stage where the exploratory interests, both scientific and aesthetic, come to dominate the symbolic. It is the time for bug-hunting, microscopes, butterfly-collecting and aquaria. The fourth is the
young adult phase
. At this point the most important animals are members of the opposite sex of our own species. Other species lose ground here, except in a purely commercial or economic context. The fifth is the
adult parental phase
. Here symbolic animals enter our lives again, but this time as pets for our children. The sixth age is the
post-parental phase
, when we lose our children and may turn once more to animals as child-substitutes to replace them. (In the case of childless adults, the use of animals as child substitutes may, of course, begin earlier.) Finally, we come to the seventh age, the
senile phase
, which is characterised by a heightened interest in animal preservation and conservation. At this point the interest is focused on those species which are in danger of extermination. It makes little difference whether, from other points of view, they are attractive or repulsive, useful or useless, providing their numbers are few and becoming fewer. The increasingly rare rhinoceros and gorilla, for example, that are so disliked by children, become the centre of attention at this stage. They have to be ‘saved’. The symbolic equation involved here is obvious enough: the senile individual is about to become personally extinct and so employs rare animals as symbols of his own impending doom. His emotional concern to save them from extinction reflects his desire to extend his own survival.

During recent years, interest in animal conservation has spread to some extent into the lower age groups, apparently as a result of the development of immensely powerful nuclear weapons. Their huge destructive potential threatens all of us, regardless of age, with the possibility of immediate extermination, so that now we all have an emotional need for animals that can serve as rarity symbols.

This observation should not be interpreted as implying that this is the only reason for the conservation of wild life. There are, in addition, perfectly valid scientific and aesthetic reasons why we should wish to give aid to unsuccessful species. If we are to continue to enjoy the rich complexities of the animal world and to use wild animals as objects of scientific and aesthetic exploration, we must give them a helping hand. If we allow them to vanish, we shall have simplified our environment in a most unfortunate way. Being an intensely investigatory species, we can ill afford to lose such a valuable source of material.

Economic factors are also sometimes mentioned when conservation problems are under discussion. It is pointed out that intelligent protection and controlled cropping of wild species can assist the protein starved populations in certain parts of the world. While this is perfectly true on a short-term basis, the long-term picture is more gloomy. If our numbers continue to increase at the present frightening rate, it will eventually become a matter of choosing between us and them. No matter how valuable they are to us symbolically, scientifically or aesthetically, the economics of the situation will shift against them. The blunt fact is that when our own species density reaches a certain pitch, there will be no space left for other animals. The argument that they constitute an essential source of food does not, unhappily, stand up to dose scrutiny. It is more efficient to eat plant food direct, than to convert it into animal flesh and then eat the animals. As the demand for living space increases still further, even more drastic steps will ultimately have to be taken and we shall be driven to synthesising our foodstuffs. Unless we can colonise other planets on a massive scale and spread the load, or seriously check our population increase in some way, we shall, in the not-too-far distant future, have to remove all other forms of life from the earth.

If this sounds rather melodramatic, consider the figures involved. At the end of the seventeenth century the world population of naked apes was only 500 million. It has now risen to 3,000 million. Every twenty four hours it increases by another 150,000. (The inter-planetary emigration authorities would find this figure a daunting challenge.) In 560 years’ time, if the rate of increase stays steady—which is unlikely—there will be a seething mass of 400,000 million naked apes crowding the face of the earth. This gives a figure of 11,000 individuals to every square mile of the entire land surface. To put it another way, the densities we now experience in our major cities would exist in every corner of the globe. The consequence of this for all forms of wild life is obvious. The effect it would have on our own species is equally depressing.

We need not dwell on this nightmare: the possibility of its becoming a reality is remote. As I have stressed throughout this book, we are, despite all our great technological advances, still very much a simple biological phenomenon. Despite our grandiose ideas and our lofty self-conceits, we are still humble animals, subject to all the basic laws of animal behaviour. Long before our populations reach the levels envisaged above we shall have broken so many of the rules that govern our biological nature that we shall have collapsed as a dominant species. We tend to suffer from a strange complacency that this can never happen, that there is something special about us, that we are somehow above biological control. But we are not. Many exciting species have become extinct in the past and we are no exception. Sooner or later we shall go, and make way for something else. If it is to be later rather than sooner, then we must take a long, hard look at ourselves as biological specimens and gain some understanding of our limitations. This is why I have written this book, and why I have deliberately insulted us by referring to us as naked apes, rather than by the more usual name we use for ourselves. It helps to keep a sense of proportion and to force us to consider what is going on just below the surface of our lives. In my enthusiasm I may, perhaps, have overstated my case. There are many praises I could have sung, many magnificent achievements I could have described: By omitting them I have inevitably Oven a one-sided picture. We are an extraordinary species and I do not wish to deny it, or to belittle us. But these things have been said so often. When the coin is tossed it always seems to come up heads, and I have felt that it was high time we turned it over and looked at the other side. Unfortunately, because we are so powerful and so successful when compared with other animals, we find the contemplation of our humble origins somehow offensive, so that I do not expect to be thanked for what I have done. Our climb to the top has been a get-rich-quick story, and, like all nouveaux riches, we are very sensitive about our background. We are also in constant danger of betraying it.

Optimism is expressed by some who feel that since we have evolved a high level of intelligence and a strong inventive urge, we shall be able to twist any situation to our advantage; that we are so flexible that we can re-mould our way of life to fit any of the new demands made by our rapidly rising species-status; that when the time comes, we shall manage to cope with the over-crowding, the stress, the loss of our privacy and independence of action; that we shall remodel our behaviour patterns and live like giant ants; that we shall control our aggressive and territorial feelings, our sexual impulses and our parental tendencies; that if we have to become battery chicken apes, we can do it; that our intelligence can dominate all our basic biological urges. I submit that this is rubbish. Our raw animal nature will never permit it. Of course, we are flexible. Of course, we are behavioural opportunists, but there are severe limits to the form our opportunism can take. By stressing our biological features in this book, I have tried to show the nature of these restrictions. By recognising them clearly and submitting to them, we shall stand a much better chance of survival. This does not imply a naive ‘return to nature’. It simply means that we should tailor our intelligent opportunist advances to our basic behavioural requirements. We must somehow improve in quality rather than in sheer quantity. If we do this, we can continue to progress technologically in a dramatic and exciting way without denying our evolutionary inheritance. If we do not, then our suppressed biological urges will build up and up until the dam bursts and the whole of our elaborate existence is swept away in the flood.

The End

~~O~~

IT is impossible to list all the many works that have been of assistance in writing The Naked Ape, but some of the more important ones are arranged below on a chapter by chapter and topic by topic basis. Detailed references for these publications are given in the bibliography that follows this appendix.

Chapter One - Origins Classification of primates: Morris, 1965. Napier and Napier, 1967. Evolution of primates: Dart and Craig, 1959. Eimerl and DeVore, 1965. Hooton, 1947. Le Gros Clark, 1959. Morris and Morris, 1966. Napier and Napier, 1967. Oakley, 1961. Read, 1925. Washburn, 1962 and 1964. Tax, 1960. Carnivore behaviour: Guggisberg, 1961. Kleiman, 1966. Kruuk, 1966. Leyhausen, 1956. Lorenz, 1954. Moulton, Ashton and Eayrs, 1960. Neuhaus, 1953. Young and Goldman, 1944. Primate behaviour: Morris, 1967. Morris and Morris, 1966. Schaller, 1963. Southwick, 1963. Yerkes and Yerkes, 1929. Zuckerman, 1932.

Chapter Two - Sex Animal courtship: Morris, 1956. Sexual responses: Masters and Johnson, 1966. Sexual pattern frequencies: Klngey et al., 1948 and 1953. Self-mimicry: Wickler, 1963 and 1967. Mating postures: Ford and Beach, 1952. Odour preferences: Monicreff, 1965. Chastity devices: Gould and Pyle, 1896. Homosexuality: Morris, 1955.

Chapter Three - Rearing Suckling: Gunther, 1955. Llpsitt, 1966. Heart beat response: Salk, 1966. Growth rates: Harrison, Weiner, Tanner and Barnicott, 1964. Sleep: Kleitman, 1963. Stages of development: Shirley, 1933. Development of vocabulary: Smith, 1926. Chimpanzee vocal imitations: Hayes, 1952. Crying, smiling and laughing: Ambrose, ig6o. Facial expressions in primates: van Hooff, 1962. Group density in children: Hutt and Vaizey, 1966.

Chapter Four - Exploration Neophilia and neophobia: Morris, 1964. Ape picture-making: Morris, 1962. Infant Picture-making: Kellogg 1955. Chimpanzee exploratory behaviour: Morris and Morris, 1966. Isolation during infancy: Harlow, 1958. Stereotyped behaviour: Morris, 1964 and 1966.

Chapter Five - Aggression Primate aggression: Morris and Morris, 1966. Autonomic changes: Cannon, 1929. Origin of signals: Morris, 1956 and 1957. Displacement activities: Tinbergen, tg5i. Facial expressions: van Hooff, 1962. Eye-spot signals: Coss, 1965. Reddening of buttocks: Comfort, 1966. Redirection of aggression: Bastock, Morris and Moynihan, 1953. Over-crowding in animals: Calhoun, 1962.

Chapter Six - Feeding Male association patterns: Tiger, 1967. Organs of taste and smell: Wyburn, Pickford and Hirst, 1964. Cereal diets: Harrison, Weiner, Tanner and Barnicott, 1964.

Chapter Seven - Comfort Social grooming: van Hooff, 1962. Sparks, 1963. (I am particularly indebted to Tan van Hooff for inventing the term ‘Grooming talk’.) Skin glands: Montagna, 1956. Temperature responses: Harrison, Weiner, Tanner and Barnicott, 1964. Medical aid in chimpanzees: Miles, 1963.

Chapter Eight - Animals Domestication: Zeuner, 1963. Animal likes: Morris and Morris, 1966. Animal dislikes: Morris and Morris, 1965. Animal phobias: Marks, 1966. Population explosion: Fremlin, 1965.

AMBROSE, J. A., ‘The smiling response in early human infancy’ (Ph.D thesis, London University, 1960), pp. 1-660. BASTOCK, M., D. MORRIS, and M. MOYNIHAN, ‘Some comments on conflict and thwarting in animals’. Behaviour 6 (1953), pp. 66-84. BEACH, F. A. (editor), Sex and Behaviour (Wiley, New York, 1965). BERELSON, B. and G. A. STEINER, Human Behaviour (Harcourt, Brace and World, New York, 1964). CALHOUN, J. B., ‘A “behavioral sink”,’ in Roots of Behaviour, (ed. E. L. Bliss) (Harper and Brothers, New York, 1962), pp. 295-315. CANNON, W. B., Bodily Changes in Pain, Hunger, Fear and Rage (Appleton-Century, New York, 1929). CLARK, W. E. LE GROS, The Antecedents of Man (Edinburgh University Press, 1959). COLBERT, E. H., Evolution o f the Vertebrates (Wiley, New York, 1955). COMFORT, A., Nature and Human Nature (Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1966). Coss, R. G., Mood Provoking Visual Stimuli (University of California, 1965). DART, R. A. and D. CRAIG, Advances with the Missing Link (Hamish Hamilton, 1959). EIMERL, S. and I. DEVORE, The Primates (Time Life, New York, 1965). FORD, C. S. and F. A. BEACH, Patterns of Sexual Behaviour (Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1952). FREMLIN, J. H., ‘How many people can the world support?’ New Scientist 24 (1965), pp. 285-7. GOULD, G. M. and W. L. PYLE, Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine (Saunders, Philadelphia, 1896). GUGGISBERG, C. A. W., Simba. The Life of the Lion (Bailey Bros. and Swinfen, 1961). GUNTHER, M., ‘Instinct and the nursing couple’. Lancet (1955) PP- 575-8. HARDY, A. C., ‘Was man more aquatic in the past?’ New Scientist 7 (1960), pp. 642-5. HARLOW, H. F., ‘The nature of love’. Amer. Psychol. 13 (1958) PP- 678-85. HARRISON, G. A., J. S. WEINER, J. M. TANNER and N. A. BARNICOTT, Human Biology (Oxford University Press, 1964). HAYES, C., The Ape in our House (Gollancz, 1952). HOOTON, E. A., Up from the Ape (Macmillan, New York, 1947). HOWELLS, W., Mankind in the Making (Secker and Warburg, 1960). HUTT, C. and M. J. VAIZEY, ‘Differential effects of group density on social behaviour’. Nature 209 (1966), pp. 1371-2. KELLOGG, R., What Children Scribble and Why (Author’s edition, San Francisco, 1955). KINSEY, A. C., W. B. POMEROY and C. E. MARTIN, Sexual Behaviour in the Human Male (Saunders, Philadelphia, 1948). KINSEY, A. C., W. B. POMEROY, C. E. MARTIN and P. H. GEBHARD, Sexual Behaviour in the Human Female (Saunders, Philadelphia, 1953). KLEIMAN, D., ‘Scent marking in the Canidae’. Symp. Zool. Soc. 18 (1966), pp. 167- 77-KLEITMAN, N., Sleep and Wakefulness (Chicago University Press, 1963).