The Nature History of Technology

We should remember that in its games the chimpanzee used a stick without any compelling practical necessity, as an object of play and that this stick, as an object of play, began to serve in a variety of roles: as a pole which it would climb, or, as a spoon, enabling it to eat, or as a shovel for digging up roots; lastly the animal used the tool as a ‘general purpose tool’, in Köhler’s expression, by means of which it would touch objects beyond its reach, or those it did not want to touch with its hands for one reason or another, such as dirt on its body, or lizards, mice, electrically charged wires, and so forth.