Page:The Zoologist, 4th series, vol 4 (1900).djvu/153

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MIMICRY.

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by adaptive and assimilative efforts. This in no way contradicts, but supports, the doctrine of Natural Selection. The animal survives that can best hide from its enemies,^[1] and this implies that the variations that tend to adaptive and assimilative efforts not only succeed in the battle of life, but by the selective process become dominant, and more and more accentuated with a greater need. Mimicry in the lower animals finds its equivalent in what is described as "tact" among men. Few possess it strongly, many slightly, and more not at all; while others in the struggle for existence depend on different means, and use more varied stratagems. Tact is often a silence which mimics the modest reticence of a learned man and thus conceals the ignorant. It appears as the bluster of the psychological moment when the coward receives an immunity from his protective resemblance to the brave; the rogue often succeeds by mimicking the devout; the sneak assumes the garb of frankness; the lie only triumphs when it simulates the truth.^[2] On the other hand, we must not

↑ A British lepidopterist has recently remarked: "It is well known how different species of Lepidoptera differ in their habits adopted for protection, some relying on very acute vision, others on their resemblance to their surroundings" ('Entomologist,' vol. xxviii. p. 278).
↑ An observation made by that keen political and social notist, Greville, illustrates what is here meant:—"I could not help reflecting what an extraordinary thing success is in the world, when a man so gifted as Mackintosh has failed completely in public life, never having attained honours, reputation, or wealth, while so many ordinary men have reaped an abundant harvest of all. What a consolation this affords to mediocrity! None can approach Mackintosh without admiring his extraordinary powers, and at the same time wondering why they have not produced greater effects in the world, either of literature or politics. His virtues are obstacles to his success; he has not the art of pushing or of making himself feared; he is too doucereux and complimentary; and from some accident or defect in the composition of his character, and in the course of events which have influenced his circumstances, he has always been civilly neglected" ('Greville Memoirs,' 2nd edit., vol. i. p. 242). Ruskin places tact in a purer and higher plane when he describes it as "sympathy,—of quick understanding,—of all that, in deep insistence on the common but most accurate term, may be called the 'tact' or 'touch-faculty,' of body and soul: that tact which the mimosa has in trees, which the pure woman has above all creatures,—fineness and fulness of sensation, beyond reason,—the guide and sanctifier of reason itself" ('Sesame and Lilies,' edit. 1893, p. 43). Nor must we forget the advice of the old Roman courtier to Sir Henry Wotton, as related by him to Milton,—pensieri stretti, ed il viso sciolto (thoughts close, countenance open).

[1] A British lepidopterist has recently remarked: "It is well known how different species of Lepidoptera differ in their habits adopted for protection, some relying on very acute vision, others on their resemblance to their surroundings" ('Entomologist,' vol. xxviii. p. 278).

[2] An observation made by that keen political and social notist, Greville, illustrates what is here meant:—"I could not help reflecting what an extraordinary thing success is in the world, when a man so gifted as Mackintosh has failed completely in public life, never having attained honours, reputation, or wealth, while so many ordinary men have reaped an abundant harvest of all. What a consolation this affords to mediocrity! None can approach Mackintosh without admiring his extraordinary powers, and at the same time wondering why they have not produced greater effects in the world, either of literature or politics. His virtues are obstacles to his success; he has not the art of pushing or of making himself feared; he is too doucereux and complimentary; and from some accident or defect in the composition of his character, and in the course of events which have influenced his circumstances, he has always been civilly neglected" ('Greville Memoirs,' 2nd edit., vol. i. p. 242). Ruskin places tact in a purer and higher plane when he describes it as "sympathy,—of quick understanding,—of all that, in deep insistence on the common but most accurate term, may be called the 'tact' or 'touch-faculty,' of body and soul: that tact which the mimosa has in trees, which the pure woman has above all creatures,—fineness and fulness of sensation, beyond reason,—the guide and sanctifier of reason itself" ('Sesame and Lilies,' edit. 1893, p. 43). Nor must we forget the advice of the old Roman courtier to Sir Henry Wotton, as related by him to Milton,—pensieri stretti, ed il viso sciolto (thoughts close, countenance open).

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