Littell's Living Age/Volume 133/Issue 1712/The Hypocrisies of Nature

From The Spectator.

THE HYPOCRISIES OF NATURE.

It is a curious fact that the severest school of natural history has confirmed rather than undermined the favorite notion of idealist and mystical schools that in the world of plants and animals there are all sorts of types and anticipations, on a lower plane, of the passions, weaknesses, subterfuges, and craft of men, and especially that the cunning and hypocrisy of nature — practised without any consciousness by the creatures who profit by them — are much more elaborate and perfect than the cunning and hypocrisy of men. It is very curious, too, that it is in the lower region of animal life that this cunning appears to play the most important part. The writers on "natural selection" show us that for one case in which the effects of illusion are used to protect the higher races of animals, there are scores in which those effects are used to protect the lower races. The reptiles and the insects are, as it were, especially under the shield of nature's most elaborate deceptions. There are insects which live, as it were, by hypocrisy, by getting themselves mistaken — so perfect is their costume and acting — for the withered leaves or dried-up twigs amongst which they habitually feed. There are butterflies, again, innocent themselves of any bitter flavor, which are saved by their happy resemblance to other butterflies so bitter in flavor that all the insect-eating birds avoid them. Then, again, there is another favorite device of nature for protecting reptiles and insects, namely, to dress the sheep in wolves' clothing, — in other words, to make creatures which are quite incapable of doing any other animal a serious mischief, assume an air so alarming that they get all the credit of weapons of offence which they do not possess. Thus there are some perfectly harmless snakes in Central America, described by Mr. Wallace, whose protection consists in a gay collar, closely resembling that of one of the most deadly snakes of the forest. Like Patroclus clad in the armor of Achilles, this harmless creature scares away his enemies by the terror of a false repute. But the most curious, perhaps, of all these protecting illusions, because the most utterly deceptive, is one explained by Sir John Lubbock in another of those many lively studies of natural history with which he instructs and amuses us in these dreary days. It is that which he quotes from Weissmann, concerning the fear inspired in small birds by the caterpillar of the sphinx or hawk-moth. The creature is very good food for birds, and quite helpless against them, but it is protected partly by its likeness to a snake, and partly by false eyes upon it, which are merely spots, and nothing else, but which have a very ugly, glaring look when the creature retracts its head, as it does when in danger.

Every one must have observed that these large caterpillars have a sort of uncanny, poisonous appearance; that they suggest a small, thick snake or other evil beast, and the eyes do much to increase the deception. Moreover, the segment on which they are placed is swollen, and the insect, when in danger, has the habit of retracting its head and front segments, which gives it an additional resemblance to some small reptile. That small birds are, as a matter of fact, afraid of these caterpillars (which, however, I need not say, are in reality altogether harmless) Weissmann has proved by actual experiment. He put a caterpillar in a tray in which he was accustomed to place seed for birds. Soon a little flock of sparrows and other small birds assembled to feed as usual. One of them lit on the edge of this tray, and was just going to hop in, when she spied the caterpillar. Immediately she began bobbing her head up and down, but was afraid to go nearer. Another joined her, and then another, until at last there was a little company of ten or twelve birds, all looking on in astonishment, but not one ventured into the tray, while one which lit in it unsuspectingly beat a hasty retreat in evident alarm as soon as she perceived the caterpillar. After watching for some time, Weissmann removed the caterpillar, when the birds soon attacked the seeds. (Journal of the Society of Arts, February 23, 1877, p. 284.)

When Shakespeare said that all the world was a stage, and men and women merely players, he never thought, probably, that the remark might be extended, and that many a good comedy — though a comedy of which there are too frequently no intelligent spectators — is acted in spheres far beneath the human. This hawk-moth caterpillar, with the mock-terrors of its mock-eyes, keeping a dozen little birds at bay by merely wriggling beneath its uncomely mask of fear, was surely as remarkable an actor, as skilful a player on nervous fears, as ever turned the threatenings of tragedy into comedy by an improvised impersonation.

It is somewhat remarkable that these protective illusions, though they take effect through the impression they produce on higher organizations, like the organization of birds, are much seldomer found to be protective of such organizations than of the lower organizations of reptiles and insects. It is only while positive resources are wanting that these negative resources for the protection of creatures preyed on by higher animals, are used. The reptile and the insect are protected by their resemblance either to the vegetation they are habitually found amongst, or to other creatures which are more dangerous than they. But the deceived are not protected so elaborately as the deceivers. The sparrows which were so alarmed by the sphinx caterpillars, though they were not acute enough to see through the illusion, were far superior in intelligence to the creature which gained by the illusion; and partly no doubt for that reason, they are not protected from their enemies by the same kind of artifices. These elaborate artifices are the rudest resorts of nature for the protection of life, not the most advanced. As organization becomes more complex, and resources of all kinds open, the hypocrisy of nature begins to play a less important part, and is, indeed, pretty nearly confined to wrapping otherwise dangerously exposed lives in cloaks of a color so like that of their environment, that they are unconspicuous, and pass without notice, — just as the plumage of certain birds, for instance, in bare countries, conforms itself to the summer or winter hue of the ground they frequent.

Still, true as this is, it is certain that the hypocrisies of nature repeat themselves with more or less completeness and consciousness in the mental life of man. What is the vast force exerted by habit in moulding us into the likeness of the society to which we belong, except a device for making us safe by preventing us from being conspicuous, just as the small green caterpillar is made safe and unconspicuous by its resemblance to the color of the leaves on which it feeds? And it is of course, as in the animal world, the most passive of our species in whom this device of nature for veiling the peculiarities of the moral personality, — always in some respects dangerous things, — is applied with the most elaborate success. The "spectre insect," the "walking-stick" insect, the "praying insect," — as the Mantis religiosa is called, from the stiff attitude in which it keeps its forelegs in the air, partly from the instinct which makes it imitate the position of the withered twig, and partly that it may be ready to catch any unwary insect which comes within its grasp, — have all their analogies among the feebler-natured members of our race, amongst the beggars, for instance, who prey upon society while they appear to be merely fixed in attitudes of patient endurance. How closely, for instance, the Mantis religiosa, lying in wait for prey, resembles our pious Bible-readers of the streets, quite unconscious of the halfpence they attract. But is there any human analogy for the harmless snake and the sphinx caterpillar, which succeed by appearing' to possess dangerous qualities which they have not, or more dangerous qualities than any they really have? To some extent, we think that even these little hypocrisies of nature have their analogies in the mental world. Lord Thurlow, of whom it was said that no one could really be as wise as Lord Thurlow always seemed, unquestionably succeeded to some extent through the majestic air which gave a rather commonplace shrewdness such enormous advantages of mien and bearing, — and there are plenty of such successes; and, again, the caterpillar holding a dozen little birds at bay by the contortions of its body and the uncanny glare of its mock-eyes is not at all a bad apologue for Turkey persuading all the powers of Europe that she is so dangerous that none of them dare approach her, though she is a creature without vision and without political vitality. But just as it is in the main the lower forms of animal life that nature protects by these little hypocrises, so it is in the main in the lowest aspects of mental life that this imitative skill in assuming the air of something better or more powerful than we can really boast of, gains for us social or political advantages. The more there is of us, the less need we have of these humble devices of nature for imposing upon others a false appearance of capacities which we do not possess. It is the insects and the reptiles, not the nobler creatures, which astound us most by their feats of histrionic skill. And it is the poorest elements in man, not his highest qualities, which gain for him the false repute of a wisdom or a courage which he does not possess.