This "active mimicry" is apparently regarded by Mr. Distant as something apart from natural selection, a separate factor in evolution, for he says: "If the process of natural selection was to be applied, according to a very frequent method, as universal, then birds arising from these white and prominent eggs would seem in course of time to be doomed to destruction. But we find nothing of the kind. Natural selection is here replaced by the evolution of intelligence or active mimicry. True, it may be argued that birds laying white eggs would become extinct without they had gradually acquired the intelligent or automatic powers of concealment through a process of natural selection. But this is only begging the question" (l.c., 1899, p. 546). (The italics are my own.) Seeing that this attitude permeates the whole discussion, it is somewhat disconcerting to read in the concluding remarks that, "to fully understand mimicry, we must appreciate general animal intelligence, and then we shall probably comprehend how much activity has been displayed by animals seeking protection by adaptive and assimilative efforts. This in no way contradicts, but supports, the doctrine of Natural Selection. The animal survives which can best hide from its enemies, and this implies that the variations which 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" (l.c., 1900, p. 124). It is scarcely necessary to point out that the latter position, which is essentially that of those very selectionists(n2) whose views Mr. Distant is combatting, is quite at variance with the former. It will therefore be necessary, for the purpose of this discussion, to neglect this remarkable contradiction.
The whole question of conscious resemblance must necessarily depend upon our ideas of animal intelligence, and in the present state of our knowledge these are unavoidably hazy and obscure. It must be reeollected that our conception of mind, even in our fellow men, is based entirely on analogy, and thus the further we depart from the human type, the lower we go in the organic scale, the weaker and weaker must that analogy become, and the more careful must we be to avoid the conception that any apparently purposive actions we may observe in these lower organisms must be due to trains of reasoning such as we find in ourselves. The whole subject is, at present, merely hypothetical; but, on the other hand, we must not forget that even our most definite scientific facts are only very high probabilities.[1]
- ↑ I observe that Mr. Distant has strongly criticised (l.c., 1899, p. 361) a somewhat similar remark by Prof. Tyler, who says that "Natural Science does not deal in demonstrations, it rests upon the doctrine of probabilities; just as we have to order our whole lives upon this doctrine." To this Mr.
