CONSCIOUS PROTECTIVE RESEMBLANCE. 537 
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 selec- 
tion. But this is only begging the question” (/.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 varia- 
tions 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” (/. c., 1900, p. 124). 
It is scarcely necessary to point out that the latter position, which is 
essentially that of those very selectionists? 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.* 
* T observe that Mr. Distant has strongly criticised (/. 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. 
B2 
