IO8 THE MEANING OF EVOLUTION 



tributed to an unusual brilliancy on the part of the 

 creature is positively unusual witlessness. The animal 

 has an exceedingly small brain, as compared with that 

 of a dog of similar size, and to anyone who knows 

 brains at all this particular organ would not be looked 

 upon as furnishing its owner much ability. The fact 

 is that the opossum has exceedingly small wit, and 

 this little deserts it in an emergency, as a result of 

 which he grows helpless and motionless. This is often 

 supposed to indicate great wisdom. There may be 

 wisdom in it, but it is the wisdom that lies back of all 

 nature. It certainly is not the wisdom of the opossum. 

 Man himself possesses to a marked degree this im- 

 pulse to keep quiet in danger. The man from the 

 country who is visiting the large city, suddenly 

 startled by the "honk" of the auto horn, finds his 

 power of movement promptly arrested, and he is not 

 unlikely to be struck and injured by the machine from 

 which the city dweller would easily escape. This is 

 not particularly to the credit of the city dweller, who, 

 when in the country, may find himself similarly 

 startled by the sudden appearance of the calf, the pig, 

 or the sheep. The bull, which a country boy, accus- 

 tomed to him from childhood, will drive with a willow 

 switch, is a source of terrified concern to the city man. 

 While the trick of keeping quiet serves many an 

 animal in time of danger, there is another device for 



