108 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 
