MIMICRY. 125 



by adaptive and assimilative efforts. This in no way contradicts, 

 but supports, the doctrine of Natural Selection. The animal 

 survives that can best hide from its enemies, * and this implies 

 that the variations that 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. Mimicry in the lower animals finds its equivalent in what 

 is described as " tact " among men. Few possess it strongly, 

 many slightly, and more not at all ; while others in the struggle 

 for existence depend on different means, and use more varied 

 stratagems. Tact is often a silence which mimics the modest 

 reticence of a learned man and thus conceals the ignorant. It 

 appears as the bluster of the psychological moment when the 

 coward receives an immunity from his protective resemblance to 

 the brave ; the rogue often succeeds by mimicking the devout ; 

 the sneak assumes the garb of frankness ; the lie only triumphs 

 when it simulates the truth.f On the other hand, we must not 



* A British lepidopterist has recently remarked : " It is well known how 

 different species of Lepidoptera differ in their habits adopted for protection, 

 some relying on very acute vision, others on their resemblance to their 

 surroundings " ('Entomologist,' vol. xxviii. p. 278). 



t An observation made by that keen political and social notist, Greville, 

 illustrates what is here meant : — " I could not help reflecting what an extra- 

 ordinary thing success is in the world, when a man so gifted as Mackintosh 

 has failed completely in public life, never having attained honours, reputa- 

 tion, or wealth, while so many ordinary men have reaped an abundant 

 harvest of all. What a consolation this affords to mediocrity ! None can 

 approach Mackintosh without admiring his extraordinary powers, and at the 

 same time wondering why they have not produced greater effects in the 

 world, either of literature or politics. His virtues are obstacles to his 

 success ; he has not the art of pushing or of making himself feared ; he is 

 too doucereux and complimentary ; and from some accident or defect in the 

 composition of his character, and in the course of events which have 

 influenced his circumstances, he has always been civilly neglected " ('Greville 

 Memoirs,' 2nd edit., vol. i. p. 242). Euskin places tact in a purer and higher 

 plane when he describes it as " sympathy, — of quick understanding, — of all 

 that, in deep insistence on the common but most accurate term, may be 

 called the ' tact ' or ' touch-faculty,' of body and soul : that tact which the 

 mimosa has in trees, which the pure woman has above all creatures, — 

 fineness and fulness of sensation, beyond reason, — the guide and sanctifier 

 of reason itself" ('Sesame and Lilies,' edit. 1893, p. 43). Nor must we 

 forget the advice of the old Eoman courtier to Sir Henry Wotton, as related 

 by him to Milton,— -pensieri stretti, ed il viso sciolto (thoughts close, coun- 

 tenance open). 



