MARSH WARBLER 



in which sexual passion is psychologically sublimated into love. 

 According to this theory, there is choice only in the sense 

 that the hare finally succumbs to the best hound, which is as 

 much as to say that the phenomena of courtship are referred 

 at once to natural selection. It follows, too, that however 

 useful attractive form and colouring may be in relation to 

 other ends, they certainly contribute to that of subduing 

 feminine coyness, and hence further the sexual life.'' And 

 Professor Lloyd Morgan comes to the conclusion that 1 : 

 " stripped of all its unnecessary aesthetic surplusage, at any 

 rate so far as this implies an aesthetic ideal, or aesthetic motive, 

 the hypothesis of sexual selection suggests that the accepted 

 mate is the one which adequately evokes the pairing impulse." 

 These opinions differ widely from the original theory of 

 sexual selection, but even this modified form is not altogether 

 free from criticism, as I shall endeavour to show in connection 

 with the phenomena which we are now discussing. Since 

 conscious display is discarded, the theory becomes, primarily, 

 one of the development of emotion. It is assumed that the 

 strength of the species is represented by the strength of its 

 emotion, that the strength of the emotion is reflected in the 

 intensity of the expression — that is to say in the movements, 

 which are peculiarly attractive to the female, of the limbs and 

 body of the male — and finally that inasmuch as the strength 

 of different individuals is a variable quantity, so, at the other 

 extreme, the capacity for movement will vary correspondingly, 

 becoming consequently an index of the fitness of the individual 

 to take its share in reproduction. Now this seems to me to 

 be taking a great deal for granted. When we speak of a 

 species being emotional all we mean to imply is that the 

 visible expressional movement is well marked. Of internal 

 organic changes we know nothing, though we believe that they 

 too must be present and play an important part in the total 

 emotional complex. In human emotion the expressional 



1 " Animal Behaviour," p. 264. 

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