WAYS OF NATURE 



soned because a stingless drone, or male, when you 

 capture him, will make all the motions with its 

 body, curving and thrusting, that its sting-equipped 

 fellows do. This action is from an inherited in- 

 stinct, and is purely automatic. The wasp is not 

 putting up a bluff game; it is really trying to sting 

 you, but has not the weapon. The shell-less crab 

 quickly reacts at your approach, as is its nature 

 to do, and then quickly ceases its defense because 

 in its enfeebled condition the impulse of defense 

 is feeble also. Its surrender was on physiological, 

 not upon rational grounds. 



Thus do we without thinking impute the higher 

 faculties to even the lowest forms of animal life. 

 Much in our own lives is purely automatic — the 

 quick reaction to appropriate stimuli, as when we 

 ward off a blow, or dodge a missile, or make our- 

 selves agreeable to the opposite sex ; and much 

 also is inherited or unconsciously imitative. 



Because man, then, is half animal, shall we say 

 that the animal is half man ? This seems to be the 

 logic of some people. The animal man, while re- 

 taining much of his animality, has evolved from it 

 higher faculties and attributes, while our four-footed 

 kindred have not thus progressed. 



Man is undoubtedly of animal origin, but his 

 rise occurred when the principle of variation was 

 much more active, when the forms and forces of 

 nature were much more youthful and plastic, when 

 170 



