Page:The Zoologist, 4th series, vol 4 (1900).djvu/153

Rh 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. On the other hand, we must not