*

conditions under which the bow is bent to the full. But they also afford the conditions of the apparent act of choice. This takes the place, on the perceptual plane of mental development, of that deliberation which precedes the higher act of choice on the ideational plane. For psychology, as well as for biology, then, Dr. Groos's suggestion is a welcome and helpful one. Both upholders of sexual selection and critics of that hypothesis, have been apt to regard the choice of a mate in animals from too anthropomorphic a point of view-to look upon it as the outcome of rational deliberation, of weighing in the æsthetic balance the relative attractiveness of this suitor and of that, and of reaching a definite conclusion that the one is to be accepted because he behaves or is adorned in such and such a way, while the other is to be rejected because he falls below. all reasonable standards of requirement. The choice exercised by the female, if so we term it, is far simpler and more naïve. Indeed, Professor Groos goes so far as to say that on his hypothesis the element of choice is altogether abolished. "It is the instinctive coyness of the female," he says, "that necessitates all the arts of courtship, and the probability is that seldom or never does the female exert any choice. She is not awarder of the prize, but rather a hunted creature. So, just as the beast of prey has special instincts for finding his prey, the ardent male must have special instincts for subduing female reluctance. 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." He reaches this conclusion, however, by gradual stages. He first urges that "it would be absurd to affirm that all bird songs originate in a conscious æsthetic and critical act of judgment on the part of the female. A conscious choice either of the most beautiful or the loudest singer is certainly not the rule, and probably never occurs at all. But," he adds, "is it not still a choice, though unconscious, when the female turns to the singer whose voice, whether from strength or modulation, *Op. cit., pref., p. xxii. † Op. cit., p. 240.

proves most attractive?

Even if the song is primarily a

means of recognition or an invitation from the male, still the psychological effect must be that the female follows the songster that excites her most, and so exerts a kind of unconscious selection."

The phrase "unconscious choice" is, however, somewhat unsatisfactory, especially when we remember that it is used to indicate the result of a direct appeal to the conscious situation. If, however, we say that it is perceptual choice arising from impulse as distinguished from ideational choice due to motive and volition, we see that the distinction is in line with that which we have drawn again and again, and which Dr. Stout so well emphasizes in his "Manual of Psychology.". But we have also drawn the distinction between instinctive behaviour prior to individual experience, and intelligent behaviour the result of such experience. Under which of these classes does the behaviour of the female during courtship fall? Professor Groos, in the further development of his hypothesis, seems to place it in the instinctive category. "Instead of a conscious or unconscious choice, of which we know nothing certain," he says,*

66

we have the need of overcoming instinctive coyness in the female, a fact familiar enough, but hitherto not sufficiently accounted for. Then the question no longer is, which among many males will be chosen by the female, but which one has the qualities that can overcome the reluctance of the female whom he woes. Sexual selection would then become a special case of natural selection."

I am unable to follow Professor Groos in this view, which I find it rather difficult to reconcile with such statements as that already quoted, in which he says that the female's "tantalizing change from allurement to resistance seems to include an element of a mischievous playfulness." It is more probable that instinctive coyness and reluctance afford the conditions under which experience of the pleasures of courtship may be gained. It is said that a flirt, when taken to task for her conduct at ball and picnic, justified it by asking demurely * Op. cit., p. 244.

how else she was to gain that wide experience of men which was absolutely necessary to guide her in exercising a wise and becoming choice. Let us hope that when the fateful time arrived she acted with due deliberation. Now the coquetry of birds affords the opportunity of gaining just such experience in the light of which a perceptual choice may be made.

Let us remember that courtship is, as Darwin said, "a prolonged affair," and that coyness is a means to its prolongation. And let us remember that in simple cases, as also in more complex matters, the intelligent exercise of choice depends upon what Dr. Stout terms the acquisition of meaning. "The chicken does not, at first," he says, "distinguish between what is edible and what is not. This it has to learn by experience. It will at the outset peck at and seize all worms and caterpillars indiscriminately. There is a particular caterpillar called the cinnabar caterpillar. When this is first presented to the chicken it is pecked at and seized, like other similar objects. But as soon as it is fairly seized it is dropped in disgust. When next the chicken sees the caterpillar, it looks at it suspiciously, and refrains from pecking. Now, what has happened in this case? The sight of the cinnabar caterpillar re-excites the total disposition left behind by the previous experience of pecking at it, seizing it, and ejecting it in disgust. Thus the effect of these experiences [what I have termed the conscious situation] is revived. The sight of the cinnabar caterpillar has acquired a meaning." Take now the case of a coy hen bird, to whom several males pay court. The sight of this one, behaving after his kind, excites in small degree the sexual impulse and emotions. Her heart beats but little the faster for all his antics, her respiratory rhythm is scarcely affected, her feathers, like her feelings, remain comparatively unruffled. He has acquired meaning from the reaction to his presence; it is not, however, a very attractive meaning. But that other, perhaps from mere persistency, perhaps because he is more "vigorous, defiant, and mettlesome" (she, at any rate, certainly knows not why), deeply * "Manual of Psychology," p. 85.

stirs her organic being, sets her all aglow, and breaks down the barriers of her coyness. And this he does because he is the centre of a conscious situation which has acquired, through her experience of his presence, a meaning and an interest that are at last irresistibly attractive. It is a choice from impulse, not the result of deliberation; but it is a choice which is determined by the emotional meaning of the conscious situation. And it is the reiterated revival of the associated emotional elements which generates an impulse sufficiently strong to overcome her instinctive coyness and reluctance.

And this coyness is the natural correlative of the ardour of the male, an ardour increased by his courtship antics. If the female yielded readily and at once, the behaviour of courtship would never have been evolved. Superabundant vigour in the male is, no doubt, a favourable condition of courtship, as it is of play; but neither is it a sine quâ non, nor in any case does it, or can it, afford any guidance of behaviour into just those specific channels in which we find it setting during the breeding season. If sexual selection be not a vera causa of the specific direction, we have at present no other hypothesis which in any degree fits the facts. And to the criticism of those who, like Mr. W. H. Hudson, urge that dance and song, and aërial evolutions in birds, are seen at times when the immediate business of courtship forms no part of the situation, Professor Groos's theory of play affords a sufficient answer. If courtship, whose biological end is of such supreme importance, forms a central feature in the serious business of animal life; and if play is the preparation and practice for behaviour of biological importance; we should expect to find manifestations (with an emotional difference, and no doubt many differences in detail) of all those actions, the due performance of which, in the supreme hour of courtship, will alone enable the adequately prepared and wellpractised male to overcome the reluctance of the female, and beget offspring to transmit his instinctive and emotional tendencies.

IV.

*

ANIMAL "ESTHETICS" AND "ETHICS"

In this section we shall consider some types of behaviour which suggest situations that contain the germs of æsthetics and ethics, with a view to determining, so far as possible, the principles on which they should be interpreted. This is a peculiarly difficult subject; for we are endeavouring to get behind the behaviour, and to infer the mental conditions which accompany it, and through which it assumes its distinctive character. The difficulty is twofold: first, because, as Dr. Stout puts it, "human language is especially constructed to describe the mental states of human beings, and this means that it is especially constructed so as to mislead us when we attempt to describe the workings of minds that differ in any great degree from the human ;" and secondly, because, to quote the same careful thinker,† "the besetting snare of the psychologist is the tendency to assume that an act or attitude which in himself would be the natural manifestation of a certain mental process must, therefore, have the same meaning in the case of another. The fallacy lies in taking this or that isolated action apart from the totality of conditions under which it appears. It is particularly seductive when the animal mind is the subject of inquiry."

We must, therefore, base our method of procedure on some definite principle. The canon of interpretation which I have elsewhere suggested ‡ is, that we should not interpret animal behaviour as the outcome of higher mental processes, if it can be fairly explained as due to the operation of those which stand lower in the psychological scale of development. To this it may be added-lest the range of the principle be misunderstood —that the canon by no means excludes the interpretation of a particular act as the outcome of the higher mental processes, if we already have independent evidence of their occurrence in

*"Manual of Psychology," p. 23.

Op. cit., p. 22.

"Introduction to Comparative Psychology," p. 53.