MIMICRY.
363
what are considered as "demonstrated,"[1] and others classed as "suggested or probable," illustrations of the theory of mimicry; and it will be noticed that those in the second category are much more numerous than those included in the first; inference necessarily having so often to be relied upon in the absence of observed facts.
(To be continued.)
- ↑ Of course by this term is meant what has been or can be demonstrated, and hence a careful observation made by a competent traveller must be accepted as decisive, for we can neither all visit the scene of the occurrence nor, if we could, is it certain we might meet with the instance. A remark by Lecky is apposite:—"If anyone in a company of ordinarily educated persons were to deny the motion of the earth, or the circulation of the blood, his statement would be received with derision, though it is probable that some of his audience would be unable to demonstrate the first truth, and that very few of them could give sufficient reasons for the second" ('Rationalism in Europe,' vol. i. p. 9).