Courtship may thus be regarded from the physiological point of view as a means of producing the requisite amount of pairing-hunger; of stimulating the whole system and facilitating general and special vascular changes; of creating that state of profound and explosive instability which has for its psychological concomitant or antecedent an imperious and irresistible craving. This not only overcomes the coyness of the female, but generates and strengthens the ardour of the male--a point on which, perhaps, Professor Groos does not lay sufficient stress. For the process is reciprocal; and though the male leads in the ardour of courtship, yet this ardour constantly grows till at last it overcomes the barriers of reluctance. Courtship is thus the strong and steady bending of the bow that the arrow may find its mark in a biological end of the utmost importance in the survival of a healthy and vigorous race. The coyness and reluctance of the female afford the 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,[152] “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[153] 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