Variable chorea and variable tic are obviously very closely allied. The movements of the latter, however, are distinguished by their greater abruptness and smaller variety. They are tics by reason of their systematisation and co-ordination; they are variable because they pass from one region of the body to another. There is no necessary relation between them; each has an individuality of its own and is independent of the rest. In variable chorea, on the other hand, one movement passes insensibly into another, and the variants of any particular one are legion. However easy it is, then, to separate the two clinically, it is none the less true that they spring from the same soil of mental defect. Variable chorea differs in nature from other choreas, though its form is the same; it may be distinguished from tic by the type of movement, but in essence it is identical. CHAPTER XII ANTAGONISTIC GESTURES AND STRATAGEMS However harmless and insignificant a tic may be, it is a source of annoyance to its subject of which he constantly seeks to disembarrass himself. But the feebleness of his will militates against any sustained effort, and if for a brief space he can conserve his immobility, victory eludes his grasp, for his tics resume the offensive and increase in violence. More than ever convinced of his helplessness, he resorts to measures that serve but to accentuate the mischief. Thus it comes to pass that he desists from his attempts at repression and admits himself vanquished. Some there are, nevertheless, whose inventive faculty leads them to adopt singular attitudes, to execute curious gestures, to utilise elaborate apparatus--proceedings always more or less childish, whose employment is usually followed by success, but only for a time. The history of O. acquaints us with a whole series of these subterfuges, for which the expressive name of para-tics was invented by him, tricks intended to mask or to modify existing tics, but they soon themselves became as involuntary and as inevitable. Not all who tic are imaginative enough to conceive such plans, and many have no thought of showing fight at all, but it is worth while dwelling on this point for a little, especially in view of the frequency with which certain tics are accompanied by methods of correction evolved by the patient.