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Animal defenses 1st Edition Christina Wilsdon Digital
Instant Download
Author(s): Christina Wilsdon
ISBN(s): 9781604130898, 1438126050
Edition: 1
File Details: PDF, 7.54 MB
Year: 2009
Language: english
 Animal

Defenses
 AnimAl BehAvior

Animal Communication
Animal Courtship
Animal Defenses
Animal Hunting and Feeding
Animal Life in Groups
Animal Migration
 Animal

Defenses
ChristinA WilsDon
Animal Behavior: Animal Defenses
Copyright  2009 by Infobase Publishing

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in

any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying,
recording, or by any information storage or retrieval systems, without
permission in writing from the publisher. For information, contact:

Chelsea House
An imprint of Infobase Publishing
132 West 31st Street
New York NY 10001

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Wilsdon, Christina.
Animal defenses / Christina Wilsdon.
p. cm. — (Animal behavior)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-60413-089-8 (hardcover)
1. Animal defenses. I. Title. II. Series.
QL759.W55 2009
591.47—dc22 2008040116

Chelsea House books are available at special discounts when purchased in

bulk quantities for businesses, associations, institutions, or sales promotions.
Please call our Special Sales Department in New York at (212) 967-8800 or
(800) 322-8755.

You can find Chelsea House on the World Wide Web at

http://www.chelseahouse.com

Text design by Kerry Casey

Cover design by Ben Peterson
Printed in the United States
Bang EJB 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
This book is printed on acid-free paper.

All links and Web addresses were checked and verified to be correct at the
time of publication. Because of the dynamic nature of the Web, some addresses
and links may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid.

Caption: A thorny devil, native to Australia, is camouflaged in shades of

desert browns and tans. The spikes on its body also help protect it from
predators.
 Contents
1 Avoiding Danger 7
2 Escape Artists 22
3 Animal Armor 38
4 Bad Smells, Bad Tastes,
and Powerful Poisons 55
5 Venomous Stings and Bites 73
6 Mimicry 91
 Fighting Back 107

Glossary 124
Bibliography 126
Further Resources 128
Picture Credits 130
Index 131
About the Author 136
 1
Avoiding Danger

A cheetAh skulks through the tall grass of the African sa-

vannah. Head lowered, she stares intently at a herd of gazelles.
Her spotted coat blends in with the dry grass, making her nearly
invisible as she sneaks up on her prey.
The gazelles continue to graze. Between bites of grass, each
one snaps up its head to check out its surroundings. Bright eyes
scan the horizon. Ears swivel to pick up the slightest sound. Nos-
trils flare to sniff for the scent of a cheetah, lion, or other hungry
predator.
Suddenly, a few gazelles snort and stamp their feet. The
entire herd goes on high alert. The black bands that run down
the gazelles’ sides quiver, passing along the message: “Danger!”
Then, some of the gazelles begin bouncing as if on pogo sticks.
They spring high in the air with their backs arched and legs stiff.
They land on all fours, and then leap again.
The cheetah pauses. The gazelles have seen her. It is impos-
sible to launch a surprise attack now. The cheetah depends on one
short-lived, startling burst of speed to chase down a gazelle. The
gazelles, however, also run fast, hitting speeds of up to 40 miles
(64 km) an hour—and they can keep up this speed much longer


8 AnimAl deFenses

This female springbok, a kind of antelope, bounces into the air with an
arched back and stiff legs. This motion is called stotting or pronking.
Springbok typically use it to show predators that they are fi t and hard
to catch. Research shows that cheetahs often avoid hunting stotting
springbok.

than a cheetah can. Their odd jumping behavior, called stotting,

signals to the cheetah, “We have seen you, so do not bother to
chase us—we are strong and healthy and can outrun you.”
If the cheetah is lucky, perhaps she will find a gazelle fawn
hidden in the grass. However, the fawns have tawny coats and
can lie still as a stone for a long time. Plus, the fawns’ mothers are
 Avoiding danger 9

careful not to give the cheetah any clues as to where their young
are hiding.
Like most wild animals, gazelles are always watching out for
danger. Most often, that danger is another animal—in this case,
a hungry cheetah. Even domestic animals, such as horses, sheep,
and chickens, are on the alert for any threat to their safety. Being
alert is the first step an animal takes to defend itself. It is one of
many behaviors that animals use to survive in a world filled with
predators.
Much of an animal’s self-defense behavior comes from within
it. Most animals are born “knowing” how to defend themselves.
Scientists call this inborn knowledge instinct.

selF-deFense
Over millions of years, the many different kinds, or species, of
animals have developed ways of defending themselves. Animals
might use protective colors, sharp spines, and excellent hearing.
An animal has its defensive tools at the ready all the time, wheth-
er or not it is in danger. They are known as primary defenses.
The gazelle’s primary defenses include its horns, its keen senses,
and its speed. A gazelle fawn’s primary defenses include its ability
to lie still and its concealing coat color.
An animal’s primary defenses are backed up by behaviors
known as secondary defenses. The animal uses its secondary
defenses when it confronts a predator. A gazelle uses secondary
defenses when it stamps, stots, and runs away—or if it is caught
by a cheetah or other predator.
Gazelle fawns use the most basic form of self-defense: avoid
being noticed. Like the fawns, many animals evade detection by
hiding, freezing, or blending in with their habitat. This is called
crypsis (crypsis comes from a Greek word that means “hidden.”)
10 AnimAl deFenses

lying low
Many animals hide to avoid being noticed. Turn over a stone
or stir a pile of leaves to reveal a world of hidden creatures: a
worm squirming in the sudden burst of light, a rolled-up pill
bug, a centipede quickly scurrying out of sight, tiny springtails,
and even tinier mites. Trees and other plants harbor animals
seeking hideaways. Insects hide under leaves, along stems, and
under scraps of bark. Pale trails winding through a leaf show
where the larvae, or young, of various moths and beetles are
feeding safely between the leaf’s layers. Etchings in a tree’s bark
show where beetles have bored inside to feed on its wood while
under cover.
Many insects even alter plants to create places to hide. Some
caterpillars roll up leaves and seal them shut with sticky silk.
Weaver ants seal leaves together with silk made by their larvae,
which the adult ants use as if they were glue sticks. Some insects,
including species of aphids, midges, and wasps, spur plants to
grow protective cases. These cases, called galls, are hard knobs
with spongy interiors. As larvae feed on the plant, their saliva
induces the growth of these galls.
Larger animals also take advantage of the safe shelter pro-
vided by plants, rocks, and other parts of their habitat. Birds hide
their nests amid grasses, tuck them among branches, bury them
deep inside burrows, and conceal them in tree holes.
Staying hidden for many hours is not necessary for an ani-
mal that can get to a hiding place quickly. Many small rodents
feed close to their burrows so they can dive into them at the first
glimpse of a hawk overhead. Crabs scuttle swiftly beneath stones.
The pancake tortoise of East Africa, which has a flat, flexible
shell, wedges itself into a crevice between rocks. The turtle brac-
es its legs so that it cannot easily be pulled out of its hiding spot.
The chuckwalla, a lizard that lives in the southwestern United
 Avoiding danger 11

HIDING BY DAY OR NIGHT

many species make use of hideaways only when they are
inactive. raccoons, for example, are largely nocturnal—
they are most active at night. during most daylight hours,
they are curled up in a tree cavity, a woodpile, or even an
attic, fast asleep. At night, they emerge to look for food.
their meals often include other nocturnal animals, such as
slugs or mice.
As a result of being nocturnal, an animal not only
avoids predators that are active by day, but also avoids
competing with animals that eat the same food. two dif-
ferent species that both feed on insects, for example, can
use the same resource without competing directly if one is
part of the day crew and the other takes the night shift.
of course, some predators also are active at night. A
nocturnal moth, for example, may be caught by a bat. the
bat, in turn, may be caught by an owl.

States, also darts into crevices. Then, it inflates its lungs with air
so that its body swells up, wedging it in place.

A liFe in hiding
A variety of species go to the extreme: They spend most of their
lives in hiding. Over millions of years, they have adapted to sur-
viving in habitats that keep them under cover.
Many kinds of clams, for example, burrow into sandy or
muddy beaches. Some species live just under the surface, while
others dig deeply. A large clam called the geoduck can bury itself
3 feet (1 meter) below the surface.
By burrowing, a clam protects itself from being washed away
by waves, drying out in the sun, and being an easy target for
12 AnimAl deFenses

predators. It does not need to leave its hiding place to find food. In-
stead, the clam opens its paired shells and reaches up through the
sand with a body part called a siphon. The siphon takes in water,
which the clam filters to extract particles of food.
If the clam senses vibrations rippling through the sand, it
quickly pulls in its siphon. Vibrations may mean a predator is
investigating its hiding spot. The clam also may burrow more
deeply to escape. Some clams can dig quickly: The razor clam
can move 9 inches (22 centimeters) in 1 minute.
Other animals find safety in living underground, too. Earth-
worms spend much of the day burrowing through the soil. If
caught by a bird’s probing beak, an earthworm struggles to resist
being yanked out of the ground. It grabs onto the walls of its
burrow with bristles that line its sides. The worm’s hind end also
bulges to help clamp it in place.
A mole digging through the earth can send earthworms
scuttling out of the soil. Moles eat earthworms and even store
them for later, biting them and then stuffing them into holes in
their tunnels. A mole rarely needs to poke its head above ground;
there, an owl, fox, or weasel might pounce on it.

stAying still
A prey animal that senses danger does not always seek a hiding
place. Some species first try another way of avoiding detection:
freezing in place. Many predators can easily spot prey in motion,
but are less likely to notice a still animal, especially if it blends
into the background.
A moving rabbit out in the open, for example, is an easy tar-
get for a hawk. To avoid being spotted, the rabbit crouches low
and freezes in place. Its stillness reduces the chances of it being
seen, and its low profile makes it look more like a mound of dirt
than a round-bodied animal sitting on the ground.
 Avoiding danger 13

ESCAPE HATCHES
Animals dig dwellings underground for many reasons. A
den or burrow provides relief from extreme heat or cold.
it can serve as a nursery for helpless young. some animals
store food in their burrows. A handy burrow also provides
a safe spot when a predator appears.
prairie dogs, which live on the grasslands of the unit-
ed states, build extensive communities of burrows called
towns. At the sight of a predator, a prairie dog immediately
alerts its family and neighbors with shrill barks. in a flash,
the prairie dogs dive into their burrows and out of sight.
their tunnels, which spread far, wide, and deep, provide
the animals with many hideouts and escape routes.
diggers, such as chipmunks and ground squirrels, also
include emergency exits in their homes. that way, there’s
an escape route if a badger digs up the burrow or a snake
slips into it. African mammals called meerkats have hun-
dreds of tunnels called “bolt holes” in their territory. if a
predator appears, they run, or “bolt,” into them.

Ground squirrels, like this marmot, create dwellings under-

ground in part to hide quickly from predators.
14 AnimAl deFenses

In much the same way, newborn deer lie still among ferns
and grasses while their mothers spend time away from them,
feeding on leaves. The fawns, born without any odor that would
lure a predator, rely on their stillness as well as their spots to
avoid detection on the sun-dappled woodland floor. Pronghorn
antelope fawns remain still for hours on end, lying in tall grass
to escape the notice of coyotes and eagles. The chicks of spotted
sandpipers and many other birds also crouch and freeze when
danger threatens.
Though many crouch-and-freeze creatures also benefit
from coloration that helps them blend in with their background,
such camouflage is not a requirement for “the freeze” to work. A
squirrel, for example, is usually a highly visible animal as it bus-
ily dashes along branches or springs across a lawn. Should a dog
or other animal threaten it, however, the squirrel scrambles up
a tree trunk, circles to the side of the trunk opposite the preda-
tor, and freezes. If the predator follows it, the squirrel scurries
to the other side of the trunk and freezes again. Using this spi-
raling method, the squirrel keeps a blockade between it and its
attacker—even if the attacker is incapable of climbing the tree in
pursuit.

hiding in plAin sight

Camouflage, also known as cryptic coloration, is the one-size-
fits-all defense in the world of animals. Animals as small as in-
sects and as large as the boldly patterned giraffe—towering at a
height of 18 feet (6 m)—depend on their cryptic colorations to
help them blend in.
Colors and patterns may camouflage an animal not only by
helping it blend in, but also by breaking up its shape. That way,
a predator does not recognize it at first. An animal’s coloring can
 Avoiding danger 15

Walkingsticks are insects that look like twigs. They are able to blend in
with trees to avoid predators.

hide the roundness of its body, making it look flat. Colors and
patterns also can help hide an animal’s shadow.
Cryptic coloration can be as simple as the sandy fur of a fen-
nec fox, which blends with the tones of its desert home. It can be
as complex as the camouflage of a giant swallowtail caterpillar,
which looks like a bird dropping on a leaf. The fox “hides in plain
sight,” while the caterpillar stays safe by resembling something
that does not interest a predator one bit.
Many cryptically colored animals just need to freeze or
lie low to be protected. A pointy thorn bug sitting on a stem,
for example, looks like a thorn. A grasshopper or katydid that
16 AnimAl deFenses

resembles a leaf just needs to sit on a leafy twig to blend in and

look like a leaf.
Some animals go one step further and behave in ways that
enhance their camouflage.
Walkingsticks are part of this cast of animal actors. These
long, thin insects naturally resemble twigs, complete with sharp-
ly bent limbs and bumpy joints. They are closely related to the
fantastically shaped leaf insects, which have body parts shaped
and colored to look like leaves—right down to leaf veins, nibbled
edges, and brown spots of decay. But walkingsticks don’t just
look like sticks, and leaf insects don’t just look like leaves. They
act like them, too. While sitting still they sway slowly, mimick-
ing the motion of a twig or leaf in the breeze.
Leaf insects have been known to dangle from a stem by one
leg, as if they were leaves about to drop. If threatened, many leaf
insects will fall to the ground, landing on their feet and scuttling
away.
Other insects imitate plant galls, seeds, and flowers. The Af-
rican flower mantis takes on the coloring of the flower on which
it lives. This is also true of the Malaysian orchid mantis, which
has legs that look like flower petals. The camouflage patterns on
many moths’ wings imitate patterns of tree bark and the lichen
growing on it.
Moths instinctively use this camouflage to their advantage.
The pine hawk-moth perches on a tree with its head pointing
up. This lines up the stripes on its wings with the bark’s fur-
rows. The waved umber moth perches sideways on trees. That’s
because its stripes run across its wings. The sideways perch lines
up these stripes with the bark’s pattern.
Among the insects, caterpillars excel at combining cryptic
coloration with deceptive behavior. A caterpillar’s job is to eat
and grow while avoiding being eaten by birds. A caterpillar must
also avoid tiny wasps eager to lay their eggs on it. The eggs hatch
into larvae that feed on the caterpillar.
 Avoiding danger 1

A Costa Rican rainforest species of moth caterpillar called

Navarcostes limnatis looks like a diseased leaf covered with fun-
gus. It adds a rocking motion to this disguise so that it appears
to be quivering in a breeze. Another caterpillar, the larva of a
butterfly called the meander leafwing, crawls to the tip of a leaf
after hatching. It eats the parts of the leaf that stick out on either
side of the sturdy rib running down the leaf’s middle. Then it
sits on the rib so that it looks like a bit of nibbled leaf itself. The
caterpillar will continue to eat the leaf over the next few days. It
binds scraps of leaf to the rib with silk secreted by its body and
hides among them.
Insects are stars when it comes to combining camouflage
with a convincing performance, but other animals also use this
tactic. The leafy sea dragon of Australian waters is one example.
It has frills that make it look like a bit of drifting seaweed. The
sea dragon also rocks slowly and rhythmically, mirroring the
swaying of seaweed in its habitat.
Half a world away, the leaf fish of South America’s Amazon
River floats slowly on its side, its flattened, brown body resem-
bling a dead leaf drifting in the water. Its snout looks like the
leaf’s stalk. This behavior allows the fish to avoid predators and
hunt its own prey without being noticed.
Many tree frogs also imitate leaves or other plant parts.
The red-eyed tree frog, for example, snuggles into the curve of
a leaf during the day. Its bright green body blends with the leaf.
The frog tucks its legs and big orange feet close to its blue-
and-yellow sides so that the vivid colors are hidden. Finally,
it closes its bulging red eyes, hiding them under gold-flecked
lids. The frog can see through these lids to watch for danger
as it naps.
Even some larger animals manage to pull off the trick of
resembling an object. The potoo, a nocturnal bird of Central
and South America, spends the day perched on a dead branch.
Its feathers, mottled with brown and gray, work as camouflage.
18 AnimAl deFenses

The potoo holds its body at an angle that makes it look like just
another dead branch. On the other side of the globe, a look-alike
nocturnal bird called the tawny frogmouth poses the same way.
Another bird actor is the American bittern, which lives in
wetlands. When it is startled, it stretches its long, thin neck and
body and points its sharp bill to the sky. In this position, the
streaks of brown running down its breast blend in with the tall,
grassy plants around it. The bittern also sways gently, just like
the breeze-ruffled reeds.

chAnging color
Sometimes, an animal’s camouflage won’t work if the habitat
changes or an animal travels to another part of its habitat. A
number of animals solve this problem by changing color.
Some animals change color as the seasons change. The wil-
low ptarmigan, an Arctic bird, is mottled brown in summer
and blends in with the ground, rocks, and plants. In winter, it
is white with a black tail and nearly disappears against a back-
ground of snow and occasional twigs. In spring and fall, as it
molts (sheds) old feathers and grows new ones, the bird is a
mixture of brown and white—just like the patchy snow-spotted
world around it.
Some animals change color within weeks or days. Many
caterpillars change color as they grow, shedding a skin of one
color to reveal another that can protect them better as they
move about more to feed. Crab spiders can change color in just
a few days to match the flowers in which they lurk. Bark bugs
of Central America grow darker when moistened with water.
This helps them blend in with rain-darkened tree trunks.
Some reptiles, fish, and other creatures can change color in
just a few hours. Many tree frogs, for example, can go from green
to brown. Horned lizards of the southwestern United States can
 Avoiding danger 19

The feathers of the willow ptarmigan change color with the seasons:
white in winter months to blend with snow and brown or mixed colors
in other months to blend with plants and the earth. This enables the
bird to often be naturally camouflaged from predators.

change their brown and gray tones to best fit their surroundings.
The flounder, a flat-bodied fish with its eyes on the side of its
head, lies on the ocean floor and takes on the color and texture
of the sandy, stony surface in as little as two hours.
Other animals work even faster. Many octopuses, cuttlefish,
and squids can change color in less than one second. An octopus
can change from solid red to multiple colors, or even white, to
match its background. It can also change the texture of its skin
to resemble sand or stones. A cuttlefish can make light and dark
waves ripple down its back, reflecting the way sunlight shimmers
in water.
20 AnimAl deFenses

mAsking: AnimAls in disguise

Some species push the defense tactics of hiding and camouflage
to the max by actually wearing costumes. This behavior is known
as masking.
The decorator crab, found in the eastern Pacific Ocean, is
named for its habit of disguising itself. The crab picks seaweed,
anemones, and sponges and puts them on its shell. Bristles on
the shell work like Velcro to hold these items in place. In this dis-
guise, the crab looks like another weed-covered rock. When the
crab outgrows its shell and sheds it during molting, it takes the
decorations off its old shell and plants them on its new one.
Decorator crabs share the eastern Pacific with sharp-nosed
crabs, which sometimes stick seaweed on the sharp front edges of
their shells. Other species of crab disguise themselves, too. The
camouflage crab of New Zealand adorns its shell and legs with
seaweed (and sometimes snacks on bits of it). The sponge crab
uses its hind legs to hold a live sponge on its shell. The shell is
covered with algae, which has settled on the shell just as it would
on a stone.
Hermit crabs sometimes plant anemones on their shells.
Anemones have stinging cells in their tentacles, so they provide
an extra layer of protection for the crab. In return, the crab takes
them to new feeding grounds, and the anemones can dine on
tidbits from the crab’s meals. Another species, the anemone crab,
has claws equipped with hooks for gripping anemones. Any pred-
ator that approaches this crab will have the stinging anemones
waved in its face.
Some insects also use masking. A wavy-lined emerald cater-
pillar cuts petals from the flowers it feeds on. Then it attaches the
petals to spines on its body and fastens them in place with silk.
When the petals wilt, it replaces them. This habit has earned the
caterpillar the alternative name of camouflaged looper. Other
 Avoiding danger 21

kinds of looper caterpillars mask themselves with flowers, leaves,

and bits of bark.
The larvae of many kinds of caddis fly mask themselves in
camouflaged cases. The cases are made out of material from the
larva’s freshwater habitat: grains of sand, small stones and shells,
leaves, twigs, bits of wood, or pine needles. The materials are
bound together with sticky or silky fluids produced by the larva’s
body. A hooked pair of legs at the larva’s hind end hang on to the
case as the larva creeps about in search of food.
Hiding, camouflage, and masking help animals avoid preda-
tors. Animals’ behaviors and bodies have changed over millions
of years in ways that help them survive. Scientists call these
changes adaptations. The process of change over time is called
evolution.
Predators have also evolved so that they could keep find-
ing prey. When they do, the prey must turn to another form of
self-defense.
 2
Escape Artists

hiding, stAnding still, and camouflage help many ani-

mals avoid predators, but these defenses do not work all the time.
Predators may find hiding places, stumble over prey lying stock-
still, or discover that a leaf is actually an insect in disguise. Prey
animals need a second line of defense.
For many animals, this defense is escape. Escape often means
fleeing as quickly as possible. Escape also may involve behaviors
that buy an animal a few extra seconds to get away. This could be
startling a predator or distracting it. Some animals go so far as
to actually lose body parts to aid in their escape. A few appear to
give up by playing dead.

Fleeing
An animal without a burrow or other hiding place can choose
between fight and flight. It can stand its ground and face a preda-
tor or make a quick getaway. Fighting may be used as a last re-
sort; fleeing is the first response to danger.
Many long-legged, hoofed animals literally run for their
lives, relying on sheer speed to escape. Horses, for example, can
gallop at speeds of 30 miles (48 kilometers) per hour or more.

22
 escape Artists 23

Deer race away just as quickly. The pronghorn of western North

American grasslands can run about 50 miles (80 km) per hour.
This burst of speed may enable an animal to leave its pur-
suer in the dust. If the predator persists, however, many hoofed
animals can run fast for several miles. A pronghorn can run at 35
miles (56 km) per hour for about 4 miles (6 km).
Running works well for speedy four-legged animals. It also
serves some two-legged ones. The ostrich, the world’s largest
bird at 8 feet tall (2.4 m), cannot fly. Other than lions and jack-
als, few animals prey on it. If pursued, an ostrich can outrun and
outlast most predators. It can cruise at speeds up to 40 miles (64
km) an hour and run at a slightly slower speed for 20 minutes or

When fleeing a predator, the basilisk lizard musters up enough energy to

be able to run on water.
24 AnimAl deFenses

more. The rhea, a flightless bird of South America, can also run
swiftly and turn on a dime. Roadrunners of the southwestern
United States deserts can fly, but prefer to run. They can zip
along at 18.6 miles (30 km) an hour.
The basilisk lizard normally gets around on four legs, but
switches to two when it’s threatened. The lizard lives in trees in
rainforests of Central America. When a predator creeps up on it,
the basilisk drops out of the tree and lands in the water. Then, it
rises on its hind legs and runs across the surface of the water. The
basilisk dashes about 15 feet (4.5 m) in three seconds flat before
dropping forward to swim with all four legs.
A kangaroo cannot run, but it can leap away from danger. A
red kangaroo can hop at 20 miles (32 km) an hour for long dis-
tances, and 30 miles (48 km) an hour for a short distance. Some
people have clocked red kangaroos going even faster. Grasshop-
pers and crickets leap to safety, too. Beach hoppers, which are
related to pill bugs, pop into the air by snapping their abdomens
and pushing with four of their hind legs.
Swimming, slithering, climbing, and flying from danger all
work just as well as running and jumping. An octopus, for exam-
ple, escapes predators by filling its body with water, then pushing
the water out through a tube-like body part called a siphon. This
motion, called jetting, lets an octopus scoot away quickly in any
direction. As it jets away, it emits a cloud of ink to hide its escape
and further confuse its pursuer. Shellfish called scallops also jet
away from danger. When a scallop senses that a sea star is near,
it opens and shuts its shell, forcing out jets of water that scoot it
away.
Another ocean creature, the flying fish, escapes predators by
swimming quickly just under the water’s surface, then streaking
up and out of the water while stretching out a pair of wing-like
fins. It sails through the air for up to 20 seconds before diving
back into the water.
 escape Artists 25

Some animals roll away from danger. Wheel spiders, which

live in Africa’s Namib Desert, start their escape from predatory
wasps by running. Then, they suddenly fold their legs and flip
sideways to roll down sand dunes like wheels. They can roll at
a speed of about 3 feet (1 m) per second. The caterpillar of the
mother-of-pearl moth also goes for a spin to escape by curling
into a circle and then pushing off. A species of mantis shrimp,
found along some Pacific shores, rolls up and pushes itself along
in a series of backward somersaults.
Many predators, however, also have speed on their side.
Their prey must often use other tactics besides pure speed to
make their escape.
One way to make a pursuer work harder is to zigzag. A rabbit
running from a coyote, for example, does not run endlessly in a
straight line. Instead, it dodges back and forth, forcing the coy-
ote to change direction and make sharp turns, too. Zigzagging
is easier for a rabbit, which is small, than for the larger coyote.
The coyote also cannot tell when the rabbit will dodge this way
or that, so it cannot plan its next move. In this way, the rabbit
makes the chase more difficult and tiring for the coyote. Though
a coyote may still succeed in catching its prey, there is a chance
that it may tire out, give up, and go look for an easier meal.
Other animals also dart and dash when chased. A herd of im-
pala, slender antelopes of African grasslands, not only run from
a predator but also zigzag in all directions. Impala also leap over
each other as they run, sometimes springing as high as 10 feet (3
m) into the air. This explosion of activity startles and confuses a
predator. It also makes it difficult for a predator to chase any one
animal.
Zigzagging mixed with freezing can confuse predators, too.
Frogs and grasshoppers will jump in one direction, then freeze,
only to pop off in another direction if the predator comes near.
A predator may not be able to focus on its prey with all the
26 AnimAl deFenses

unexpected starts and stops. Likewise, a cottontail rabbit may

go from zigzagging to freezing as it flees. When it runs, it flash-
es its puffy white tail like a target. When it freezes, it sits on its
tail. The predator may lose track of the rabbit because the tail
has vanished.

stArtling A predAtor
Anyone who has jumped when startled knows how a predator
might feel when its prey suddenly bursts into motion after being
nearly invisible. The shock of the prey’s sudden reappearance is

ELUDING BATS
Bats hunt on the wing at night. they send out pulses of
sound and listen for the echoes to locate their prey. this
process is called echolocation. using it, a bat can pinpoint
even tiny insects in flight.
insects have developed escape behaviors to avoid echo-
location. some moths can hear the high-pitched sounds
that bats send out. A moth may fly in loops to avoid being
detected. if a moth senses that a bat is close, it will simply
fold its wings and drop from the sky.
some moths go one step further and jam the bat’s sig-
nals. A moth does this by making sounds that are similar to
the echoes that the bat is trying to hear. this can throw the
bat off course just long enough to help the moth escape.
scientists have recently discovered that some moths
make sounds that warn bats not to eat them because they
taste bad. Bats quickly learn to avoid these moths after a
few taste tests. some species of moth that do not taste
bad imitate the sounds of the foul-tasting ones, which
tricks the bats into steering clear of them, too.
 escape Artists 2

enough to make a predator flinch or pause for a fraction of a sec-

ond. That little bit of extra time can let an animal escape with
its life.
A variety of animals even sport special colors or body parts
to help them startle predators. These colors and parts are used in
behaviors called startle displays. A startle display may be used
to fend off an attack right from the start. Many startle displays of
this type involve suddenly flashing a vivid color or pattern.
This is the tactic used by the io moth, which lives in North
America. At rest, an io moth is pale yellow or brown. But if a bird
attempts to grab it, the io moth quickly moves its forewings. This
reveals two hind wings boldly colored with a pair of big black
spots surrounded by a circle of yellow. These spots look like eyes,
and are called eyespots. To a bird, the display of eyespots may
look like the sudden appearance of a larger bird, such as an owl—
its own predator. The startled bird may fly away rather than risk
its life, or it may pause long enough for the moth to escape.
Eyespots are found on the wings of hundreds of species of
moths and butterflies. They are also seen on many caterpillars.
A swallowtail butterfly’s plump green body has two huge yel-
low eyespots on its humped front end. This makes it look like a
snake. When threatened, the vine hawk moth’s brown caterpil-
lar curls into a “C” and bulges its yellow eyespots. A Malaysian
hawk moth caterpillar puffs up its front end when threatened.
This makes its eyespots open wide. It also snaps its head back and
forth as if it were a snake about to strike.
Other insects flash startling eyespots, too. The African
flower mantis, which usually blends in with the shapes and colors
of its flowery habitat, flares out wings with eyespots when it is
threatened. The eyed click beetle has two black eyespots behind
its head. An Australian moth caterpillar has eyespots that are
normally hidden in the folds of its body. When it flexes its hind
end, the folds open like lids to reveal the “eyes.”
28 AnimAl deFenses

Patches of color that do not look like eyes also make effective
startle displays. These colors are often hidden until an animal
flees. The sudden appearance of this flash coloration can stop a
predator in its tracks just long enough to let the prey escape.
A red-eyed tree frog, for example, usually blends in with the
leaf on which it sleeps. If a predator bothers it, the frog first pops
open its enormous red eyes. Then it leaps away, turning from a
plain green frog into a rainbow of color as its orange-footed legs
unfold and its blue and yellow sides appear. This sudden splash of
color startles the predator and buys the frog time to get away.
Octopuses also abruptly give up on camouflage when they
are under attack. An alarmed octopus can burst into startling
colors or patterns in less than a second. A fish or turtle that sees

A flash of the red-eyed tree frog’s large red eyes can surprise predators,
and give it time to escape.
 Escape Artists 29

BLUFFING
Startle displays are often part of a behavior called bluffing.
Bluffing is a tactic used by animals to make them “look
tough” to a predator. An animal that may be completely
harmless acts as if it is actually quite ferocious and pos-
sibly dangerous. A predator may back off rather than risk
getting injured.
Many lizards combine a startle display with a bluff. A
chameleon facing a predator, for example, may suddenly
turn dark as it puffs up its body to look larger. It also hiss-
es, often revealing a brightly colored mouth.
The frilled lizard of Australia confronts predators with
a wide-open yellow or pink mouth. It adds to this dis-
play by opening huge flaps of skin on its neck, which are
splotched with red, orange, black, and white. The big frills
make the lizard look much larger and more intimidating.
Another Australian lizard, the bearded dragon, likewise
gapes its yellow-lined mouth and raises a beard of spiky
skin under its chin. The beard also turns blue-black.

its intended meal suddenly turn black or zebra-striped is often

scared away.
Many kinds of stick insects, grasshoppers, butterflies, moths,
and other insects also flash bright colors when fleeing a predator.
The colors disappear when they leap or fly to a new spot and fold
their wings. They then blend in with their surroundings as they
sit perfectly still.
Sometimes just a spot of color can do the trick. The shin-
gleback skink of Australia is a stumpy, short-legged lizard. Its
earth-tone colors usually hide it. However, the skink startles
potential predators by suddenly opening its mouth and sticking
out its thick, blue tongue. It also huffs and puffs, hissing like a
30 AnimAl deFenses

snake. Another Australian lizard that uses this startle display is

the blue-tongued skink, named for its turquoise tongue.
An Australian legless lizard called the excitable delma does
not have startling colors, but it still spooks predators with its
behavior. If bothered, this animal twists and turns its body vio-
lently as it slithers away. This odd behavior may startle and con-
fuse a predator.

deFlecting An AttAck
Startle displays and bluffs can help an animal escape in the nick
of time. Another tactic is to trick a predator into attacking the
“wrong” part of its prey or misjudging which direction the prey
will go as it tries to escape. An animal can live to see another
day if it can keep its head and body safe by getting a predator to
merely nip its tail instead.
Colors, markings, and behaviors that encourage a predator
to focus on the wrong end of its prey are called deflection dis-
plays because they redirect, or deflect, an attack.
Deflection displays often make use of eyespots. Unlike eye-
spots that are flashed to scare a predator, these eyespots show on
an animal’s hind end at all times. They draw a predator’s atten-
tion away from the prey’s head. As a predator lunges, it focuses
on the prominent eyespot at the prey’s tail end instead of on the
prey’s head. The prey’s actual eyes may be hidden among stripes
or spots.
Eyespots like these are common among fish, especially
coral-reef species such as butterfly fish. The four-eyed butterfly
fish, for example, has false eyes near its tail that look just like its
real eyes. The threadfin butterfly fish has a dark spot on a fin
toward its rear. A dark stripe on its head runs through its actual
eye, which make it less noticeable. Angled stripes on its sides also
guide a predator’s eye toward its tail. If attacked, each fish may
lose a bit of its tail, but escape with its life.
 Escape Artists 31

A juvenile emperor angelfi sh has an eyespot near its tail, which makes a
predator focus on the wrong end.

Juvenile emperor angelfish, another coral-reef species, are

covered with loops of white and light blue on a dark background.
These loops swirl around a large eyespot near the angelfish’s tail,
while its actual eyes disappear among the stripes on its head. A
predator’s gaze is naturally pulled to the wrong end.
Insects also use eyespots in their deflection displays. These
eyespots are always visible, not like the eyespots used to startle
predators. They are also smaller and closer to the wings’ edges.
Many species of butterfl ies sport such eyespots on their
hind wings. A bird that snaps at the wrong end of such a but-
terfly leaves notches in the wings but loses out on a meal. Some
32 AnimAl deFenses

butterfl ies have hind wings tipped with fake legs and antennae.
Scientists have noticed that some of these butterfl ies will even
creep backward along a stem for a second or two after landing,
which might help fool a nearby predator. One butterfly found
in Malaysia has such a convincing “head” on its hind end that it
is sometimes called the back-to-front butterfly.
Other insects rely on false heads to dodge predators, too.
A lanternfly of Southeast Asia has antennae lookalikes dangling
from the ends of its wings near a pair of eyespots. When the
wings are folded, the lanternfly’s tail looks like a head. The insect
even walks backward when it senses danger. Some lanternflies
turn this trick around and have heads that look like tails.
The giant desert centipede of the southwestern United
States is not an insect, but it uses the false-head trick, too. Its
tail end looks just like its head, right down to antennae-like at-
tachments. If a predator grabs the centipede’s hind end because
it mistakes it for the head, the centipede can twist around and
bite it.
The shingleback skink, a lizard of Australia, also uses this
tactic. Its stumpy head and tail look nearly identical. A predator
that grabs the wrong “head” will be surprised to see the skink
scurry off in the opposite direction.
Many snakes also use the two-headed trick. They roll up in
a ball and hide their heads in their coils when under attack. Then
they wave their tails to threaten the predator and deflect its at-
tack. These snakes sometimes have bright colors on their tails
that enhance this trick. Southeast Asian snakes called kraits, for
example, wave red tails.
The ring-necked snake of North America coils its tail to dis-
play the bright orange-red underside. The color and coiling can
distract a predator. In Africa, the shovel-snouted snake coils its
tail, too. Other kinds of snakes even jab their tails at their attack-
ers as if they were going to bite them.
 Escape Artists 33

Tail markings are common among animals, and some scien-

tists are taking a second look at them to see which ones may be
used as deflection displays. The black tip on a weasel’s tail, for
example, may help trick a hawk into trying to grab the skinny tail
instead of the body or head.

LOSING LIMBS AND TAILS

Some animals whose tails are grabbed have a surprise in store
for their attackers. Shockingly, their tails break off while their
owners escape.
Many North American species of skinks, for example, have
bright blue tails when they are young. A skink’s blue tail works as
a deflection display to protect its head. But if a predator actually
seizes the tail, it breaks off. The skink runs away, leaving its tail
wriggling and squirming behind it. The predator gets nothing
but a bony mouthful. The skink’s tail later grows back.
The broken-tail trick is used by many kinds of lizards, even
ones that do not have brightly colored tails. Geckos, anoles, and
iguanas all can shed their tails. This is also true of some legless
lizards, which are called “glass snakes” because of the way their
tails shatter when they break. The predator doesn’t break these
lizards’ tails: The lizards do it themselves. The movement of mus-
cles in the tail causes one of the tailbones to snap in half.
Some rodents can also shed part of their tails. Spiny rats,
which live in parts of South and Central America, have tails that
break off. Gerbils and some species of rats and mice lose the
outer layer of skin and fur on their tails. The spiny rats are left
with stumps, but rodents that shed their tails’ covering lose the
rest of the tail later. Unlike lizards, rodents do not grow back the
missing parts.
Tails are not the only body parts shed by animals. Some
animals dispose of their limbs instead. Some species of octopus
34 AnimAl deFenses

can release some of their arms if they are attacked. The wrig-
gling arms distract the predator and let the prey escape. Large
tropical centipedes also toss off legs if they feel threatened.
The lost legs writhe and even make squeaky noises to distract
predators. Octopuses grow new limbs. Centipedes don’t, but
they have so many legs that the loss of a few doesn’t harm
them.
A crab also can drop a claw or leg if attacked. Some species
pinch their attackers first and then release the pinched claw. The
crab runs away while the predator frantically tries to remove the
painful claw. Lobsters also release their claws in this way. Crabs
and lobsters replace the claws over time as they molt and grow
new outer coverings called exoskeletons.
Insects and spiders, such as the daddy longlegs, have legs
that are easily pulled off by predators. They do not grow new
legs, but get around just fine with the remaining ones.
Some geckos save their skins by losing them. These geck-
os are covered with an outer layer of skin that is only loosely
connected to the skin underneath. The outer layer slips off if a
predator grabs them. The gecko scurries away as if it had simply
popped out of a sleeping bag.
Birds cannot shed their skins, but they can lose feathers.
Normally, a bird’s feathers cannot easily be pulled out. However,
a predator that grabs a bird’s tail is often left with a mouthful
of feathers. This feather loss is called fright molting. Some sci-
entists think it may help a bird wriggle out of the clutches of an
owl or other predator, just as a butterfly sheds wing scales as it
struggles to escape a spider’s web. They also think that a bird can
fright molt in midair, leaving a burst of feathers behind it that
might deflect a hawk’s attack.
Though many animals lose parts of their outsides to defend
themselves, some species of sea cucumbers lose their insides in-
stead. These plump, slippery ocean animals usually are protected
 escape Artists 35

by sticky mucus covering their bodies. If a sea cucumber is at-

tacked, it expels its internal organs from its hind end. The sticky
guts can trap a crab or startle a bigger predator. Then the sea
cucumber creeps away while its attacker either struggles with the
messy organs or eats them. Within a few weeks, the sea cucum-
ber grows new organs.

plAying deAd
A variety of animals escape death by playing dead. This defense
is called death feigning. Animals that play dead may seem as if
they are offering themselves up on a platter. Yet, many predators
hunt prey in response to movement. Many animals also do not
eat prey that they have not killed. By playing dead, an animal
may make its attacker lose interest. A predator may also get care-
less if its prey seems to be dead. It may relax its grip and give the
prey a chance to escape.
Many insects are known to feign death. These insect actors
include many species of beetles, grasshoppers, stick insects, and
caterpillars. Some insects curl up and remain still. Others let go
of branches and drop to the ground. Certain reptiles, such as
chameleons and many tree snakes, also drop to the ground and
lie still.
Many birds also go limp when caught by a predator, and
then instantly “come back to life” at the fi rst chance for escape.
Baby ospreys play dead in the nest when their mother gives a
warning call.
Going limp and lying still works well for many animals, but
a few species deserve Academy Awards for their death-feigning
skills. Among these “best actors” are the opossum and the hog-
nose snake, both found in North America.
An opossum defends itself at first by growling, hissing, and
showing its teeth. If this does not frighten away the dog or other
36 AnimAl deFenses

The opossum keeps predators away by curling up and playing dead. This
pretend act is the reason for the phrase “playing possum,” which means
to fake being dead.
 escape Artists 3

SEA SLUGS VERSUS

SPINY LOBSTER
octopuses, squids, and cuttlefish squirt ink as they escape.
scientists assumed this was a defense behavior. now, be-
cause of a recent discovery in sea slugs, researchers are
taking a closer look at the ink.
certain species of sea slugs also produce inky clouds.
the ink was known to taste bad. now, however, scientists
know that the ink changes the behavior of a predator called
the spiny lobster. chemicals in the ink seem to muddle the
lobster’s actions. An “inked” lobster gives up its attack on
a slug. it may groom itself and begin digging and grabbing
at the sand with its claws, as if it were feeding. perhaps
other animals’ ink also affects their predators in ways yet
to be discovered.

animal that is threatening it, the opossum “drops dead.” It rolls

onto its side, rounds its back, and goes limp. Its tongue lolls from
its open mouth. Its eyes close halfway—just enough to let it keep
track of its predator. An opossum will keep playing dead even if
the predator bites it. It does not revive until the predator goes
away and the coast is clear again.
Hognose snakes also use other defenses before resorting to
playing dead. A frightened hognose snake will first raise its head,
spread its neck wide, and hiss. Then, it will produce a bad smell.
If this act fails, the snake flips onto its back and lies still. Like
the opossum, it opens its mouth and lets its tongue hang out. If
it is picked up and placed on its belly, it will keep flipping onto its
back and playing dead.
 3
Animal Armor

A giAnt reptile lumbers through a patch of low-growing

plants. It swings its head to the side to snatch a mouthful of
leaves. The head is covered with flat, bony plates. Sharp tri-
angles stick out from the sides like horns. Spikes also run down
the sides of its broad, domed back, which is shingled with bony
plates.
This spiky, armored reptile is an ankylosaurus, a dinosaur
that lived about 70 million years ago. It was one of the most heav-
ily armored of all dinosaurs. The bony plates in its skin were
welded to its skeleton in some places. Even its eyelids contained
pads of bone.
Few meat-eating dinosaurs could take on this armored di-
nosaur, which was as long as a school bus and as heavy as a tank.
If a predator did try to sink its teeth into an ankylosaurus’s
armored back, the reptile had one more defense. It swung its
huge tail at its enemy—a tail that ended in a massive club of
fused bone.
Armor was a primary form of defense for prehistoric animals.
Today, many animals still use it. Sharp spikes and spines, tough
bony plates, shells, and thick skin help protect animals from the
teeth, jaws, and claws of predators.

38
 Animal Armor 39

spikes And spines

Most insects have thick outer skeletons that serve as armor.
These exoskeletons may also boast spikes and spines, which add
to an insect’s defense. Many species of crickets and grasshoppers,
for example, have spines on their legs and backs. Many ants have
spines in the middle of their back that protect them from other
insects’ nipping jaws. Praying mantises have spurs on their claws
that not only help in grabbing prey, but also inflict wounds on
predators.
Caterpillars typically have soft bodies. This makes them
tempting morsels for predators. But most caterpillars have other
ways to protect themselves. Some have spikes or spiny, hair-like

A caterpillar’s bristles, like those of this gypsy moth caterpillar, can be

used as a defense against predators.
40 AnimAl deFenses

bristles. Caterpillars can be so bristly that they appear to have

fur. The bristles irritate a predator’s skin and eyes. If a predator
accidentally inhales some bristles, they can hurt its nose, throat,
and lungs.
Other small animals have spines, spikes, and bristles, too.
The spined spider has an array of big, red spines on its body. Mil-
lipedes have bundles of barbed bristles along their bodies and on
their hind ends. These bristles come off and get stuck in the faces
and jaws of ants and other predators.
Large spiders called tarantulas also defend themselves with
bristles. A tarantula uses two of its hind legs to rub bristles off its
abdomen, which sends hundreds of the tiny barbed bristles at the
attacker. The bristles irritate its eyes, nose, and mouth.
Spikes and spines also protect animals that live underwa-
ter. The tiny young, or larvae, of crabs have spines that help
them float while also repelling fish. Likewise, spiny lobsters are
protected by spines that line their antennae and point forward
along their shells. The crown-of-thorns sea star is also spiny.
This sea star has as many as 19 arms, with sturdy pink or yel-
low spines poking out of its orange, red, and purple skin. The
spines not only pierce skin, but also deliver a dose of painful
venom.
Sea urchins are like living pincushions. Their hard, round
bodies bristle with spines. An urchin uses its spines to help it
move. The sharp spines also keep many predators at bay. Some
sea urchins’ spines are connected to glands that make venom.
Long-spined hatpin urchins have venomous spines that can be
up to 12 inches (30 cm) long. Some species of fish and jellyfish
hide in hatpin urchins.
Stonefish have spines connected to venom glands, too. These
are well-camouflaged fish that lie on the seabed in some tropical
waters. Their spines pierce and kill predators that grab them.
Surgeonfish, which also live in tropical waters, have a pair of
 Animal Armor 41

Sea urchins, like this common sea urchin found along the coast of Scot-
land, use their bristles for moving as well as defense.

razor-like spines on either side of the tail. The fish slashes at at-
tackers with these spines.
Sticklebacks are named for the spines that stick up on their
backs. A stickleback can lock these spines in an upright position.
The number of spines varies, as shown by their names, which
range from three- to fifteen-spined stickleback.
The porcupine fish’s name is likewise a clue to its defense.
This fish is covered with sharp spines. When threatened, the
fish inflates its body with water, and the spines stick out in all
directions. This makes the fish too big for some predators to
42 AnimAl deFenses

swallow. It startles other predators, which may decide not to

tackle the suddenly enlarged prey.
A variety of lizards also wear spike-studded armor. The
well-named thorny devil resembles a miniature dragon as it
strolls across the Australian sand, looking for ants to eat. Spikes
of many sizes jut from its legs, sides, tail, back, and head. De-
spite its name, a thorny lizard is not aggressive. If threatened, it
tucks its head between its front legs. This makes a large, spiky
bump on its neck stick out—a bump that looks like an even
more unappetizing head than the lizard’s actual one.
Just as prickly are the horned lizards of dry lands and des-
erts in parts of Mexico and the southwestern United States. A

This thorny devil shows off its spikes of many sizes as it walks along a
street in the Northern Territory, Australia.
 Animal Armor 43

horned lizard has spines running down its sides, back, and tail.
Strong, sharp horns jut from its head, making it look like a tiny
triceratops. If a predator threatens it, a horned lizard puffs up its
body so that its spines stick out. It also turns its head to present
its horns. Some species can also squirt blood from the corners of
their eyes. The blood can shoot out up to 3 feet (1 m). The blood
tastes bad, so the squirt both surprises and disgusts a predator.
The armadillo lizard of southern Africa is also spiky. It
makes the most of its spikes by rolling into a ball and grabbing
its tail in its mouth when threatened. This turns the lizard into
a prickly doughnut.
Mammals also make use of spines for protection. Porcupines,
for example, fend off predators with spines called quills. There
are about 25 species of porcupine. About half of them are found
in Europe, Asia, and Africa. The rest are found in Central and
South America, with one species living in North America.
A North American porcupine is covered with about 30,000
long, sharp quills. The quills range from half an inch (1.3 cm) to
5 inches (12.7 cm) long. A porcupine warns enemies before they
attack. It lowers its head, lifts its tail, and raises its quills and
rattles them. It also clacks its teeth, stamps its feet, and gives off
a very strong smell from a patch of skin on its back.
If the attacker persists, the porcupine will back up toward
it and whack it with its tail. The quills, which are barbed at the
end, pop off the porcupine and stick in the attacker’s skin. They
are painful and can actually drill deeper into skin and muscles
over time.
The African crested porcupine also warns predators not to
mess with it. It shakes its tail, making a loud rattling noise with a
clump of special, hollow quills. This porcupine also raises quills
on its back that can be up to 20 inches (50 cm) long and are boldly
striped in black and white. As a last resort, it will run sideways or
backward to jab its quills into its foe.
44 AnimAl deFenses

A young lion tries to fl ip over an African crested porcupine in order

to kill it in South Africa, where porcupines are the principal diet of
Kalahari lions.

Hedgehogs are also prickly. A European hedgehog has about

5,000 short, sharp spines. Unlike a porcupine’s quills, hedgehog
spines do not come out of the skin when used for jabbing.
A hedgehog usually flees or hides in the face of danger. If
it is cornered, it raises its spines and then rolls into a ball, pro-
tecting its soft belly and its head. A hedgehog can stay rolled
up for many hours, and a predator is likely to give up prodding
the unresponsive, prickly ball. An uncurled hedgehog, however,
may leap backward into a predator or thrust its spiny body into
its face.
Spines also protect spiny anteaters called echidnas. Echid-
nas are Australian monotremes (egg-laying mammals) that eat
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another committing him to the inquisitor’s torch, or entombing him in
the Bastille. And the principle indestructible after all—some minds
always who must be religious mystically or not at all.
Atherton. I thought we might this evening enquire into the causes
which tend continually to reproduce this religious phenomenon. You
have suggested some already. Certain states of society have always
fostered it. There have been times when all the real religion existing
in a country appears to have been confined to its mystics.
Willoughby. In such an hour, how mysticism rises and does its
deeds of spiritual chivalry——
Gower. Alas! Quixotic enough, sometimes.
Willoughby. How conspicuous, then, grows this inward devotion!—
even the secular historian is compelled to say a word about it——
Atherton. And a sorry, superficial verdict he gives, too often.
Willoughby. How loud its protest against literalism, formality,
scholasticism, human ordinances! what a strenuous reaction against
the corruptions of priestcraft!
Atherton. But, on the other side, Willoughby—and here comes the
pathetic part of its romance—mysticism is heard discoursing
concerning things unutterable. It speaks, as one in a dream, of the
third heaven, and of celestial experiences, and revelations fitter for
angels than for men. Its stammering utterance, confused with excess
of rapture labouring with emotions too huge or abstractions too
subtile for words, becomes utterly unintelligible. Then it is
misrepresented: falls a victim to reaction in its turn; the delirium is
dieted by persecution, and it is consigned once more to secrecy and
silence.
Gower. There, good night, and pleasant dreams to it!
Willoughby. It spins still in its sleep its mingled tissue of good and
evil.
Atherton. A mixture truly. We must not blindly praise it in our hatred
of formalism. We must not vaguely condemn it in our horror of
extravagance.
Gower. What you have both been saying indicates at once three of
the causes we are in search of,—indeed, the three chief ones, as I
suppose: first of all, the reaction you speak of against the frigid
formality of religious torpor; then, heart-weariness, the languishing
longing for repose, the charm of mysticism for the selfish or the
weak; and, last, the desire, so strong in some minds, to pierce the
barriers that hide from man the unseen world—the charm of
mysticism for the ardent and the strong.
Atherton. That shrinking from conflict, that passionate yearning
after inaccessible rest, how universal is it; what wistful utterance it
has found in every nation and every age; how it subdues us all, at
times, and sinks us into languor.
Willoughby. Want of patience lies at the root—who was it said that
he should have all eternity to rest in?
Atherton. Think how the traditions of every people have
embellished with their utmost wealth of imagination some hidden
spot upon the surface of the earth, which they have pourtrayed as
secluded from all the tumult and the pain of time—a serene Eden—
an ever-sunny Tempe—a vale of Avalon—a place beyond the
sterner laws and rougher visitations of the common world—a
fastness of perpetual calm, before which the tempests may blow
their challenging horns in vain—they can win no entrance. Such, to
the fancy of the Middle Age, was the famous temple of the Sangreal,
with its dome of sapphire, its six-and-thirty towers, its crystal
crosses, and its hangings of green samite, guarded by its knights,
girded by impenetrable forest, glittering on the onyx summit of Mount
Salvage, for ever invisible to every eye impure, inaccessible to every
failing or faithless heart. Such, to the Hindoo, was the Cridavana
meadow, among the heights of Mount Sitanta, full of flowers, of the
song of birds, the hum of bees—‘languishing winds and murmuring
falls of waters.’ Such was the secret mountain Kinkadulle, celebrated
by Olaus Magnus, which stood in a region now covered only by
moss or snow, but luxuriant once, in less degenerate days, with the
spontaneous growth of every pleasant bough and goodly fruit. What
places like these have been to the popular mind, even such a refuge
for the Ideal from the pursuit of the Actual—that the attainment of
Ecstasy, the height of Contemplation, the bliss of Union, has been
for the mystic.
Gower. So those spiritual Lotos-eaters will only

——hearken what the inner spirit sings,

There is no joy but calm;

or, in their ‘fugitive and cloistered virtue,’ as Milton calls it, say,

——let us live and lie reclined

On the hills like gods together, careless of mankind.

Atherton. Some; not all, however. Neither should we suppose that

even those who have sunk to such a state——
Willoughby. They would say—risen—
Atherton. Be it by sinking or rising, they have not been brought to
that pass without a conflict. From life’s battle-field to the hospital of
the hermitage has been but a step for a multitude of minds. Hiding
themselves wounded from the victor (for the enemy they could not
conquer shall not see and mock their sufferings), they call in the aid
of an imaginative religionism to people their solitude with its glories.
The Prometheus chained to his rock is comforted if the sea nymphs
rise from the deep to visit him, and Ocean on his hippogriff draws
near. And thus, let the gliding fancies of a life of dreams, and
Imagination, the monarch of all their main of thought, visit the sorrow
of these recluses, and they think they can forget the ravages of that
evil which so vexed them once. Hence the mysticism of the
visionary. He learns to crave ecstasies and revelations as at once his
solace and his pride.
Gower. Is it not likely, too, that some of these mystics, in seasons of
mental distress of which we have no record, tried Nature as a
resource, and found her wanting? Such a disappointment would
make that ascetic theory which repudiates the seen and actual,
plausible and even welcome to them. After demanding of the natural
world what it has not to bestow, they would hurry to the opposite
extreme, and deny it any healing influence whatever. Go out into the
woods and valleys, when your heart is rather harassed than bruised,
and when you suffer from vexation more than grief. Then the trees
all hold out their arms to you to relieve you of the burthen of your
heavy thoughts; and the streams under the trees glance at you as
they run by, and will carry away your trouble along with the fallen
leaves; and the sweet-breathing air will draw it off together with the
silver multitudes of the dew. But let it be with anguish or remorse in
your heart that you go forth into Nature, and instead of your speaking
her language, you make her speak yours. Your distress is then
infused through all things, and clothes all things, and Nature only
echoes, and seems to authenticate, your self-loathing or your
hopelessness. Then you find the device of your sorrow on the argent
shield of the moon, and see all the trees of the field weeping and
wringing their hands with you, while the hills, seated at your side in
sackcloth, look down upon you prostrate, and reprove you like the
comforters of Job.
Atherton. Doubtless, many of these stricken spirits suffered such
disappointment at some early period of their history. Failure was
inevitable, and the disease was heightened. How Coleridge felt this
when he says so mournfully in his Ode to Dejection,—

It were a vain endeavour

Though I should gaze for ever
On that green light that lingers in the west:
I may not hope from outward forms to win
The passion and the life whose fountains are within.

Willoughby. The feeling of the other class we spoke of—the men of

bolder temperament—has been this: ‘I am a king and yet a captive;
submit I cannot; I care not to dream; I must in some way act.’
Gower. And, like Rasselas, a prince and yet a prisoner in the
narrow valley, such a man, in his impatience, takes counsel of a
philosopher, who promises to construct a pair of wings wherewith he
shall overfly the summits that frown around him. The mystagogue is
a philosopher such as Rasselas found, with a promise as large and a
result as vain.
Atherton. Hence the mysticism of the theurgist, who will pass the
bounds of the dreaded spirit-world; will dare all its horrors to seize
one of its thrones; and aspires—a Manfred or a Zanoni—to lord it
among the powers of the air.
Willoughby. And of the mysticism of the theosophist, too, whose
science is an imagined inspiration, who writes about plants and
minerals under a divine afflatus, and who will give you from the
resources of his special revelation an explanation of every mystery.
Gower. The explanation, unhappily, the greatest mystery of all.
Atherton. Curiously enough, the Bible has been made to support
mysticism by an interpretation, at one time too fanciful, at another
too literal.
Willoughby. We may call it, perhaps, the innocent cause of
mysticism with one class, its victim with another: the one, running
into mysticism because they wrongly interpreted the Bible; the other
interpreting it wrongly because they were mystics. The mystical
interpreters of school and cloister belong to the latter order, and
many a Covenanter and godly trooper of the Commonwealth to the
former.
Gower. Not an unlikely result with the zealous Ironside—his reading
limited to his English Bible and a few savoury treatises of divinity—
pouring over the warlike story of ancient Israel, and identifying
himself with the subjects of miraculous intervention, divine behest,
and prophetic dream. How glorious would those days appear to such
a man, when angels went and came among men; when, in the midst
of his husbandry or handicraft, the servant of the Lord might be
called aside to see some ‘great sight:’ when the fire dropped sudden
down from heaven on the accepted altar, like a drop spilt from the lip
of an angel’s fiery vial full of odours; when the Spirit of the Lord
moved men at times, as Samson was moved in the camp of Dan,
between Zorah and Eshtaol; and when the Lord sent men hither and
thither by an inward impulse, as Elijah was sent from Gilgal to
Bethel, and from Bethel back to Jericho, and from Jericho on to
Jordan. Imagination would reproduce those marvels in the world
within, though miracles could no longer cross his path in the world
without. He would believe that to him also words were given to
speak, and deeds to do; and that, whether in the house, the council,
or the field, he was the Spirit’s chosen instrument and messenger.
Atherton. This is the practical and active kind of mysticism so
prevalent in that age of religious wars, the seventeenth century.
Willoughby. The monks took the opposite course. While the
Parliamentarian soldier was often seen endeavouring to adapt his
life to a mistaken application of the Bible, the ascetic endeavoured to
adapt the Bible to his mistaken life.
Gower. The New Testament not authorising the austerities of a
Macarius or a Maximus, tradition must be called in——
Willoughby. And side by side with tradition, mystical interpretation.
The Bible, it was pretended, must not be understood as always
meaning what it seems to mean.
Atherton. It then becomes the favourite employment of the monk to
detect this hidden meaning, and to make Scripture render to tradition
the same service which the mask rendered to the ancient actor, not
only disguising the face, but making the words go farther. To be thus
busied was to secure two advantages at once; he had occupation for
his leisure, and an answer for his adversaries.
 CHAPTER V.

Oh! contemplation palls upon the spirit,

Like the chill silence of an autumn sun:
While action, like the roaring south-west wind,
Sweeps, laden with elixirs, with rich draughts
Quickening the wombed earth.

Guta. And yet what bliss,

When, dying in the darkness of God’s light,
The soul can pierce these blinding webs of nature,
And float up to the nothing, which is all things—
The ground of being, where self-forgetful silence
Is emptiness,—emptiness fulness,—fulness God,—
Till we touch Him, and, like a snow-flake, melt
Upon his light-sphere’s keen circumference!

The Saint’s Tragedy.

Gower. Thanks, if you please, not reproaches. I was calling help for
you, I was summoning the fay to your assistance, to determine the
best possible order of your mystics.
Willoughby. The fay?
Gower. The fay. Down with you in that arm-chair, and sit quietly.
Know that I was this morning reading Andersen’s Märchen—all
about Ole-Luk-Oie, his ways and works—the queer little elf. Upstairs
he creeps, in houses where children are, softly, softly, in the dusk of
the evening, with what do you think under his arm?—two umbrellas,
one plain, the other covered with gay colours and quaint figures. He
makes the eyes of the children heavy, and when they are put to bed,
holds over the heads of the good children the painted umbrella,
which causes them to dream the sweetest and most wonderful
dreams imaginable; but over the naughty children he holds the other,
and they do not dream at all. Now, thought I, let me emulate the
profundity of a German critic. Is this to be treated as a simple child’s
tale? Far from it. There is a depth of philosophic meaning in it. Have
not the mystics been mostly childlike natures? Have not their lives
been full of dreams, manifold and strange—and they therefore, if
any, especial favourites of Ole-Luk-Oie? They have accounted their
dreams their pride and their reward. They have looked on the
sobriety of dreamlessness as the appropriate deprivation of privilege
consequent on carnality and ignorance; in other words, the non-
dreamers have been with them the naughty children. To learn life’s
lessons well is, according to them, to enjoy as a recompence the
faculty of seeing visions and of dreaming dreams. Here then is the
idea of mysticism. You have its myth, its legend. Ole-Luk-Oie is its
presiding genius. Now, Atherton, if you could but get hold of his
umbrella, the segments of that silken hemisphere, with its painted
constellations, would give you your divisions in a twinkling. That was
why I wanted him. But I do not see him letting himself down the
bellrope, or hear his tap at the door. I am afraid we must set to work
without him.
Willoughby. So be it. A local or historical classification of the
mystics is out of the question. I scarcely think you can find a
metaphysical one that will bear the test of application and be
practically serviceable. Then the division some adopt, of heterodox
and orthodox, saves trouble indeed, but it is so arbitrary. The Church
of Rome, from whom many of these mystics called heretical, dared
to differ, is no church at all in the true sense, and assuredly no
standard of orthodoxy. In addition to this I have a nervous antipathy
to the terms themselves; for, as I have a liking for becoming the
champion of any cause which appears to be borne down by
numbers, I find my friends who are somewhat heterodox, frequently
charging me with what is called orthodoxy, and those again who are
orthodox as often suspecting me of heterodoxy.
Atherton. Hear my proposed division. There are three kinds of
mysticism, theopathetic, theosophic, and theurgic. The first of these
three classes I will subdivide, if needful, into transitive and
intransitive.
Gower. Your alliteration is grateful to my ear; I hope you have not
strained a point to secure us the luxury.
Atherton. Not a hair’s breadth, I assure you.
Willoughby. Etymologically such a division has the advantage of
showing that all the forms of mysticism are developments of the
religious sentiment; that in all its varieties the relationship, real or
imaginary, which mysticism sustains to the Divine, is its primary
element;—that its widely differing aspects are all phases it presents
in its eccentric orbit about the central luminary of the Infinite.
Gower. Your theopathetic mysticism must include a very wide
range. By the term theopathetic you denote, of course, that
mysticism which resigns itself, in a passivity more or less absolute,
to an imagined divine manifestation. Now, one man may regard
himself as overshadowed, another as impelled by Deity. One mystic
of this order may do nothing, another may display an unceasing
activity. Whether he believes himself a mirror in whose quiescence
the Divinity ‘glasses himself;’ or, as it were, a leaf, driven by the
mighty rushing wind of the Spirit, and thus the tongue by which the
Spirit speaks, the organ by which God works—the principle of
passivity is the same.
Atherton. Hence my subdivision of this class of mystics into those
whose mysticism assumes a transitive character, and those with
whom mysticism consists principally in contemplation, in Quietism, in
negation, and so is properly called intransitive.
Willoughby. Yet some of those whose mysticism has been pre-
eminently negative, who have hated the very name of speculation,
and placed perfection in repose and mystical death, have mingled
much in active life. They appear to defy our arrangement.
Atherton. It is only in appearance. They have shrunk from carrying
out their theory to its logical consequences. Their activity has been a
bye-work. The diversities of character observable in the mysticism
which is essentially intransitive arise, not from a difference in the
principle at the root, but from varieties of natural temperament, of
external circumstances, and from the dissimilar nature or proportion
of the foreign elements incorporated.
Gower. It is clear that we must be guided by the rule rather than the
exception, and determine, according to the predominant element in
the mysticism of individuals, the position to be assigned them. If we
were to classify only those who were perfectly consistent with
themselves, we could include scarcely half-a-dozen names, and
those, by the way, the least rational of all, for the most thorough-
going are the madmen.
Atherton. The mysticism of St. Bernard, for example, in spite of his
preaching, his travels, his diplomacy, is altogether contemplative—
the intransitive mysticism of the cloister. His active labours were a
work apart.
Gower. Such men have been serviceable as members of society in
proportion to their inconsistency as devotees of mysticism. A heavy
charge this against their principle.
Willoughby. In the intransitive division of the theopathetic mysticism
you will have three such names as Suso, Ruysbrook, Molinos, and
all the Quietists, whether French or Indian.
Atherton. And in the transitive theopathy all turbulent prophets and
crazy fanatics. This species of mysticism usurps the will more than
the emotional part of our nature. The subject of it suffers under the
Divine, as he believes, but the result of the manifestation is not
confined to himself, it passes on to his fellows.
Gower. If you believe Plato in the Ion, you must range here all the
poets, for they sing well, he tells us, only as they are carried out of
themselves by a divine madness, and mastered by an influence
which their verse communicates to others in succession.
Willoughby. We must admit here also, according to ancient
superstition, the Pythoness on her tripod, and the Sibyl in her cave at
Cumæ, as she struggles beneath the might of the god:—
 Phœbi nondum patiens immanis in antro
Bacchatur vates, magnum si pectore possit
Excussisse Deum: tanto magis ille fatigat
Os rabidum, fera corda domans, fingitque premendo.

Atherton. I have no objection. According to Virgil’s description, the

poor Sibyl has earned painfully enough a place within the pale of
mysticism. But those with whom we have more especially to do in
this province are enthusiasts such as Tanchelm, who appeared in
the twelfth century, and announced himself as the residence of Deity;
as Gichtel, who believed himself appointed to expiate by his prayers
and penance the sins of all mankind; or as Kuhlmann, who traversed
Europe, the imagined head of the Fifth monarchy, summoning kings
and nobles to submission.
Gower. Some of these cases we may dismiss in a summary
manner. The poor brainsick creatures were cast on evil times indeed.
What we should now call derangement was then exalted into heresy,
and honoured with martyrdom. We should have taken care that
Kuhlmann was sent to an asylum, but the Russian patriarch burned
him, poor fellow.
Atherton. We must not forget, however, that this species of
mysticism has sometimes been found associated with the
announcement of vital truths. Look at George Fox and the early
Quakers.
Willoughby. And I would refer also to this class some of the milder
forms of mysticism, in which it is seen rather as a single morbid
element than as a principle avowed and carried out. Jung Stilling is
an instance of what I mean. You see him, fervent, earnest, and yet
weak; without forethought, without perseverance; vain and irresolute,
he changes his course incessantly, seeing in every variation of
feeling and of circumstance a special revelation of the Divine will.
Atherton. Add to this modification a kindred error, the doctrine of a
‘particular faith’ in prayer, so much in vogue in Cromwell’s court at
Whitehall. Howe boldly preached against it before the Protector
himself.
Willoughby. Now, Atherton, for your second division, theosophic
mysticism. Whom do you call theosophists?
Atherton. Among the Germans I find mysticism generally called
theosophy when applied to natural science. Too narrow a use of the
word, I think. We should have in that case scarcely any theosophy in
Europe till after the Reformation. The word itself was first employed
by the school of Porphyry. The Neo-Platonist would say that the
priest might have his traditional discourse concerning God
(theology), but he alone, with his intuition, the highest wisdom
concerning him.
Gower. I can’t say that I have any clear conception attached to the
word.
Atherton. You want examples? Take Plotinus and Behmen.
Gower. What a conjunction!
Atherton. Not so far apart as may appear. Their difference is one of
application more than of principle. Had Plotinus thought a metal or a
plant worth his attention, he would have maintained that concerning
that, even as concerning the infinite, all truth lay stored within the
recesses of his own mind. But of course he only cared about ideas.
Mystical philosophy is really a contradiction in terms, is it not?
Gower. Granted, since philosophy must build only upon reason.
Atherton. Very good. Then when philosophy falls into mysticism I
give it another name, and call it theosophy. And, on the other side, I
call mysticism, trying to be philosophical, theosophy likewise. That is
all.
Willoughby. So that the theosophist is one who gives you a theory
of God, or of the works of God, which has not reason, but an
inspiration of his own for its basis.
Atherton. Yes; he either believes, with Swedenborg and Behmen,
that a special revelation has unfolded to him the mystery of the
divine dispensations here or hereafter—laid bare the hidden
processes of nature, or the secrets of the other world; or else, with
Plotinus and Schelling, he believes that his intuitions of those things
are infallible because divine—subject and object being identical,—all
truth being within him. Thus, while the mystic of the theopathetic
species is content to contemplate, to feel, or to act, suffering under
Deity in his sublime passivity, the mysticism I term theosophic
aspires to know and believes itself in possession of a certain
supernatural divine faculty for that purpose.
Gower. You talk of mysticism trying to be philosophical; it does then
sometimes seek to justify itself at the bar of reason?
Atherton. I should think so—often: at one time trying to refute the
charge of madness and prove itself throughout rational and sober; at
another, using the appeal to reason up to a certain point and as far
as serves its purpose, and then disdainfully mocking at demands for
proof, and towering above argument, with the pretence of divine
illumination.
Willoughby. Some of these mystics, talking of reason as they do,
remind me of Lysander at the feet of Helena, protesting (with the
magic juice scarce dry upon his eyelids) that the decision of his
spell-bound faculties is the deliberate exercise of manly judgment—

The mind of man is by his reason swayed,

And reason says you are the worthier maid.

Gower. Now you come to Shakspeare, I must cap your quotation

with another: I fit those mystics Atherton speaks of as using reason
up to a certain point and then having done with it, with a motto from
the Winter’s Tale—much at their service. They answer, with young
enamoured Florizel, when Reason, like a grave Camillo, bids them
‘be advised’—
 I am; and by my fancy: if my reason
Will thereto be obedient, I have reason;
If not, my senses better pleased with madness
Do bid it welcome.

Atherton. To classify the mystics adequately, we should have a

terminology of dreams rich as that of Homer, and distinguish, as he
does, the dream-image of complete illusion from the half-conscious
dream between sleeping and waking;—ὄναρ from ὔπαρ. How
unanimous, by the way, would the mystics be in deriving ὄνειρον
from ὄνειαρ—dream from enjoyment.
Willoughby. To return from the poets to business; was not all the
science of the Middle Age theosophic rather than philosophic? Both
to mystical schoolmen and scholastic mystics the Bible was a book
of symbols and propositions, from which all the knowable was
somehow to be deduced.
Atherton. Most certainly. The mystical interpretation of Scripture
was their measuring-reed for the temple of the universe. The
difference, however, between them and Behmen would be this—that,
while both essayed to read the book of nature by the light of grace,
Behmen claimed a special revelation, a divine mission for unfolding
these mysteries in a new fashion; schoolmen, like Richard of St.
Victor, professed to do so only by the supernatural aid of the Spirit
illuminating the data afforded by the Church. And again, Behmen
differs from Schelling and modern theosophy in studying nature
through the medium of an external revelation mystically understood,
while they interpret it by the unwritten inward revelation of Intellectual
Intuition. I speak only of the difference of principle, not of result. But
no one will dispute that nearly every scientific enquiry of the Middle
Age was conducted on mystical principles, whether as regarded our
source of knowing or its method.
Willoughby. And what wonder? Does not Milton remind us that
Julian’s edict, forbidding Christians the study of heathen learning,
drove the two Apollinarii to ‘coin all the seven liberal sciences’ out of
the Bible? The jealous tyranny of the Papacy virtually perpetuated
the persecution of the Apostate. Every lamp must be filled with
church oil. Every kind of knowledge must exist only as a decoration
of the ecclesiastical structure. Every science must lay its foundation
on theology. See a monument attesting this, a type of the times, in
the cathedral of Chartres, covered with thousands of statues and
symbols, representing all the history, astronomy, and physics of the
age—a sacred encyclopædia transferred from the pages of Vincent
of Beauvais to the enduring stone, so to bid all men see in the
Church a Mirror of the Universe—a speculum universale. Who can
be surprised that by the aid of that facile expedient, mystical
interpretation, many a work of mortal brain should have been bound
and lettered as ‘Holy Bible,’ or that research should have simulated
worship, as some Cantab, pressed for time, may study a problem at
morning chapel?
Atherton. What interminable lengths of the fine-spun, gay-coloured
ribbons of allegory and metaphor has the mountebank ingenuity of
that mystical interpretation drawn out of the mouth of Holy Writ!
Gower. And made religion a toy—a tassel on the silken purse of the
spendthrift Fancy.
Willoughby. Granting, Atherton, your general position that the
undue inference of the objective from the subjective produces
mysticism, what are we to say of a man like Descartes, for example?
You will not surely condemn him as a mystic.
Atherton. Certainly, not altogether; reason holds its own with him—
is not swept away by the hallucinations of sentiment, or feeling, or
special revelation; but none of our powers act quite singly—nemo
omnibus horis sapit—a mystical element crops out here and there. I
think he carried too far the application of a principle based, in great
part at least, on truth. In his inference of the objective from the
subjective, I think he was so far right that our ability to conceive of a
Supreme Perfection affords a strong presumption that such a God
must exist. It is not to be supposed that the conception can
transcend the reality. His argument from within is a potent auxiliary of
the argument from without, if not by itself so all-sufficient as he
supposes. There are, too, I think, certain necessary truths which, by
the constitution of our mind, we cannot conceive as possibly other
than they are, when once presented to us from without. But we
surely should not on this account be justified in saying with the
mystic Bernard, that each soul contains an infallible copy of the
ideas in the Divine Mind, so that the pure in heart, in proportion as
they have cleansed the internal mirror, must in knowing themselves,
know also God. It must be no less an exaggeration of the truth to
say, with the philosopher Descartes, that certain notions of the laws
of Nature are impressed upon our minds, so that we may, after
reflecting upon them, discover the secrets of the universe. On the
strength of this principle he undertakes to determine exactly how
long a time it must have required to reduce chaos to order. The effort
made by Descartes to insulate himself completely from the external
world and the results of experience, was certainly similar in mode,
though very different in its object, from the endeavours after absolute
self-seclusion made by many of the mystics. The former sought to
detect by abstraction the laws of mind; the latter, to attain the vision
of God.
Gower. There is much more of mysticism discernible in some of the
systems which have followed in the path opened by Descartes. What
can be more favourable than Schelling’s Identity principle to the error
which confounds, rather than allies, physics and metaphysics,
science and theology?
Atherton. Behmen himself is no whit more fantastical in this way
than Oken and Franz Baader.
Gower. These theosophies, old and new, with their self-evolved
inexplicable explanations of everything, remind me of the
Frenchman’s play-bill announcing an exhibition of the Universal
Judgment by means of three thousand five hundred puppets. The
countless marionette figures in the brain of the theosophist—
Elements, Forms, Tinctures, Mothers of Nature, Fountain-spirits,
Planetary Potencies, &c., are made to shift and gesticulate
unceasingly, through all possible permutations and combinations,
and the operator has cried ‘Walk in!’ so long and loudly, that he
actually believes, while pulling the wires in his metaphysical
darkness, that the great universe is being turned and twitched after
the same manner as his painted dolls.
Willoughby. I must put in a word for men like Paracelsus and
Cornelius Agrippa. They helped science out of the hands of Aristotle,
baptized and spoiled by monks. Europe, newly-wakened, follows in
search of truth, as the princess in the fairy-tale her lover, changed
into a white dove; now and then, at weary intervals, a feather is
dropped to give a clue; these aspirants caught once and again a little
of the precious snowy down, though often filling their hands with
mere dirt, and wounding them among the briars. Forgive them their
signatures, their basilisks and homunculi, and all their restless,
wrathful arrogance, for the sake of that indomitable hardihood which
did life-long battle, single-handed, against enthroned prescription.
Atherton. With all my heart. How venial the error of their mysticism
(with an aim, at least, so worthy), compared with that of the
enervating Romanist theopathy whose ‘holy vegetation’ the
Reformers so rudely disturbed. On the eve of the Reformation you
see hapless Christianity, after vanquishing so many powerful
enemies, about to die by the hand of ascetic inventions and
superstitions, imaginary sins and imaginary virtues,—the shadowy
phantoms of monastic darkness; like the legendary hero Wolf-
Dietrich, who, after so many victories over flesh-and-blood
antagonists, perishes at last in a night-battle with ghosts.
Gower. The later mystical saints of the Romish calendar seem to
me to exhibit what one may call the degenerate chivalry of religion,
rather than its romance. How superior is Bernard to John of the
Cross! It is easy to see how, in a rough age of fist-law, the laws of
chivalry may inculcate courtesy and ennoble courage. But when
afterwards an age of treaties and diplomacy comes in—when no
Charles the Bold can be a match for the Italian policy of a Louis XI.—
then these laws sink down into a mere fantastic code of honour. For
the manly gallantry of Ivanhoe we have the euphuism of a Sir Piercie
Shafton. And so a religious enthusiasm, scarcely too fervent for a
really noble enterprise (could it only find one), gives birth, when
debarred from the air of action and turned back upon itself, to the
dreamy extravagances of the recluse, and the morbid ethical
punctilios of the Director.
Willoughby. The only further question is about your third division,
Atherton,—theurgic mysticism. We may let the Rabbinical Solomon
—mastering the archdæmon Aschmedai and all his host by the
divine potency of the Schemhamporasch engraven on his ring,
chaining at his will the colossal powers of the air by the tremendous
name of Metatron,—stand as an example of theurgy.
Gower. And Iamblichus, summoning Souls, Heroes, and the
Principalities of the upper sphere, by prayer and incense and awful
mutterings of adjuration.
Atherton. All very good; but hear me a moment. I would use the
term theurgic to characterize the mysticism which claims
supernatural powers generally,—works marvels, not like the black
art, by help from beneath, but as white magic, by the virtue of
talisman or cross, demi-god, angel, or saint. Thus theurgic mysticism
is not content, like the theopathetic, with either feeling or
proselytising; nor, like the theosophic, with knowing; but it must open
for itself a converse with the world of spirits, and win as its
prerogative the power of miracle. This broad use of the word makes
prominent the fact that a common principle of devotional
enchantment lies at the root of all the pretences, both of heathen and
of Christian miracle-mongers. The celestial hierarchy of Dionysius
and the benign dæmons of Proclus, the powers invoked by Pagan or
by Christian theurgy, by Platonist, by Cabbalist, or by saint, alike
reward the successful aspirant with supernatural endowments; and
so far Apollonius of Tyana and Peter of Alcantara, Asclepigenia and
St. Theresa, must occupy as religious magicians the same province.
The error is in either case the same—a divine efficacy is attributed to
rites and formulas, sprinklings or fumigations, relics or incantations,
of mortal manufacture.
Willoughby. It is not difficult to understand how, after a time, both
the species of mysticism we have been discussing may pass over
into this one. It is the dream of the mystic that he can elaborate from
the depth of his own nature the whole promised land of religious
truth, and perceive (by special revelation) rising from within, all its
green pastures and still waters,—somewhat as Pindar describes the
sun beholding the Isle of Rhodes emerging from the bottom of the
ocean, new-born, yet perfect, in all the beauty of glade and fountain,
of grassy upland and silver tarn, of marble crag and overhanging
wood, sparkling from the brine as after a summer shower. But alas,
how tardily arises this new world of inner wonders! It must be
accelerated—drawn up by some strong compelling charm. The
doctrine of passivity becomes impossible to some temperaments
beyond a certain pass. The enjoyments of the vision or the rapture
are too few and far between—could they but be produced at will!
Whether the mystic seeks the triumph of superhuman knowledge or
that intoxication of the feeling which is to translate him to the upper
world, after a while he craves a sign. Theurgy is the art which brings
it. Its appearance is the symptom of failing faith, whether in
philosophy or religion. Its glory is the phosphorescence of decay.
Atherton. Generally, I think it is; though it prevailed in the age of
the Reformation—borrowed, however, I admit, on the revival of
letters, from an age of decline.
 BOOK THE SECOND
EARLY ORIENTAL MYSTICISM