Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1911-01-13
THE PARADoXICAL CAT.
Least Understood Of Animals With
Which Man Has to Do.

. Least Understood Of Animals Witt
8 Which Man Has to Do.
4 The nature of the cat is material TO
, superstition, not for explanation. Nal
is the paragon Of animals-a wei
e known quotation. The cat Is the par
adox-a quotation from a quite anony
nous author. Man Is either civilized
8 or savage. Cats are both or either, ac
r cording to circumstances; whicl
means, as they please. They are do
: mesticated, but it Is mistake to cal
tween cats and other animals domesti
Gated is that man has not domesticateC
, them; they have domesticated them
, selves, and entirely for their own ben.
eft, not mans. Man Is in the world
J for the comfort, convenience ant
pleasure of cats; and man was made
for the cat, not the cat for man. Cal
and man are in leonine partnership
where one takes all the profits and the
other bears all the losses and the cal
is Leo.
Not one pleasure or useful service
for man alone has 1t ever been possi-
BILE to extort from the creature. She
catches no mice for man. Could ever
human ingenuity compel It? You may
starve her; but hunger will not do It,
Feed her we'll and she will catch mice
as a luxury for herself, not as a SER
vice for you. Once she hunted in the
wilds for hunger, as man did. Now
she hunts for pleasure, as civilized man
shoots his hosts birds; and both must
have well breakfasted.
Simply because she is beautiful and
profitless, man has lavished on the cat
attention and admiration, and has
worshiped and even loved her. She
disproves the philosophy that the
beautiful is the useful, and the trans
cendentalism of the poet who, forget
ting the cat, tells us that beauty Is
truth; truth beauty. The beauty of
the cat Is gliding subtlety, and nature
revealed herself Mephistophelian when
she evolved the cat.
Man is fascinated by two types Of
animal life; the innocent and soft, and
the predatory and cruel. He loves the
| innocence of many birds and beasts;
| but he proves his essential nature by
| encouraging the cat on his hearth.
| She epitomizes there the fierce quail
ties of all the cat race, and is only pos
| sible because she Is the weakest of
her tribe. She brings the air Of
the wilds into the household. Our
| mignon reflects our own innate
wildness and resistance to restraint
which still survives civilization
though we have almost given up
the struggle. Have our cats some
scorn of US for this? We suspect 1t.
They have succeeded and we have
failed; and we only obtain the COM
forts Of civilization by sacrificing our
selves. If 1t were possible, men, too,
thinks grimalkin, would be frankly
selfish, Indifferent and individualistic
as she is, and would concede nothing
against their immediate interest and
pleasure. We would like to ignore
conscience, and dare not. We must
compromise with altruism; but our
cat will have none of it. All other ami
mails become more or less abject by
their connection with man. Their will
Is broken and we teach them the slave
morality Of human society. But to
control the will of cat Is like at
tempting to catch quicksilver with the
fingers. The cat Is the superman who
has no human feebleness. Neitzsche
must have studied the cat. Cats will
play no monkey or dog tricks for our
amusement. Men do that to live or
prosper, and caper or lie down, not
following their own moods, but to
catch the eye Of one who holds the
key Of the cupboard. The self-respect
Of the cat is maintained intact. The
contempt Is evident Of the cat for the
dog; a vulgar, servile creature who
submits to caprice and commands and
humiliates himself for a favor or a
fault-even for the faults of his mas
ter.
It is marvellous aloofness and self
centredness that the cat has lived for
ages in a close connection that has
never become intimacy with man and
the dog, and has remained unaffected
in temperament and habits "The dog
will come when he Is called; the cat
will walk away" sings a primitive
poet. More probably she will not
vouchsafe you so much recognition but
will remain enshrouded in profound
inattention. The call is a claim to pro-
prietorship, and the cat has practiced
a consummate passive resistance to
that for millenniums. Let the call
bring something within the ambit Of
her own inclinations, and you will get
attention quickly enough; she remains
uncompromised. Cats render no SER
vice for love or in requital Of love.
Some imagine they do; but this is no
evidence against the cat. Cats would
sneer at the suggestion: as men and
women do who receive more love than
they win, and are, like cats, more or
less what alienists call morally in
sane.
For cats are iinpervious to moral
lessons and discipline, and man has
not imposed on them any such shad-
owy copy of his own moral code as he
has imposed on other animals who
dwell with him and are in his service.
Any animal but the cat, with sufficient
intellect for man to talk to, may be
moralized in various ways according to
mans standard. She may be taught
not to steal, as she is in the bird-shops; |
but she never shows signs Of contri-