GEOGRAPHY, ANTIQUITIES, AND STATISTICS. 313 



of the cat) to man, the tie between the cat and man is a double 

 one, he being as important to her as she to him. 



And this it is which determines the relation of cats to our do- 

 mestic life. They are not allies and companions, like dogs. They 

 make no attempt to take a part in human affairs, as dogs do. They 

 undertake no responsibilities of guarding the houses, or protect- 

 ing the persons, or joining in the sports of man. They will not 

 disturb themselves 'if burglars break into the dwelling, or if vio- 

 lence assaults their protectors. They are not, like dogs, curious 

 of suspicious characters, furious against uninvited strangers. 

 Nor are they like dogs in the welcome they give to change, and 

 the joy with which they transfer themselves to fresh fields and 

 pastures. They are bound to men only as birds are bound to the 

 forest, as affording the conditions under which they can most 

 conveniently live ; not as having sympathies with them, but as 

 providing the warm nooks, the scraps of food, and the moral 

 influence by which they are saved from want and protected from 

 their natural enemies. 



You will see dogs full of pride at the accomplishment of their 

 little tasks, and looking up to men for recognition. But there is 

 nothing of this about the cat. If she catches a mouse, she is ex- 

 cited, but not proud. She looks for no praise ; her carnivorous 

 instinct is its own reward. She will, indeed, often attach herself 

 to individuals, and in that case greatly enjoys to be fondled ; but 

 this is rather due to the keen appreciation of protection and pat- 

 ronage, and the tokens thereof, than to purely personal prefer- 

 ences. This only specimen of a domestic beast of prey (or at 

 least the only one domesticated exactly because it is a beast of 

 prey), and yet always accounted more domestic, and indeed more 

 closely associated locally with home than the dog, which is not a 

 beast of prey, seems entirely unaware of what Dr. Rolleston calls 

 her " functional " relation to man. She may dimly know that she 

 needs him, but has no idea that he needs her, and hence, no doubt, 

 the complete abandon and restfulness of her domestic character. 

 The dog is always straining upward. He feels the electric power 

 of human influence. His duties to mankind are duties of moral 

 selection, of true loyalty, and of fierce antagonism. But the cat 

 is a pure creature of natural selection. She is selected by man for 

 encouragement, because the mice are selected by her for destruc- 

 tion. 



One great interest of the cat, considered in relation to the phi- 

 losophy of civilization, is the entire failure of Mr. Buckle's law to 

 account for her semi-civilization. Mr. Buckle held, we know, 

 that the accumulation, of new knowledge was the " one sole " 

 cause of civilization, that civilization goes on pari passu with 

 the accumulation of knowledge. And this theory might fairly be 

 supposed to apply to the civilization of the dog, the horse, and 

 even, perhaps, the parrot. There is no doubt that what these 

 creatures learn from man is, in some measure, at least, the cause 

 of their milder nature. A dog is always high or low in the scale 

 of moral affections in some proportion we will not say in exact 

 proportion to its intelligent curiosity and .interest in affairs. 



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