CORRESPONDENCE AND INFORMATION 



257 



tons of prehistoric monsters in our 

 museums. I might also have projected 

 the theory (very reasonable in view of 

 the kangaroo) that the nearer an ani- 

 mal is to primordial beasts, to di- 

 nosaurs, diplodoci and what the poet 

 Spencer calls "mighty monoscerosces 

 with unmeasured tails," the more apt 

 is he to have a huge and useful caudal 

 appendix. But when you demand an 

 answer to the cat, I am stumped ; I am 

 silent ; I lay my hand upon my mouth 

 lest I utter foolishness. I will patiently 

 listen, however, to ten different evolu- 

 tionists who give ten different expla- 

 nations of the matter. 



Thvis I have been told on good au- 

 thority that a cat's tail, like a dog's 

 tail, is very useful in keeping the ani- 

 mal's eyes or nose from freezing when 

 he curls him up to sleep in the bitter 

 winter weather. This explanation 

 pleased me greatly when I first heard 

 it ; for up to that time I had ignorantly 

 supposed that a tail was a kind of emo- 

 tional balance wheel, so to speak ; that 

 it was a primitive signal service, beinf^ 

 used chiefly for wig-wagging the ani- 

 mal's feelings, and that it was quite as 

 useful to me as to the creature that had 

 it, since I could surely tell when a cat 

 was angry or when a dog was pleased 

 by observing how he wagged his tail. 

 Then I was led to observe how foxes 

 and husky dogs curl their bushy tails 

 about their noses when they go to sleep 

 in the cold, and that a few cats seem 

 to make excellent use of their far ex- 

 tremeties in the same way. The new 

 theory seemed plausable, therefore, 

 and based upon the facts ; but the bot- 

 tom fell out of it when I found that 

 many cats which must sleep in the 

 snow (wild cats or bay lynxes, for ex- 

 ample) have no tails to speak of, while 

 Persian kittens, which once lived in a 

 warm climate and now sleep in a bas- 

 ket by the fire, grow tails of extraordi- 

 nary and most useless proportions. 



Again, I have been told that the cat's 

 long and sensitive tail is useful for 

 safety, giving instant warning wdien 

 the creature is approached or touched 

 from behind. But if I had been present 

 at creation and been consulted in the 

 matter, I might presumptuously have 

 suggested that the cat's tail be given 

 to the rabbit, who seems, in respect of 



safety at least, to have the greater need 

 of it.' 



All such explanations of the cat's tail 

 move me to append a second answer 

 to your interesting question ; namely, 

 that naturalists, like other people, are 

 generally inclined to assume a fact be- 

 fore they explain it. For most of us 

 are still unconsciously following the 

 old deductive system of philosophy, 

 which we thought was discarded long 

 ago, but which still has a stranglehold 

 upon our thinking. 



This system, you remember, starts 

 with a general principle or accepted 

 truth, and explains a multitude of de- 

 tails in the light of it. In the present 

 case it is assumed as a general prin- 

 ciple that "everything in nature has its 

 use." This is an accepted saying (I 

 think I have seen it frequently quoted 

 even in The Guide to Nature) and is 

 accepted so generally that it has be- 

 come a truism, like "Two straight lines 

 cannot enclose a space" and other fun- 

 damental propositions of geometry. 

 In consequence, our logic runs some- 

 what as follows : "Everything in na- 

 ture has its use ; a cat's tail is a thing 

 of nature ; therefore it is useful." 

 Whereupon your question follows as a 

 matter of course, and we exercise our 

 ingenuity or inventive faculty in an- 

 swering it. 



A more reasonable method, it seems 

 to me. would be to ask, not "What is 

 the use of a cat's tail?" but "Is the cat's 

 tail of any use?" The former question 

 blinds us by an assumption ; the latter 

 leaves the mind open for wisdom. 

 Asking the former we proceed to in- 

 vent reasons ; asking the latter we open 

 our eyes to discover what use the cat 

 makes of her tail. Nor will our dis- 

 covery be complete until we have a 

 good look at the Manx cat, which is 

 tailless. 



This commonly accepted principle 

 of ours, that everything in nature has 

 its use, seems to me to rest on very 

 shaky foundations. The sooner we for- 

 get it the sooner. I think, shall we 

 begin to see things as they are, not as 

 we would have them be in order to fit 

 our various assimiptions of a mechani- 

 cally evolved or made-to-order or 

 made-by-chance universe. Some things 

 in nature are doubtless "useful" in the 



