Ancestry of the Cat 



399 



Persian breeds of today. Pallas' cat 

 has long, soft fur of a light whitish-grey 

 color, and a short ringed tail, and is 

 slightly smaller than the Egyptian cat. 

 It ma}' be supposed that careful crossing 

 and selection lightened the color of the 

 hair still further, and eliminated the 

 conspicuous rings from the tail. 



In every country to which the 

 Egyptian cats were taken, crossing 

 probably took place between the new- 

 comer and the indigenous cats already 

 inhabiting the locality. A great number 



of variations would thus be continually 

 produced, and hence the domestic cat 

 is, properly speaking, not a true species 

 but a "convergent species" or an 

 aggregate of crosses between the Egyp- 

 tian cat carried by the Phoenicians 

 and the wild cats of every country where 

 the Egyptian cat was taken. This 

 accounts in part for the wide variation 

 to be seen among modern cats. The 

 rest of the variation seems to be due to 

 mutations. 



But We Are Not Yet Devoid of Hope and Cheer 



THE FURTHER EVOLUTION OF MAN, 

 a study from observed phenomena, by W. Hall 

 Calvert, M.D. Pp. 324. London and New 

 York: Fleming H. Revell Co., n.d. 



"The palmy days of heredity are 

 over," says Dr. Calvert. Its "dead 

 hand" can no longer restrain the pro- 

 gress of what he calls "genus homo 

 sapiens." The idea of natural selec- 

 tion Dr. Calvert has likewise "absolutely 

 confuted: and it is fortunate for the 

 race that this awful doctrine has been 

 destroyed, otherwise the only jDossible 

 fate of man was one of despair and 

 devoid of hope and cheer." 



But Dr. Calvert (who owes many of 

 his ideas to "association with the fine 

 intellectual vigor and acumen of the 

 minds of the Shakespeare Club of 

 Melrose") is not the man to tear down 

 a noisome hovel without erecting in its 

 place a splendid temple, four-square to 

 all the winds that blow. He recognizes 

 that there must be some check on the 

 increase of population; what is it if not 

 natural selection ? What else but ' ' Pau- 

 lin's law of the cannibal habit of the 

 male"? The reason that the numbers 

 of a species do not perceptibly increase 

 is because the father eats the surplus 

 offspring as fast as they are produced. 

 This accounts for the stability of 

 species among the carnivora and also. 

 Dr. Calvert declares, in that class of 

 animals which shortsighted naturalists 

 have been calling herbivora; but it does 

 not apply to "genus homo sapiens;" 

 and the author takes this occasion to 

 point out to men of so-called science 



the folly of trying, as they do, to make 

 one explanation fit too many cases. 

 The check on increase of human popula- 

 tion is something quite different, namely, 

 the supposed fact that a man does not 

 marry if he is out of a job. 



So much for the "now exploded 

 hypothesis" of Darwin and Alalthus. 

 It follows that the "survival of the 

 fittest" is a delusion; instead there is 

 the "survival of the average," due to 

 the supposed swamping effects of sexual 

 reproduction on any new character. 

 All that an animal inherits is the general 

 species-heredity; everything else is due 

 to the environment. It passes belief 

 that professed scientists should have 

 failed to recognize the importance of 

 the environment, when "all the religious 

 bodies of the world understand the 

 power which environment gives them 

 in maintaining and increasing the num- 

 bers of their respective creeds ' ' ! 



From this point "we are carried 

 back, through the force of pure reason, 

 to the argument of design, having its 

 origin in a great First Cause, which 

 alone has given laws to matter, method 

 to the universe, and life upon the 

 earth." 



The progress of science requires that 

 all its doctrines, such as natural selec- 

 tion, should receive constantly the 

 most severe criticism possible. But it 

 is rarely nowadays that a reputable 

 publishing house issues a treatise on 

 evolution, by a man who knows as little 

 about evolution as does Dr. Calvert. 



