This Simian World | Page 6

is
a cat's delight: craft they never can have too much of. So it would have
been from one triumph of cunning to another that they would have
marched. That would have been the greatest driving force of their
civilization.
This would have meant great progress in invention and science--or in
some fields of science, the economic for instance. But it would have
retarded them in others. Craft studies the world calculatingly, from
without, instead of understandingly from within. Especially would it
have cheapened the feline philosophies; for not simply how to know

but how to circumvent the universe would have been their desire.
Mankind's curiosity is disinterested; it seems purer by contrast. That is
to say, made as we are, it seems purer to us. What we call disinterested,
however, super-cats might call aimless. (Aimlessness is one of the
regular simian traits.)
I don't mean to be prejudiced in favor of the simian side. Curiosity may
be as debasing, I grant you, as craft. And craft might turn into artifices
of a kind which would be noble and fine. Just as the ignorant and fitful
curiosity of some little monkey is hardly to be compared to the
astronomer's magnificent search, so the craft and cunning we see in our
pussies would bear small relation to the high-minded planning of some
ruler of the race we are imagining.
And yet--craft /is/ self-defeating in the end. Transmute it into its finest
possible form, let it be as subtle and civilized as you please, as yearning
and noble, as enlightened, it still sets itself over against the wholeness
of things; its role is that of the part at war with the whole. Milton's
Lucifer had the mind of a fine super-cat.
That craft may defeat itself in the end, however, is not the real point.
That doesn't explain why the lions aren't ruling the planet. The trouble
is, it would defeat itself in the beginning. It would have too bitterly
stressed the struggle for existence. Conflict and struggle make
civilizations virile, but they do not by themselves make civilizations.
Mutual aid and support are needed for that. There the felines are
lacking. They do not co-operate well; they have small group-devotion.
Their lordliness, their strong self-regard, and their coolness of heart,
have somehow thwarted the chance of their racial progress.

VII
There are many other beasts that one might once have thought had a
chance.
Some, like horses and deer, were not bold enough; or were stupid, like
buffaloes.
Some had over-trustful characters, like the seals; or exploitable
characters, like cows, and chickens, and sheep. Such creatures sentence
themselves to be captives, by their lack of ambition.
Dogs? They have more spirit. But they have lost their chance of
kingship through worshipping us. The dog's finer qualities can't be

praised too warmly; there is a purity about his devotion which makes
mere men feel speechless: but with all love for dogs, one must grant
they are vassals, not rulers. They are too parasitic--the one willing
servant class of the world. And we have betrayed them by making
under-simians of them. We have taught them some of our own ways of
behaving, and frowned upon theirs. Loving us, they let us stop their
developing in tune with their natures; and they've patiently tried ever
since to adopt ways of ours. They have done it, too; but of course they
can't get far: it's not their own road. Dogs have more love than integrity.
They've been true to us, yes, but they haven't been true to themselves.
Pigs? The pig is remarkably intelligent and brave,--but he's gross; and
grossness delays one's achievement, it takes so much time. The snake
too, though wise, has a way of eating himself into stupors. If
super-snake-men had had banquets they would have been too vast to
describe. Each little snake family could have eaten a herd of cattle at
Christmas.
Goats, then? Bears or turtles? Wolves, whales, crows? Each ha brains
and pride, and would have been glad to rule the world if they could; but
each had their defects, and their weaknesses for such a position.
The elephant? Ah! Evolution has had its tragedies, hasn't it, as well as
its triumphs; and well should the elephant know it. He had the best
chance of all. Wiser even than the lion, or the wisest of apes, his
wisdom furthermore was benign where theirs was sinister. Consider his
dignity, his poise and skill. He was plastic, too. He had learned to eat
many foods and endure many climates. Once, some say, this race
explored the globe. Their bones are found everywhere, in South
America even; so the elephants' Columbus may have found some road
here before ours. They are cosmopolitans, these suave and well-bred
beings. They have rich emotional natures,