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THE MEMOIRS OF A CAT
man himself. My relation to the bowl of milk is providentially ordained ; the owner's is guaranteed by man-made law; it is an artificial obstacle to the free realisation of Divine Will.
In the first place, the milk belongs to some cow ; secondly, it has come to the possession of the man through the privation of its natural and rightful receiver--the calf. Thus, the ownership of the bowl of milk has becn acquired through violence committed against the maternal feeling of the cow and the physical necessity of the calf. Thirdly, for the time being, it was not needed by the man. For all these and other subsidiary considerations, I am more justificd in stealing it (I use this incorrect term in the absence of a more appropriate one) than the man in guarding it against my attack.
But the vast bulk of mankind, notwithstanding their superior intelligence, are debarred from taking this sane view of the situation. They can think only in terms of words. Originally, words were names given to things, emotions, feelings, relations, ideas. In course of time, names assumed independence of what they originally stood for. The empty words were woven into a net in which human mind was caught.
This is a topic of such an absorbing interest and supreme importance that no apology is needed for my dwelling upon it still a little longer. Language has been always used, and it is used even
