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FRAGMENTS OF A PRISONER'S DIARY
tive owners. So, you sce, it is not altogether excluded biologically that a cat should be what you call a genius. How do you know that I am not onc? You may now realise the force of my question—“Why not ?"--with which I retorted the possible question ineant to ridicule my literary ambition.
At this stage of the defence of my intrusion in the temple of Saraswati, hitherto reserved for man, still another embarrassing question has to be answered. If the quadruped cousins of man are not theoretically excluded from the biological equipments of a genius, how can the utter absence of any manifestation be explained ? Well, I am not caught unawares. The question is casily answered, although it is rather irrclevant. Some knowledge of the theory of relativity, which, transcending its native sphere of physics, is bound to revolutionisc the entire human ideology (Vedantists, bcware of the danger !), should discourage such naive questions. You cannot interpolate human standards in our world. Because, a cat or a dog or a monkcy has never been guilty of the bad manners and disgusting traits of character that are associated with the so-called great men, you jump to the conclusion that there has been no manifestation of genius in the history of the races of non-human animals.
Man is so limited intellectually that he is utterly incapable of understanding anything unless
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