We can perceive in a multitude of animals, especially in some of the parasitic tribes, that certain instincts and organs are conferred for the purpose of defence or attack against some other species. Now if we are reluctant to suppose the existence of similar relations between man and the instincts of many of the inferior animals, we adopt an hypothesis no less violent, though in the opposite extreme to that which has led some to imagine the whole animate and inanimate creation to have been made solely for the support, gratification, and instruction of mankind.
Many species, most hostile to our persons or property, multiply, in spite of our efforts to repress them; others, on the contrary, are intentionally augmented many hundred fold in number by our exertions. In such instances, we must imagine the relative resources of man, and of species friendly or inimical to him, to have been prospectively calculated and adjusted. To withhold assent to this supposition, would be to refuse what we must grant in respect to the economy of nature in every other part of the organic creation; for the various species of contemporary plants and animals have obviously their relative forces, nicely balanced, and their respective tastes, passions, and instincts so contrived, that they are all in perfect harmony with each other. In no other manner could it happen that each species, surrounded, as it is, by countless dangers, should be enabled to maintain its ground for periods of considerable duration.
The docility of the individuals of some of our domestic species, extending, as it does, to attainments foreign to their natural habits and faculties, may, perhaps, have been conferred with a view to their association with man. But, lest species should be thereby made to vary indefinitely, we find that such habits are never transmissible by generation.
A pig has been trained to hunt and point game with great activity and steadiness[819]; and other learned individuals, of the same species, have been taught to spell; but such fortuitous acquirements never become hereditary, for they have no relation whatever to the exigencies of the animal in a wild state, and cannot, therefore, be developments of any instinctive propensities.
Influence of domestication.—An animal in domesticity, says M. F. Cuvier, is not essentially in a different situation, in regard to the feeling of restraint, from one left to itself. It lives in society without constraint, because, without doubt, it was a social animal; and it conforms itself to the will of man, because it had a chief, to which, in a wild state, it would have yielded obedience. There is nothing in its new situation that is not conformable to its propensities; it is satisfying its wants by submission to a master, and makes no sacrifice of its natural inclinations. All the social animals, when left to themselves, form herds more or less numerous; and all the individuals of the same herd know each other, are mutually attached, and will not allow a strange individual to join them. In a wild state, moreover, they obey some individual, which, by its superiority, has become the chief of the herd. Our domestic species had, originally, this sociability of disposition; and no solitary species, however easy it may be to tame it, has yet afforded true domestic races. We merely, therefore, develope, to our own advantage, propensities which propel the individuals of certain species to draw near to their fellows.
The sheep which we have reared is induced to follow us, as it would be led to follow the flock among which it was brought up; and, when individuals of gregarious species have been accustomed to one master, it is he alone whom they acknowledge as their chief—he only whom they obey. "The elephant allows himself to be directed only by the carnac whom he has adopted; the dog itself, reared in solitude with its master, manifests a hostile disposition towards all others; and every body knows how dangerous it is to be in the midst of a herd of cows, in pasturages that are little frequented, when they have not at their head the keeper who takes care of them.
"Every thing, therefore, tends to convince us, that formerly men were only with regard to the domestic animals, what those who are particularly charged with the care of them still are—namely, members of the society which these animals form among themselves; and, that they are only distinguished, in the general mass, by the authority which they have been enabled to assume from their superiority of intellect. Thus, every social animal which recognizes man as a member, and as the chief of its herd, is a domestic animal. It might even be said, that, from the moment when such an animal admits man as a member of its society, it is domesticated, as man could not enter into such society without becoming the chief of it."[820]
But the ingenious author whose observations I have here cited, admits that the obedience which the individuals of many domestic species yield indifferently to every person, is without analogy in any state of things which could exist previously to their subjugation by man. Each troop of wild horses, it is true, has some stallion for its chief, who draws after him all the individuals of which the herd is composed; but when a domesticated horse has passed from hand to hand, and has served several masters, he becomes equally docile towards any person, and is subjected to the whole human race. It seems fair to presume that the capability in the instinct of the horse to be thus modified, was given to enable the species to render greater services to man; and, perhaps, the facility with which many other acquired characters become hereditary in various races of the horse, may be explicable only on a like supposition. The amble, for example, a pace to which the domestic races in some parts of Spanish America are exclusively trained, has, in the course of several generations, become hereditary, and is assumed by all the young colts before they are broken in.[821]
It seems, also, reasonable to conclude, that the power bestowed on the horse, the dog, the ox, the sheep, the cat, and many species of domestic fowls, of supporting almost every climate, was given expressly to enable them to follow man throughout all parts of the globe, in order that we might obtain their services, and they our protection. If it be objected that the elephant which, by the union of strength, intelligence, and docility, can render the greatest services to mankind, is incapable of living in any but the warmest latitudes, we may observe that the quantity of vegetable food required by this quadruped would render its maintenance in the temperate zones too costly, and in the arctic impossible.
Among the changes superinduced by man, none appear, at first sight, more remarkable than the perfect tameness of certain domestic races. It is well known that, at however early an age we obtain possession of the young of many unreclaimed races, they will retain, throughout life, a considerable timidity and apprehensiveness of danger; whereas, after one or two generations, the descendants of the same stock will habitually place the most implicit confidence in man. There is good reason, however, to suspect that such changes are not without analogy in a state of nature; or, to speak more correctly, in situations where man has not interfered.