Domestication

“ It is very remarkable that, out of so many species, two only should have shown any aptitude for domestication, and that these should have been from time immemorial the universal and most useful companions and servants of man, while all the others remain in their native freedom to this day. ”

“ Animal Breeding.—It has been pointed out that the domestication of wild animals, the horse, cattle, sheep, goats, and the dog, marked a great advance in civilization in the history of the earth's peoples. As the young of these animals came to be bred in captivity the peoples owning them would undoubtedly pick out the strongest and best of the offspring, killing off the others for food. ”

“ It was not until our kind began to form a society of other species about their homes that the foundations of civilizations were firmly established. The home, indeed, may fairly be said to be the product of the conditions which the process of domestication brought about. As distinguished from the temporary hut of primitive men, it represented the stability which was induced by the care of the plants and animals which man had domiciled about him.
With every step upward in the organization of society we find that the number and efficiency of these subjugated creatures increases. ”

“ He considered that domestication favoured the production of these congenital and transmissible variations, and, anticipating the Eugenic school, deplored the fact that, while so much care and attention was paid to the breeding of domestic animals, the breeding of man was left to the vagaries of his own individual fancy. ”

“ Up to our present half-century the process of winning animals and plants to domestication, and of improving them after they had been thus won, has been in its nature a matter of haphazard. Here and there, as men have seen creatures which promised in captivity to afford either pleasure or profit, they have endeavored to convert them to use. In some cases the effort has been made with some patience and steadfastness of purpose. If the creature yielded quickly to the needs of a new life which it was sought to impose upon him, he became a member of man's family. ”

“ We must admit, however, that, whatever pliability of disposition, or other inherent suitability, led to the first domestication of certain species of animals, the changes induced in their natures by many generations of domesticity have made them amenable to man's control to a degree which puts a wide difference between them and their wild relations. ”

“ Commencing probably with the dog as a companion in the hunt, followed at a later period by the capture of the young of other animals and rearing them, not unlikely, from the merest freak of fancy, it required time and experience to discover the utility of each, to find means of raising them in numbers and to learn the forbearance necessary to spare them in the face of hunger. Could the special history of the domestication of each animal be known, it would exhibit a series of marvelous facts. The experiment carried, locked up in its doubtful chances, much of the subsequent destiny of mankind. ”

“ Moreover, the use of domesticated animals of the better sort enabled the more vigorous and care-taking races to gain the strength which led to their advancement in power to a point where they were able to displace the lower and feebler tribes. In other words, the system of domestication has provided a method by which those peoples who were fitted to develop the qualities which make for civilization could advance ”

“ The ordinary farmer has to enter into more or less sympathetic relations with half a score of animal species and many kinds of plants. His life, indeed, is devoted to ceaseless friendly relations with these creatures which live or die at his will. In this task his ancient savage impulses are slowly worn away, and in their place comes the enduring kindliness of cultivated men. When we compare the state of mind of the hunter with that of the care-taking soil-tiller, we see the vast scope and influence which this work of domestication has effected in our kind. ”

“ After a time some kinds of animals are domesticated, and society enters on the second, the pastoral stage. This was the first clearly defined advance in the circumstances. We know not where, or when, or how, or by whom were first domesticated the ox, the sheep, the goat, the hog, the horse, the ass, or the camel. The dates of these achievements, pregnant with so vast a series of mighty consequences, lie far back beyond the reach of the dimmest traditions of mankind. Here, however, we are concerned only with the way in which their domestication affected the tenure and the use of the land. ”

“ Domestication has, indeed, wrought wonderful changes and improvements in the breed of many creatures. Horses, oxen, sheep, pigs, dogs, and poultry of all sorts, are increased in bulk, tamed, ameliorated in habit and disposition. ”

“ Domesticated Animals.— When man emerged from his savage state on the earth, one of the first signs of the beginning of civilization was the domestication of animals. The dog, the cow, sheep, and especially the horse, mark epochs in the advance of civilization. Beasts of burden are used the world over, horses almost all over the world, certain cattle, as the water buffalo, in tropical Malaysia; camels, goats, and the llama are also used as draft animals in some other countries. ”

“ There are three different types of changes due to domestication which must be clearly distinguished. On the one hand, the bodies of domesticated animals undergo 67considerable transformations, owing to the change in nutrition and use of the body. On the other hand, selection and crossing have played an important part in the development of races of domesticated animals. ”

“ Intelligence; Use in the Arts; Need of True Domestication.—Pigs: their Peculiar Economic Value; Modern Varieties; Mental Qualities.—Relation of the Development of Domesticable Animals to the Time of Man's Appearance on the Earth.
It is not too much to say that the opportunity to go forward on the paths of culture, at least the chance to advance any considerable distance beyond the estate of primitive men, depends in a considerable measure upon what the wilderness may offer in the way of domesticable beasts of burden. ”

“ AND here we come in face of the fact before obliquely glanced at, that Sir Henry Maine's hypothesis takes account of no stages in human progress earlier than the pastoral or agricultural. The groups he describes as severally formed of the patriarch, his wife, descendants, slaves, flocks, and herds, are groups implying that animals of several kinds have been domesticated. But before the domestication of animals was achieved, there passed long stages stretching back through prehistoric times. ”

“ Domestication, as a general rule, increases the prolificness of animals and plants. It eliminates the tendency to sterility which is common to species when first taken from a state of nature and crossed. ”

“ Domestication and breeding favor the formation of herds and flocks and lead to a pastoral life, and the necessity of producing larger quantities of nourishment for both men and animals leads to increased agriculture. The result is a more sedentary mode of life with an accompanying increase in provisions and greater diversity of same, and gradually cannibalism disappears. ”

“ Moreover, in most cases, his imagination endows these wild creatures with a spirit like his own. He often adopts them, in his religious worship, placing his tribe under the protection of one or another, as some of our own people do themselves under the protection of particular saints. The effect of domestication when man comes to have [220] his own separate estate in animal life is to separate men from the creatures of the wilderness. ”

“ It is perhaps not to be admitted that the penchant of early man to take an anthropomorphic view of the lower animals and impute to them the common traits of human nature has directly conduced to their successful domestication, but it should be within the mark to say that this penchant may have been primarily responsible for the course of conduct that led to the domestication of animals,106 and that it has apparently never been a serious drawback to any pastoral culture. ”

“ The foregoing considerations make it evident that the problem of domestication shades into the question as to the preservation of the life which is now on the earth, and this with a view to the advantage which the arts, the sciences, or general culture may obtain from the preservation of the useful, the instructive, and the beautiful things in the realm of nature from the swift destruction which our rude subjugation of the earth threatens to inflict. ”

“ The wife no longer had a choice in marriage. Bought or captured, she was no longer wooed for a companion, but was valued according to her economic worth. As population pressed, the domestication of plants followed the taming of animals, but the agricultural settlement of the family only made the woman's lot harder, for she was the burden bearer on the farm. ”

“ From the host of these feathered creatures men have from time to time selected species which grace their habitations by their beauty, their song, or by the sympathetic relations which they form with their captors. Our successes in these efforts toward domestication of these birds have been most eminent with those varieties which in their wilderness state have a well-developed social life, which abide in families or flocks, and have the pairing habit well affirmed. ”

“ This is true especially in relation to animals, the domestication of which has always been practiced by man, even while in a state of nature. Domestication is primarily a psychical process, but it is attended with physical changes consequent on confinement and variation in food and habits. ”

“ Necessity then compelled them to resort to the domestication of certain animals, and to the cultivation of the soil. But the practice of hunting wild animals is not confined to the savage state; as it is an amusement prompted by a propensity inherent in human nature. ”

“ The requirements of a population gradually increasing in numbers could only be met by a supply of food more regular and more abundant than could be provided by the chase. But the possibility of the change from the hunter to the shepherd or herdsman rested on the antecedent existence of animals suited to supply man with food, having gregarious habits, and fitted for domestication, such as sheep, goats, and horned cattle ”

“ There are now as many as a hundred different kinds of domesticated animals, and there is scarcely one of these animals that has not been profoundly changed in character during the period of its domestication. ”

“ Although many of the free-flying birds of the land are or have been kept captive because of the pleasure which men have found from their songs, their grace, or their quaint ways, only one of these has really been gained to domestication. ”

“ There are hundreds of beautiful tropical species which await reconciliation with men; they have that quality of sympathy which affords the natural foundations for the contract, but this has in no case been availed of except when the creatures, in addition to their æsthetic charm, have possessed some economic value. There as elsewhere in the matter of domestication the commercial motive has controlled our action. ”

“ My argument will be this:--All savages maintain pet animals, many tribes have sacred ones, and kings of ancient states have imported captive animals on a vast scale, for purposes of show, from neighbouring countries. I infer that every animal, of any pretensions, has been tamed over and over again, and has had numerous opportunities of becoming domesticated. But the cases are rare in which these opportunities have led to any result. No animal is fitted for domestication unless it fulfils certain stringent conditions, which I will endeavour to state and to discuss. ”

“ A more marked differentiation of domesticated forms does not seem to occur until man begins to select and to isolate, more or less consciously, particular breeds. Opportunity for such isolation has been the greater, the older the domestication of any particular species. ”

“ The domestic pig pairs generally twice a year, while its wild ancestors had but one rutting season.190 Dr. Hermann Müller has even observed a canary that laid eggs in autumn and winter.191 Natural selection cannot, of course, account for such alterations: they fall under the law of variation. It is the limited pairing season that is a product of this powerful process, which acts with full force only under conditions free from civilization and domestication. ”

“ Care was taken to preserve certain sacred animals which were not hunted, and this led to domestication, the abstinence of earlier generations leading to an increased food supply at a later time, when domesticated animals were freely slain. ”

“ It means that, in time, a large part of the life of this sphere is to be committed to his care, to survive or perish as he wills, to change at his bidding, to give, as other subjugated kinds have done, whatever of profit or pleasure they may contribute to his endless advancement. From this point of view our domesticated creatures should be presented to our people, with the purpose in mind of bringing them to see that the process of domestication has a far-reaching aspect, a dignity, we may fairly say a grandeur, that [9] few human actions possess. ”

“ In relation to the subject of domestication, the whole question is of some importance, as too close interbreeding interferes with the improvement of old races, and especially with the formation of new ones. ”

“ As this domestication of the land went on, the colonists found birds coming about their dwellings, building nests in their gardens and in the shelter of their barns, and they began taking note of many of the wild plants that grew in their neighborhood. ”