194 MR STARK ON THE SUPPOSED PROGRESS OF HUMAN SOCIETY 



cated species has not been increased by the lapse of time, though, at first sight, 

 there are many of the untamed animals which might have been subdued and ren- 

 dered serviceable." * And Baron CUVIER, when speaking of the dog as a powerful 

 ally of man against the other animals, characterizes its domestication as the most 

 complete, the most singular, and the most useful conquest our race has ever 

 made.f 



Such are the statements in authors regarding the domestication of animals. 

 Like the supposed civilization of man, it was conjectured to be a work of slow de- 

 grees, brought about by the efforts of ages, and effecting such changes in the ha- 

 bits and structure of the animals, that their original type is unknown ; i. e. that 

 there are no existing races in a wild state resembling the domesticated individuals, 

 and from which they may be said to be derived, But upon what authority do the 

 tamers of animals rest for this supposed course of training, which fits animals 

 naturally wild for domestication ? None whatever, beyond the dreams of poets 

 or the fanciful theories of philosophers. The very first step in the proposition is 

 entirely conjectural. It being taken for granted that the species of cattle now 

 domesticated existed originally in a wild state, the ingenuity of naturalists has, 

 in consequence, been taxed in vain to find out the original types and their original 

 country. The result of these investigations is thus stated by DESMAREST, one of 

 the most celebrated modern zoologists, in the case of the ox, and the same may 

 be said of all the others. " The domestic ox of Europe," says he, " of which the 

 primitive source seems lost, has been transported into all the countries where 

 Europeans have established colonies." \ 



While the geographical limits of many families of animals can be distinctly 

 defined, while climate and soil confine certain races to certain localities, beyond 

 which they cannot exist, it is remarkable that the ox, the sheep, the goat, the 

 horse, the dog, the most extensively useful of all the domesticated animals, have, 

 like man, scarcely any limit to their range. Wherever civilized man is found, 

 there are these animals, or some of them, varied in many particulars to adapt 

 themselves to their different locations, but still the same species, with the same 

 general capabilities, 



The naturalists who have ventured to assign a peculiar country to the do- 

 mesticated animals as their original one, universally point out the ancient seats 

 of human civilization in Asia as the place of their origin. Thus, "the horse," 

 says DESMAREST, " originally from the plains of Tartary, has been transported by 

 man wherever he has established himself, over the vast countries of Asia, Europe, 

 Africa, and America," Asses, it is said, are found in a wild state, in innumerable 

 troops in the country of the Calmucks ; the country of the sheep is the ancient 

 world ; and the ox is found in all the countries where Europeans have established 



* The Natural History of Society in the Barbarous and Civilized State, &c. i. 195, 196. 

 t Ri-gne Animal, i. 152. J DESMAREST, Mammalogiu, 494. 



