Mammi/erous Animals. 297 



I shall now bring my observations upon domestication to a 

 ccfticlusion. My object has been to shew its true character, as 

 well as the relations of the domestic animals tb man. It rests 

 upon the propensity which animals have to live together in 

 herds, and to attach themselves to one another. We obtain it 

 only by enticement, and principally by augmenting their wants 

 and satisfying them. But we could only produce domestic in- 

 dividuals and not races, without the concurrence of one of the 

 most general laws of life, the transmission of the organic or in- 

 tellectual modifications by generation. Here one of the most 

 astonishing phenomena of nature manifests itself to us, the trans- 

 formation of a fortuitous modification into a durable form, of a 

 fugitive want into a fundamental propensity, of an accidental 

 habit into an instinct. This subject is assuredly worthy of ex- 

 citing the attention of the most accurate observers, and of occu- 

 pying the meditations of the most profound thinkers. 



This essay is undoubtedly far from containing all the de- 

 velopements of which domestication is susceptible ; for, to treat 

 of this subject fully, nothing less would be requisite than to con- 

 vert into a science one of the most important branches of hu- 

 man industry, the treatment of animals, or, in other words, to 

 submit to laws founded in Nature — the blind practices and em- 

 pirical rules according to which people are generally directed at 

 the present day. But my researches will not be without use if 

 they shew the principles according to which we may conduct 

 ourselves, in order to act effectually upon the natural disposition 

 of animals, the methods which should be followed for improv- 

 ing them, and all that might be expected in this department 

 from an enlightened and persevering direction of the means 

 placed within our power. — Memoires du Museum d'^Histoire 

 Naturelle. 



alpaca and vicugna into Europe, animals which live only in very temperate 

 regions ; but it would not even be applicable to the tapir, although a native 

 of the warmest countries. 



