of Mammiferous Animals. 69 



It is a fact universally recognised, that the young of animals 

 have a very stmng resemblance to the individuals which liave 

 given life to them. This fact is as obvious in the Imman spe- 

 cies as in any other ; and it is not less true with reference to the 

 moral and intellectual faculties, than to the physical qualities. 

 Now, the distinctive qualities of animals of the same species, 

 those which have most influence over their particular existence, 

 which constitute their individuality, ai'c those which have been 

 developed by exercise, and whose exercise has been called forth 

 by the circumstances amid which these animals have lived. 

 Hence it follows, that the qualities transmissible by animals tjo 

 their young, those which give rise to a mutual resemblance in 

 them, are of a nature to arise from fortuitous circumstances; 

 and, consequently, that we are enabled to modify animals and 

 their progeny, or their race, within the limits which bound our 

 power to produce the circumstances calculated to act upon them. 



What is thus established by reasoning, the observation of 

 domestic animals fully confirms. It is we who have formed 

 them, and there is none of their race that has not its distinct 

 qualities, — 'qualities which make such or such particular race to 

 he preferred to any other, according to the purposes for which 

 it is intended, and which are constantly transmitted by genera- 

 tion, so long as circumstances opposed to those which have occa- 

 sioned them do not destroy the effects of these latter. It is by 

 this means that we are enabled to preserve the races in their 

 purity, or to obtain by their mixture races having new qualities, 

 intermediate between those which have been united. But all 

 these facts are so well known, that I consider it superfluous to 

 dwell particularly upon any of them. 



It will not, however, be useless to remark, that the most do- 

 mestic races, those which arc most attached to man, are those 

 which have experienced on his part the action of the greatest 

 number of the means, the use of which we have seen for render- 

 ing theni' attached. Thus the dog species, on which caresses 

 have so much influence, without distinction of sex, is indisputa^ 

 bly the most domestic of all ; while the ox species, the females 

 of which alone experience our influence, and on which we have 

 had no other means of acting, for the purpose of attaching them 

 to us than feeding, is certainly that which least belongs to us. 



