304 M. F. Cuvier on the Domestication 



may study their habits. I am the more induced to follow this 

 plan, as, in this respect, domestic animals have not been more 

 correctly judged of than captive, and because, from the errors 

 into which people have fallen, it would be impossible to receive 

 without prejudice a work on the actions of animals, considered 

 in a general and philosophic point of view. 



It is maintained that animals can only be studied with ad- 

 vantage when they enjoy a perfect independence. It is indeed 

 admitted that those which are domesticated may furnish some 

 useful knowledge ; that their study is calculated to direct us to 

 the means of subjugating them, of rearing and improving them 

 with relation to our wants ; that it apprizes us of the services 

 which we have received from them, and of those which they 

 are still capable of rendering us ; and that by thus studying 

 them, we are even enabled to discover the designs which Provi- 

 dence had in view in placing them upon the earth. But it is 

 said, what could animals reduced to slavery teach us ? Under 

 the weight of the restraint in v/hich we are obliged to hold them, 

 we obtain from them actions that are only artificial and conse- 

 quently little calculated to unveil their nature. It would be 

 quite otherwise were they in a state of liberty. Then their na- 

 ture would manifest itself, and the more so the less constraint 

 they experienced from the circumstances in which they were 

 placed ; for as the most complete slavery is the situation the 

 least favourable to the exercise of the faculties, the most entire 

 independence, or the state of nature, is the best adapted for 

 their exercise and developement. " The wild animal,"" says Buf- 

 fon, (T. iv. p. 169.), " obeying only nature, knows no other 

 laws than those of necessity and liberty."" 



This in fact is the opinion that is held with regard to the 

 comparative advantage of studying animals in the three states 

 in which they present themselves to our observations, judging 

 at least from the little that has been published on the subject. 

 Domesticated animals, and those in captivity only make known 

 to us a state contrary to nature, the consequences of which, in 

 respect to the former, relate exclusively to man ; and in respect 

 to the latter, to the means which have been employed to make 

 them act and be observed. It is only animals in a state of free- 

 dom that shew themselves to us such as they are, such as they 



