814 M. Cuvier on the Domesticatimi 



in animals the development of this faculty is more favourable 

 than hurtful to the good feelings or benevolent affections. 



I have thus in some measure shewn that if animals in a state 

 of liberty are calculated to instruct us with regard to the part 

 which they act upon the earth, they are little fitted to unveil 

 the general causes of their actions, namely, the faculties of their 

 intellect, and that it is only by means of captive animals that we 

 shall obtain this knowledge. Shall we conclude from this that 

 the study of animals, such as they exist in their natural state, 

 ought to be renounced, that all inquiry into the economy of this 

 world, in which they occupy so conspicuous a part, should be 

 abandoned ? For it is too evident that the difficulty of studying 

 animals in a state of liberty is so great, that it is almost equiva- 

 lent to an absolute impossibility. Whenever they can obey their 

 feelings they distrust whatever they do not know, and fly from 

 or attack whatever assails them. Besides how should we reach 

 for the purpose of observing them those which inhabit the wild 

 or remote countries which we scarcely know ? And, moreover, 

 the mere pursuit of an animal entirely changes its natural con- 

 ditions, and it can only then be viewed as an animal constrain- 

 ed by violence, and placed under circumstances quite as unna- 

 tural as those to which animals in a state of captivity are re- 

 duced. 



These difficulties would, without doubt, be insurmountable ; 

 problems whose solution is so remote are more calculated to re- 

 strain the efforts than to sustain the zeal of inquirers. Fortu- 

 nately it is not necessary to surmount them in order to attain 

 the object in the way of which, as a barrier, they seem placed ; 

 and the knowledge of this world, in all that relates to animals, 

 is neither founded upon purely rational views, nor upon chime- 

 rical hopes. If it is impossible to arrive at it directly, without 

 almost insurmountable obstacles, we can at least be led to it in 

 an indirect manner, and the path which we now open up is as- 

 suredly the shortest and most certain. 



In fact if the existence, and the various circumstances of an 

 animal on any given point of the earth, are the consequence of 

 the fiiculties and propensities with which it is endowed, and of 

 the fixed or varying conditions which are peculiar to this point 



