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The breeding of mules is an important industry. The horse and 

 the ass are capable of strong aflection, but their colts seldom develope a 

 filial love which has a controling influence on their adult life. 



But the mule, the hybrid between the male ass and the female horse, 

 except in very rare instances is congenitally incapable of reproducing its 

 kind. It has more or less of the instinct for mating, but it necessarily 

 does not have the strong se.xual passion of a perfect equine animal. Its 

 love for its mother however amounts to a master passion; it is not spas- 

 modical, but it is intense and it continues as long as there is an oppor- 

 tunity of showing it. It is capable of transfer to another subject and 

 those who breed mules in large numbers take a useful, instructive and 

 amusing advantage of this fact. 



When the young mul#sare weaned, the mothers are withdrawn from 

 their companv, and one, otherwise worthless old mare is substituted for 

 many mothers. The pooi young things turn to the good natured old 

 mare as to a very goddess; while she receives their worship with the 

 equanimity of her sex, never hinting in the mildest terms, that it is an 

 idolatry that should be abated. As the dilapidated goddess herself may 

 be depended upon for her staid qualities, it follows that her worshippers 

 are thereby kept out of mischief. And the poor mule is not a backslider, 

 it is always a consistent worshipper. 



1 have stated that filial love is absolutely necessary to the specializa- 

 tion under consideration. It should be added that it must be intense in 

 its character and capable of replacing to a large extent the maternal in- 

 stinct of the perfect creature. 



From the fact that insufficiency of food would affect the growth of 

 all organs we deduced the further fact that it would affect weak animals 

 the most, giving those not congenitally perfect an irregular development. 

 It follows also, that if a very young animal congenitally perfect, receives 

 for a long period only sufificient food to sustain life, the organs not vital 

 will be more or less dwarfed in their proportions, as compared to the 

 vital organs. 



For here the law of parsimony is absolute. The vital organs must 

 receive a certain supply, or the life perishes. The non-vital organs make 

 no such imperative demand, and they consequently get less in propor- 

 tion. And an organ that is entirely useless to the life of the individual, 

 would under such circumstances receive no nourishment whatever; ex- 

 cepting only as it is correlated to the organs that are useful or vital. The 

 re-productive organs of the young of all species are entirely useless to the 

 life of the individual; their powers are latent, and excepting as they are 

 correlated to other organs, thev make no demand for nourishment. Star- 



