564 Causes and Course of Organic Evolution 



stimuli to the brain, which in return has sent many outward 

 efferent impulses that have tended to quicken speed, to select 

 those with keenest sense organs, and to perfect by natural selec- 

 tion other parts of the body that may be subsidiary to the im- 

 portant centers. 



But, when man began, certainly 6000 to 8000 years ago as 

 in Egypt, possibly 20,000 to 50,000 years ago or more, as in 

 the case of the cave men of West Europe, to domesticate the 

 dog, new possibilities began to appear. As in many similar 

 cases a start was doubtless made by some hunter saving one 

 or two cubs of a specimen he had destroyed in the chase, and 

 bringing these into his rude family cabin, where they were 

 petted by and grew up with the children. It should also be 

 borne in mind that the dog is unlike the "wise" fox in being 

 more or less gregarious, and therefore in having the social 

 habits more or less developed even before being domesticated. 

 The following observations of Romanes (50: 437) then become 

 apropos: "The intelligence of the dog is of special, and indeed 

 of unique, interest from an evolutionary point of view, in that 

 from time out of record this animal has been domesticated on 

 account of its high level of natural intelligence; and by per- 

 sistent contact with man, coupled with training and breeding, 

 its natural intelligence has been greatly changed. In the result 

 we see not only a general modification in the way of dependent 

 companionship and docility, so unlike the fierce and self-re- 

 liant disposition of all wild species of the genus, but also a 

 number of special modifications, peculiar to certain breeds, 

 which all have obvious reference to the requirements of man. 

 The whole psychological character of the dog may therefore 

 be said to have been moulded by human agency with reference 

 to human requirements, so that now it is not more true that 

 man has in a sense created the structure of the bulldog and 

 grayhound than that he has implanted the instincts of the 

 watch-dog and i)ointer. The definite proof which we thus have 

 afforded of the transforming and creating influence exerted upon 

 the mental character and instincts of the species by long and 

 persistent training, coupled with artificial selection, furnishes 



