7 4 M. Cuvier on the Domestication of 



tated, that it became necessary to abstain from all such ex- 

 pressions of kindness toward it, from a dread of the disagree- 

 able consequences that might follow. It is worthy of being 

 remarked, that all the three animals were females. 



As soon as, by good treatment, habit has rendered the society 

 of men indispensable to the animal, our authority may be en- 

 forced, and we may employ constraint, and apply chastise- 

 ment. But our means of correction are limited ; they are con- 

 fined to blows, accompanied with precautions necessary to 

 prevent the animals from escaping; and they produce but a 

 single effect, which consists in transforming the feeling, whose 

 manifestation it is necessary to repress, into that of fear. But 

 the application of force ought uever to be without limits, for its 

 excess produces two contrary effects, it either intimidates, or 

 excites hatred. Fear, in fact, may be carried to the point of 

 disturbing all the other faculties. With regare\ to resistance, it 

 always commences on the part of the animal, at the point where 

 our authority passes beyond the limits which time and habit 

 had imposed upon its obedience. These limits vary with re- 

 spect to each species, and to each individual; and the moment 

 they are passed, the instinct of preservation re-awakens, and at 

 the same time the will manifests itself with all its force and in- 

 dependence. 



1 shall not relate the numerous examples of vengeance in- 

 flicted by domestic animals, and particularly by horses, upon 

 those who had maltreated them; the hatred which these 

 animals have cherished towards their cruel masters, and the 

 time during which it has been retained by them in all its 

 original violence. Such examples arc numerous and familiar; 

 and although they oupjht to have shown that brutality is a 

 means little calculated to obtain obedience, they have been in- 

 effectual for this purpose, and animals are still treated by us 

 as if we had nothing to subject in them but their will. 



Benefits on our part are therefore indispensable to bring ani- 

 mals to obedience. As we are not of their species, they do not 

 naturally experience affection for us; but it would not be so on 

 the part of individuals towards animals which arc of the same 

 species, to which a powerful tie tends to unite them, for the 

 constraint exercised by their kind is a natural state, a possible 

 condition of their existence. 



From the moment when they first come together, these ani- 

 mals are opposed to each other in the same manner as the do- 

 mestic animals are opposed to man, after the latter has seduced 

 and captivated their affections; that is to say, the one may 

 immediately employ force for subjecting the other. The 



