THE PROBLEM OF DOMESTICATION 



219 



they were given to much wandering to and fro over the earth. 

 Moreover, they had only the strength of their own hands for 

 all the work of life. It was not until our kind began to form 

 a society of other species about their homes that the founda- 

 tions of civilizations were firmly established. The home, 

 indeed, may fairly be said to be the product of the "conditions 

 which the process of domestication brought about. As dis- 

 tinguished from the temporary hut of primitive men, it repre- 

 sented the stability which was induced by the care of the 

 plants and animals which man had domiciled about him. 



With every step upward in the organization of society we \ 

 find that the number and efficiency of these subjugated 

 creatures increases. Our American aborigines in their primi- 

 tive state commanded only the dog and three or four plants, 

 yet with this scant help they had already won beyond the 

 lowest savagery and were at the threshold of barbarism. In 

 our more civilized societies of to-day we find the products of 

 near a hundred animals and about a thousand plants as \ 

 elements of commerce, and each year sees some gain in the 

 number of creatures which we make tributary to our desires. 



So far as we can discern, the relations of primitive savages-]' 

 to the animal life about them is on the whole more friendly 

 than is that of cultivated me'n. It is true that the savage 

 looks to the creatures of the wilderness for the greater part 

 of his needs. He slays them, not at all in sport, but for the 

 profit they may afford. Moreover, in most cases, his imagina- 

 tion endows these wild creatures with a spirit like his own. 

 He often adopts them, in his religious worship, placing his 

 tribe under the protection of one or another, as some of our 

 own people do themselves under the protection of particular 

 saints. The effect of domestication when man comes to have 



