THE PROBLEM OF DOMESTICATION 227 



ures. It is true that the breeder's art is old and that men 

 have felt the subjugated animals to be almost like clay in the 

 potter's hands, but except in a small and rather careless way 

 with the dogs, little attention has been given to the develop- 

 ment of the intelligence of these captives. The success which 

 we have obtained with this animal has been accomplished by 

 a selective process, but one which has been almost as blind in 

 its operation as the choice which acts in the natural world. 

 For thousands of years men have preferred the dogs which 

 manifested a sympathy with them, and the result is a creature 

 which, though derived from a very brutal ancestry, has in its 

 way as intense affections as human beings. Now and then 

 they have chosen deliberately to develop some mental pecul- 

 iarity of the animal which would be of service in hunting, and 

 the effect of this care is to be noted in the considerable 

 variety and perfection of mental development which the 

 sporting dogs exhibit. In the main, however, the interest of 

 our dog fanciers has been limited to the physical features of 

 the species ; nothing like a deliberate effort to ascertain how 

 far the development of their mental parts could be carried 

 has ever been essayed. In no other field of human endeavor 

 of anything like equal importance has there been so little 

 understanding applied to the tasks. 



Now that we are beginning to know something of the 

 laws of inheritance, it is high time for us deliberately to con- 

 sider what our relations to the organic world are hereafter 

 to be, and how we can guide ourselves in these relations by 

 the light of modern learning. It is in the first place clear 

 that the subjugation of the earth which necessarily accom- 

 panies the development of civilization, inevitably tends to 

 sweep away a large part of the organic life which is not 



