INTRODUCTION. 99 



about four thousand years, or of fifteen hundred, 

 perhaps nearly two thousand, generations.* If it 

 were said that man alone furnishes circumstances 

 partially similar, we would find that they would 

 be adverse to the devised conclusions ; for if there 

 be but one original species of man, although it has 

 undergone all and more vicissitudes than his dogs, 

 we do not find his physical characters so greatly 

 varied, increased, or diminished, in the sense of 

 smelling, in the mass of the brain in growth, in the 

 form of the ears, and quality or quantity of hair, as 

 in the dog, when assumed to arise from a single 

 stock. And if it were said that there are more than 

 one original species of man, then we cannot deny 

 the conclusion, that as these are known, when mixed, 

 to produce prolific offspring, they would furnish a 

 proof that separate species of canines may be in the 

 same condition. Still, however, the mule breed 

 between dog and wolf, reared by Count de Bufibn, 

 through four generations, leave no satisfactory re- 

 sult ; and M. F. Cuvier, in later experiments, attests 

 that the procreative power in the descending line 

 becomes less and less, leading to early sterility and 

 extinction. The term mule breed, used by Bufibn, 

 be it observed, is only a repetition of the words of 

 the ancients, and shows in all the pre-supposition 

 that the species were distinct. Besides, if this breed 



* Mr. Hodgson, however, also claims the intervention of 

 moral qualifications in his account of Capra tharal, as being 

 bolder and livelier than his Ovis nahoor, in opposition to the 

 conclusions of Colonel H. Smith's account of sheep. 



