BOS. 



557 



It is not the simple appearance of objects to the 

 senses, as portions of mere matter, and without change 

 either of place or of state, which is calculated to 



stimulate the mind to thought, and the body to action. 

 Thus, \vhcn \ve look at the portraits of animals, how- 

 ever faithfully painted, or at their skins in a museum, 

 however well preserved and accurately set up, if 

 there were no more in them than the eye sees, they 

 would give us no more pleasure, and please us no 

 longer, than so many spots of colour daubed on a 

 wall. If we could not, in some way, connect the 

 specimens which it contains with life and living action, 

 the sight offered by the finest museum in the world 

 would not afford a fairer sight than the window of a 

 draper's shop to one of a nation that do not wear 

 clothes. A very striking, and by no means an unin- 

 structive instance of this, occurred in London some 

 _<>, in the case of two red men of the woods- 

 two young chiefs of a very partially civilised tribe of 

 North American Indians. They had come so far to 

 see the world, and they spoke the English language, 

 and conformed in great part with the costume and 

 the manners of the country, so that they were very 

 far above the first step in civilisation ; but as those 

 who took upon themselves the office of conducting 

 them through the streets, were pointing out to them 

 all the finery and wealth which are there displayed, 

 they turned away with perfect indifference from all 

 the grandeur and the riches, and expressed their 

 wonder that, men should waste their time, and occupy 

 their attention, with such trifles. But when they 

 passed the window of an eating-house they were in 

 raptures, and burst out into loud encomiums on a 

 country where a man "could eat whenever he was 

 so minded." , 



The conduct of these Indians was true to the state 

 of their knowledge, that is, to the relations of useful- 

 ness which were suggested by the objects which they 

 saw. They wi re not aware how many of the people 

 of this country depended upon those articles which 

 they dcspi.sed for a -hare of that food which they 

 beheld with so much admiration. But those Indians 

 were human beings, true to the common feeling of 

 human nature ; and there is a very valuable lesson 

 to be derived from their case namely, that it is to 

 no purpose that we show the object, be it what it may, 

 if we do not explain the use, or make sure that the 

 person to whom we address ourselves is acquainted 

 with it. In natural history the lesson is peculiarly 

 apposite ; for if we merely show the animal, the plant, 

 or the other object, be it what it may, and remain silent 

 as to the action and the use, those whom we attempt 

 to teaeh will turn away from us with the same indif- 

 ference as the Indian chiefs, and direct themselves to 

 something which is palpable to the senses, as contri- 

 buting to some purpose. 



And if man is naturally placed where the objects 

 around him, whether on the earth, in the waters, or 

 in the atmosphere, show no change, they hold out to 

 him no incentive for thought, and there is nothing to 

 ron<e him from ignorance. If nature is to be an 

 instructor, there must be natural actions seen in the 

 beginning, the middle, and the end, and the shorter 

 the time in which this takes place, the lesson which it 

 affords is the more valuable. On this principle (and 

 it is a universal one) we may conclude, that if man 

 had not scum the plant of the temperate climate, or 

 the middle latitude, spring up and reach its maturity 

 in the course of a season, or of so brief a period of 



time that he could carry the whole of* the facts along 

 with him, he would never have become a cultivator ; 

 but it is in the native pastures of the ox division of 

 the genus bos that this is to be procured in the 

 highest perfection, and therefore it is in these that, as 

 we may safely conclude, civilisation had its beginning. 



But the ox not. only thus leads man to the res-ions 

 where he has the proper stimuli to cultivate, but it, 

 more readily than any other animal, assists him in the 

 cultivation. The bison may be, iu some sort, an 

 exception ; but that stage of a country which is the 

 best adapted for cultivation is one from which the 

 bison retires ; yet even the bison, especially in the 

 American species (see the article BISON), shows no 

 dislike to the society, or at all events to the neigh- 

 bourhood, of man. The young bison will follow the 

 hunter who has deprived it of its parents, which is 

 perhaps the strongest attachment to animal society, 

 without reference to its own species and kind, which 

 we find in any wild animals. 



There is another property of the genus bos, and 

 especially of this division of it (of which the domestic 

 ox may be regarded as the type), which must have 

 rendered it peculiarly advantageous to the human 

 race in their early migrations, and of which we have 

 very remarkable proofs in those cases of extensive 

 colonisation of distant parts of the world by European 

 settlers which have taken place in more modern 

 times : Of all animals, the ox is, next to man, the 

 most plastic to climate, and hence domestic oxen are 

 divided into more varieties or breeds than any other 

 animals. If removed into countries analogous to 

 those which many may t-.uppose were inhabited by 

 the bison, and in which the remnant of that division 

 of the genus is still to be found, and exposed to the 

 severity of the weather, the ox acquires a shaggy and 

 bison-like character ; and if, on the other band, it is 

 removed into climates resembling those in which the 

 buffalo is found native, it takes more of the appearance 

 of that animal. 



There is not, perhaps, change enough produced in 

 either ease for enabling us to say that all the divisions 

 into which this most interesting genus is broken have 

 resulted from climate, but there is as much as renders 

 our separation of the genus into species doubtful and 

 unsatisfactory ; for though we find what we may 

 consider as specific distinctions in the external ap- 

 ; pearance of the form of the frontal bone and the 

 I number of the ribs, yet there are physiological 

 j coincidences in all the species, so far as' has been 

 j observed, which are of equal, if not greater, import- 

 ; ance than these. The different species have bred 

 1 together in many instances, and they probably would 

 do so in all ; but there are no mules among those 

 hybrids which are barren to each other, though they 

 breed back to the pure blood of either parent, as there 

 are, without exception, in the hybrids between the 

 horse and the ass. [See the article Ass.] Now, if 

 there be any mtaniug (that is, any physiological 

 ! meaning) in the word "species," surely that which 

 J can continue itself, without the calling in" of any other 

 race, and can do this from any one pair, is unques- 

 tionably the best foundation upon which a species 

 can be built. In describing-, and knowing by de- 

 scription, the external characters, or rather appear- 

 ances, of these animals, the names of the divisions 

 of species may be admitted, but we cannot be too 

 careful lest we thereby break down the physiological 

 unity. 



