206 CHILDHOOD OF ANIMALS 



affection without respect. Dogs breed freely in captivity, and 

 in the enormous period of time that has elapsed since the first 

 hunters adopted wild puppies, there has been a constant selection 

 by man, and every dog that showed any independence of spirit 

 has been killed off. Man has tried to produce a purely subservient 

 creature, and has succeeded in his task. No doubt a dog is faithful 

 and affectionate, but he would be shot or drowned, or ordered to 

 be destroyed by the local magistrate if he were otherwise. A small 

 vestige of the original spirit has been left in him, merely from the 

 ambition of his owners to possess an animal that will not bite 

 them, but will bite any one else. And even this watch-dog trait 

 is mechanical, for the guardian of the house will worry the harmless, 

 necessary postman, and welcome the bold burglar with fawning 

 delight. The dog is a slave, and the crowning evidence of his 

 docility, that he will fawn on the person who has beaten him, is 

 the result of his character having been bred out of him. The dog 

 is an engaging companion, an animated toy more diverting than 

 the cleverest piece of clockwork, but it is only our colossal vanity 

 that makes us take credit for the affection and faithfulness of our 

 own particular animal. The poor beast cannot help it ; all else 

 has been bred out of him generations ago. 



When wild animals become tame, they are really extending or 

 transferring to human beings the confidence and affection they 

 naturally give their mothers, and this view will be found to explain 

 more facts about tameness than any other. Every creature that 

 would naturally enjoy maternal (or, it would be better to say, 

 parental care, as the father sometimes shares in or takes upon him- 

 self the duty of guarding the young) is ready to transfer its devotion 

 to other animals or to human beings, if the way be made easy for 

 it, and if it be treated without too great violation of its natural 

 instincts. The capacity to be tamed is greatest in those animals 

 that remain longest with their parents and that are most intimately 

 associated with them. The capacity to learn new habits is greatest 

 in those animals which naturally learn most from their parents, 

 and in which the period of youth is not merely a period of growing, 

 a period of the awakening of instincts, but a time in which a 

 real education takes place. These capacities of being tamed and 

 of learning new habits are greater in the higher mammals than in 

 the lower mammals, in mammals than in birds, and in birds than 

 in reptiles. They are very much greater in very young animals, 

 where dependence on the parents is greatest, than in older animals, 



