DESIGN IN THE ORGANIC WORLD. 439 



In striking contrast with their Hmitation of range is that of our 

 " domesticated " animals, especially Dogs and Cats, Sheep and 

 Oxen, Asses and Horses ; all of which possess more or less adap- 

 tability to a wide range of climatic and other conditions, while 

 the original (or supposed original) type of each becomes the 

 subject of numerous varietal modifications. Some of these are 

 distinctly adaptive, rendering the animals that exhibit them more 

 fit to sustain themselves in the new conditions in which Man's 

 agency (directly or indirectly exerted) has placed them ; whilst 

 others are as distinctly ;w«-adaptive, rendering the animals less fit 

 to maintain their existence if left to take care of themselves, 

 although perpetuated by man's " artificial selection " as either 

 useful or pleasing to himself. 



In these varying capabilities of particular races, then, we must 

 recognize — no less than in the ordinary characters proper to each 

 race — the constitutional factor which extends the range of some, 

 and limits that of others, so that the physical agencies to which the 

 former show themselves amenable, have no similar effect upon the 

 latter. If we say that the unknown cause of the variability of 

 the one, or of the invariability of the other, lies in the " properties " 

 of the germ of each, — whether that of its immediate progenitor, 

 or of the primordial ancestor of both, — we really get no nearer 

 to an explanation of it, than we do by calling the former x and 

 the latter J/. There is no family in the whole Mammalian series, 

 of which the members are more closely similar in the essential 

 parts of their conformation, than the Cat tribe ; the Lion, Tiger, 

 Panther, Leopard, Puma, and Jaguar, differing in little else than 

 stature and hairy covering, and the domestic Cat being but a 

 reduced copy of the general type. What it was in its original 

 wild state, is not certainly known ; many races of " wild cats " 

 being pretty certainly descendants of the domesticated stock. In 

 virtue, however, of its adaptabilility to a lower range of temperature 

 Felts catus has established itself where neither Felis leo nor any 

 other of the larger (existing) cats can keep itself alive ; but whence 

 did it get this adaptability ? Suppose it to be replied, that, being 

 a smaller species than the rest, it was very early brought under the 

 influence of Man ; and that as the people who domesticated it 

 extended themselves further and further north of their original 

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