120 DOMESTICATION OF ANIMALS. 



confined for the remembrance of kindness to continue after its 

 cause has ceased, and for them to associate in their memory the 

 kindness and the benefactor. 



106. By such means, we can reduce to more or less complete 

 subjection a considerable number of animals ; but between this 

 state of individual subjection, and complete and hereditary 

 docility, there is still a great difference. To obtain this last result, 

 the animals must be in some degree predisposed to domestica- 

 tion, by the instinct of sociality, that is, the tendency to associate 

 either with others of their own species, or with Man. In short, 

 the feeling which leads them to live alone, and in some cases 

 to fly from each other, or that which unites them into societies, 

 and disposes them to be guided by a chief, the strongest and 

 most experienced of the number, exercises the greatest influence 

 upon their readiness to become domesticated. No solitary Mam- 

 malia, however easy it may be to tame them, have becdme com- 

 pletely domestic ; whilst nearly all the animals whose race is 

 subdued to the dominion of Man, live naturally in societies 

 composed of a greater or smaller number. Sociality is one 

 condition of domestication : and it is by developing to our benefit, 

 and by directing towards us by our kindnesses, the feeling which 

 leads these animals to unite with each other, that Man has been 

 able to bind their existence to his ; and to exercise over them the 

 same authority, that the chief of the troop, of which they would 

 have formed a part, would have possessed, if they had lived in 

 their natural condition. It has been well shown by M. Fred. 

 Cuvier, that the disposition to domestication may be considered 

 as the extreme development of the instinct of sociality ; and 

 domestication itself as a state, in which the social animals 

 acknowledge Man at once as a member and as the chief of their 

 number. 



107. We can now understand how Man can subjugate to his 

 dominion entire races of animals. We shall next inquire how 

 he is able to influence the forms and qualities, which belong 

 to them from their birth : and to create, as we may say, new 

 varieties at will. It is a physiological law, known to every one, 

 that animals have a tendency to resemble their parents, not only 



