b DOMESTICATED ANIMALS 



hundred times as many varieties of plants as they did in the 

 earliest historic agriculture. The advance in the process of 

 domestication is not so rapid as regards the animal kingdom 

 as it is with the realm of plants, and this mainly for the reason 

 that animals have a will of their own which has to be bent or 

 broken to that of man. Still it goes on apace. We of to-day 

 have at our command many times the number of sentient spe- 

 cies contributive to our pleasure or profit that had been made 

 captive at the beginning of our era. Naturally, in the early 

 days of domestication, men brought under their control the 

 greater number of the animals which gave promise of utility. 

 As no new species of any economic importance have been 

 created within the last geologic period, the field for the exten- 

 sion of economic domestication has of late been very limited. 

 But the realm of sympathetic appreciation, unlike the econo- 

 mic, knows no definite bounds, and promises in time to bring 

 all the more important organic forms under the care of the 

 sympathetic and masterful being who has been chosen as 

 the ruler of terrestrial life. 



We thus see that the matter of domesticated animals is 

 but a part of the larger problem which includes all that 

 relates to man's destined mastery of the earth— a mastery 

 which he is rapidly winning. It means that, in time, a large 

 part of the life of this sphere is to be committed to his care, 

 to survive or perish as he wills, to change at his bidding, to 

 give, as other subjugated kinds have done, whatever of profit 

 or pleasure they may contribute to his endless advancement. 

 From this point of view our domesticated creatures should be 

 presented to our people, with the purpose in mind of bring- 

 ing them to see that the process of domestication has a far- 

 reaching aspect, a dignity, we may fairly say a grandeur, that 



