400 CONCLUDING REMARKS. Chap. XXVIU. 



CHAPTER XXVIII. 



CONCLUDING REMARKS. 



DOMESTICATION — NATURE AND CAUSES OF VARIABILITY — SELECTION — DIVER- 

 GENCE AND DISTINCTNESS OF CHARACTER — EXTINCTION OF RACES — 

 CIRCUMSTANCES FAVOURABLE TO SELECTION BY MAN — ANTIQUITY OF 

 CERTAIN IU.CES — THE QUESTION "WHETHER EACH PARTICULAR VARIATION 

 HAS BEEN SPECIALLY PREORDAINED. 



As summaries have been added to nearly all the chapters, and 

 as, in the chapter on pangenesis, various subjects, such as the 

 forms of reproduction, inheritance, reversion, the causes and 

 laws of variability, &c, have been recently discussed, I will 

 here only make a few general remarks on the more important 

 conclusions which may be deduced from the multifarious 

 details given throughout this work. 



Savages in all parts of the world easily succeed in taming 

 wild animals ; and those inhabiting any country or island, 

 when first visited by man, would probably have been still 

 more easily tamed. Complete subjugation generally depends 

 on an animal being social in its habits, and on receiving man 

 as the chief of the herd or family. In order that an animal 

 should be domesticated it must be fertile under changed con- 

 ditions of life, and this is far from being always the case. An 

 animal would not have been worth the labour of domestica- 

 tion, at least during early times, unless of service to man. 

 From these circumstances the number of domesticated animals 

 has never been large. With respect to plants, I have shown 

 in the ninth chapter how their varied uses were probably 

 first discovered, and the early steps in their cultivation. Man 

 could not have known, when he first domesticated an animal 

 or plant, whether it would flourish and multiply when trans- 

 ported to other countries, therefore he could not have been 

 thus influenced in his choice. We see that the close adapta- 

 tion of the reindeer and camel to extremely cold and hot 



