5i6 CHAINS OF CIRCUMSTANCE 



of Wight" disease, has made necessary other measures for 

 the fertilization of the apple blossom. So it has come about 

 that in several English orchards, in the spring of 1917, girls 

 were employed to dust with powder-puffs the pollen from 

 one- flower to another, a labour hitherto performed almost 

 entirely, and who will say less satisfactorily, by the honey 

 bee. Man keeps the bee for its store of sweetness, and 

 the bee, having paid its debt, throws ungrudgingly into the 

 bargain the fruit of a thousand orchards. 



THE RECOIL UPON MAN'S CHARACTER AND CIVILIZATION 



In other ways man's influence over animals has had a 

 vital power in moulding his own character and in guiding 

 the lines of his civilization. And this is true in particular 

 of the deliberate part he has played in domesticating animals. 

 The attention he has devoted to the fostering of the creatures 

 he has selected for his personal service has given birth to a 

 new feeling of regard for life and living things, a new feeling 

 of proprietorship and of responsibility. And these new 

 feelings of community and of responsibility have together 

 formed the foundations of the complex structure of social 

 life. 



It is instructive to trace the steps of early civilization in 

 the light of man's influence upon animals. Primitive man 

 is a child of nature, a simple hunter who claims no country 

 as his own, and has few rights and no comforts save what 

 the strength of his own right arm can bring. But even with 

 the early domestication of such animals as sheep and cattle, 

 man is relieved from the immediate cares of the morrow ; 

 for food and raiment lie to his hand, and new responsibilities 

 and interests claim his attention and develop his mind. 

 The herdsman is greater than the hunter, the Eskimo 

 only hunt the Reindeer, the Tunguses of Siberia tame them 

 and live by their herds. The herdsman too has gained in 

 his sense of community, for the herdsman peoples share in 

 the great religions of the world, the Arabs are Moslems, the 

 herdsmen of the steppes of Asia, Buddhists. As flocks and 

 herds increase, the wanderings of the nomad herdsman 

 become more and more pronounced, until the art of the 

 herdsman combines with that of the cultivator, and the 



