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Ch. XXXVL] OBEDIENCE TO MAN OFTEN AN INSTINCT. 301 



we begin to select certain varieties witli a view of increasing 

 speed, and afterwards fail in onr efforts materially to raise the 

 standard, for liow ever many years we may expend wealth and 

 energy in the attempt. The real question, he observes, is 

 not whether indefinite and unlimited change in any or all 

 directions is possible, but whether man can bring about such 

 differences as do occur in nature by accumulating variations 

 or by selection. ' All the swiftest animals — deer, antelopes, 

 hares, foxes, lions, leopards, horses, zebras, and many 

 have reached very nearly the same degree of speed. Although 

 the swiftest of each must have been for ages preserved and the 

 slowest must have perished, we have no reason to believe that 

 there is any advance of speed. The possible limits under 

 existing conditions, and perhaps under possible terrestrial 

 conditions, has been long reached.'* But in the English race- 

 horse we have been enabled to produce a variety surpassing 

 in swiftness its own wild progenitor and all the other equine 

 species. 



i^ 



of a natural 

 amount of cl 

 generations. 



•We may 



Cuviert 



may 



we have wr on gilt in the instincts and dispositions of animals. 

 An animal in domesticity^ he observes, is not essentially in a 

 different situation, inregard to the feeling of restraint, from one 

 left to itself. It lives in society v^ithout constraint, because, 

 without doubt, it was a social animal ; and it conforms itself to 

 the will of man, because it had, a chief, to which, in a wild 

 state, it would have yielded obedience. There is nothing in 



it is satisfying its 

 makes no sacrifice 

 animals, when lef 



►nformable 

 submission 



a master, and 

 All the social 



themselves, form herds more 



numerous 



know 



mu 



* Wallace, Quart. Journ. of Science, 

 October, 1867, p. 486. 



t Mem. du Mus. d'Hist. Nat. ; 



Jameson, Ed. New Phil. Journ., Nos. 6 

 7,8. 



