Chap. XXVIII. 



CONCLUDING REMARKS. 



405 



CHAPTEB XXVIII. 



CONCLUDING REMARKS. 



being! 



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

 GENCE AND DISTINCTNESS OF CHARACTER — EXTINCTION OF RACES — CIRCUM- 

 STANCES FAVOURABLE TO SELECTION BY MAN — ANTIQUITY OF CERTAIN RACES — 

 THE QUESTION WHETHER EACH PARTICULAR VARIATION HAS BEEN SPECIALLY PRE- 

 ORDAINED. 



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 invaded 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. Domestication implies almost 

 complete fertility under new and changed conditions of life, and 

 this is far from being invariably the case. An animal would not 

 have been worth the labour of domestication, 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 transported to other countries, therefore he could 

 not have been thus influenced in his choice. We see that the 

 close adaptation of the reindeer and camel to extremely cold and 

 hot countries has not prevented their domestication. Still less 



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