Reason and Instinct. 



6525 



have always intermarried among themselves ; and in Persia, the real 

 Persians or Tajiks still remain quite distinct from their Turkish rulers. 

 In like manner even the Negro head and face may become assimilated 

 to the European by long subjection to similar influences. Thus in 

 some of our older West Indian colonies, it is not uncommon to meet 

 with Negroes, the descendants of those first introduced there, who 

 exhibit a very European physiognomy ; and it has even been asserted 

 that a Negro belonging to Dutch Guiana may be distinguished from 

 another belonging to the British settlements, by the similarity of the 

 features and expression of each to those which peculiarly characterise 

 his master. This effect could not be here produced by the inter- 

 mixture of bloods, since this would be made apparent by alteration 

 of colour."— Id. 1075. 



It will not, I think, detract from the interest of these remarkable 

 statements if I proceed to connect with them the further statement that 

 precisely analogous changes take place in many families of the brute 

 creation, and that too in both directions, namely, from a higher to a 

 lower type of cranial formation, and vice versa. And this leads me 

 to the expression of an opinion or conclusion which I am afraid will 

 appear, at first sight, paradoxical, if not worse. What I mean is that 

 the influence of man upon the lower creatures, at least upon such of 

 them as are brought very strongly under his influence by the processes 

 of domestication, is attended with different results in different cases, 

 and those results of the most diametrically opposite natures. In some 

 instances the influence of man raises, elevates, almost ennobles the 

 brute creature ; certainly induces a psychical improvement which, when 

 considered in its positive amount, is simply marvellous. In other 

 instances, and those probably by very much the most numerous, 

 human influence degrades the brute creature intellectually, and posi- 

 tively robs it of some of its natural psychical endowments, without 

 making amends in any one particular. And to such an extent do these 

 two opposite processess go, that a definite, perhaps very marked, and 

 equally permanent alteration in the form of the bones of the cranium 

 takes place. And further still, I have to observe that in case speci- 

 mens of these deteriorated animals, with skulls fashioned after a 

 permanently degraded type, recover their freedom, Nature asserts her 

 power in gradually, but surely, reversing the effects of man's influence, 

 and remodelling the skull of the now wild animal until it resumes its 

 original size and conformation. 



For the purpose of illustrating the former or elevating process 

 ascribed to man's influence I select the dog, as presenting the most 



