516 
Extracts from Domestic Journals. 
THE NATURAL HISTORY AND ORIGIN OF DOGS. 
[From the North British Review, No. xiii.] 
Baron Cuvier has characterised our reduction of the dog from a 
state of nature as “la conquete la plus complete, la plus singuliere, 
et la plus utile que l’homme. ait faite*,” and Mr. Swainson has 
accused Baron Cuvier of scepticism and infidelity for so doingt. 
The English Naturalist quotes the preceding sentence and the 
following: — “Les petits chiens d’appartemens, Doguins, Epag - 
neuls, Bichons, & c., sont les produits les plus degeneres, et les 
marques les plus fortes de la puissance que l’homme exerce sur la 
nature;” and then adds in a note: — “We question whether the 
scepticism of Buffon, or the infidelity of Lamarck, could have 
prompted a more objectionable passage.” “ What does this 
mean,” he afterwards resumes, “ but that man has the power of 
conquering natural instincts or dispositions, and of making an 
animal, originally created savage or ferocious, domestic and familiar, 
at his own good will and pleasure.” We think it really may 
mean something of that kind without authorising such serious 
charges as those brought forward. If our undoubted pow’er over 
the animal kingdom should possibly increase our satisfaction with 
ourselves, that is, with our own praiseworthy perseverance and 
ingenuity, we trust it will also still more increase our admiring 
gratitude to the Creator both of man and beast, for having endowed 
the inferior orders with those accommodating instincts which the 
plastic power of the human race has providentially been enabled 
so to control, modify, or even transform, as to render them subser- 
vient to such various and important uses. When God made man 
in his own image, he gave him dominion “ over every living thing 
that moveth upon the earth,” and the sway which he has since 
been enabled to establish, at various times, over various creatures, 
is merely the exercise of that lordly delegation. Mr. Swainson 
seems to think that we arrogate too much to ourselves when we 
refer to such changes, as if they were our own achievement. Now, 
we maintain that these changes actually are our own achievement, 
although we admit that we cannot alter the essential nature of 
things, but can merely modify or divert certain instinctive impulses 
in such a way as to make them beneficial to ourselves. Certain 
Regne Animal, vol. i, p. 149. f Classification of Animals, p. 135. 
