518 
NATURAL HISTORY AND ORIGIN OF DOGS. 
just as capable of domestication as the others, were they worth 
the trouble ; but there are many useless animals in the world, 
(viewing them, that is, only in their economical relations to our- 
selves), and these it would assuredly be a waste of labour to re- 
claim from their natural state, which is that of well-founded fear 
for the lord of the creation. Besides, it is not the most valuable 
of our domesticated animals which, in the wild state, live by 
choice in the vicinity of human habitations, or submit themselves 
most cheerfully to man’s dominion. Neither is it the nature, con- 
sidered by itself alone, of any creature’s attributes which deter- 
mines its being reduced to the domestic state. The social condi- 
tion of man himself, and his own advancement in civilization and 
domestic life, must be likewise taken to account. Ask the North 
American Indian, as he wanders through leafless woods or over 
sterile plains or across the snowy surface of frost-bound lakes or 
crackling rivers, whether the rein-deer, which he may be' then 
tracking in cold and hunger, is capable, like the dog, of domestica- 
tion. His reply would be, that you might as soon seek to domes- 
ticate the grizzly bear or prong-horned antelope. Put the same 
question to the nomadian of the North of Europe, the forlorn Lap- 
lander, and he will tell you (in still greater amazement at your 
ignorance) that for every domestic purpose there is no such animal 
oh all the earth. It is, therefore, the wildness of man rather than 
the stubbornness of beast which so frequently interferes with 
the progress of domestication. “ For every kind of beasts, and of 
birds, and of serpents, and of things in the sea, is tamed, and hath 
been tamed of mankind : But the tongue can no man tame.” 
James iii, 7. And this last statement, from a source which none 
can gainsay, no doubt accounts for the fact that one naturalist 
should abuse another without sufficient reason*. 
* We shall not take upon us to question Mr. Swainson’s scholarship, or 
doubt his clear comprehension of the passages he reprehends. But in his own 
discourse on the “Classification of Quadrupeds,” p. 15, where he takes occa- 
sion to state the characters which distinguish animals and plants, we find the 
following passage : — “ Vegetables derive their nutriment from the sun, and 
from the circumfluent atmosphere, in the form of water, which is a combina- 
tion of oxygen and hydrogen ; of air containing oxygen and azote ; and of 
carbonic acid, composed of oxygen and carbon.” Now, the meaning of this 
is by no means clear, or rather it is very clear that it has no meaning at all. 
As a general reference is made to one of Cuvier’s works as the source of this 
extraordinary piece of physiology, we glanced over the Introduction to the 
“Rdgne Animal ,” and soon found as follows : — “Le sol et F atmosphere pre- 
sented aux v^getaux pour leur nutrition de l’eau, qui se compose d’oxygene 
et d’hydrogene, de Fair qui contient de l’oxygene et de l’azote ; et de l’acide 
carbonique que est une combinaison d’oxygene et de carbone.” p. 20. Now, 
we are ready to maintain that, although sol, during fine weather, is very fair 
latin for sun, it is certainly not French for any thing half so lustrous, but, in 
