One of the effects of the modern advance in natural science has been greatly to increase the attention which is devoted to the influences that the conditions of diverse peoples have had upon their development. Man is no longer looked upon, as he was of old, as a being which had been imposed upon the earth in a sudden and arbitrary manner, set to rule the world into which he had been sent as a master. We now see him as one of the myriad species which has won its way by powers of mind out of darkness and the great struggle to the place of command. The way in which this creature, weak in body and exceedingly dependent on his surroundings, has in the modern geologic epoch come forth from the mass of the lower animals, is by far the most impressive and as yet the most unexplained phenomenon which the geologist has to consider. It is not likely that the marvellous advancement can be accounted for by any single cause; it is probably due, as are most of the great evolutions, to the concurrence of many influences; but among these which make for advance, we clearly have to reckon the animals and plants which man has learned to associate with his work of the household and the fields.

Although certain species of insects, particularly the ants, have the well-developed habit of subjugating certain creatures of their own family, man is the only vertebrate that has ever adopted the plan of domesticating a variety of animals and plants. The beginnings of this custom were made in a very remote time, and for long ages the profit which was thereby gained appears to have been but slight. Gradually, however, races, owing to their masterful quality and to the opportunities which were offered by the wild life about their dwelling places, obtained flocks and herds. In the group of continents commonly termed the old world, where there were several ancient primitive peoples of innate ability, and where there were many species of larger mammals which were well fitted for domestication, the advance in social development went on rapidly. In the new world, though the primitive races contained tribes of much ability, there was practically no chance for the people to add to their strength by the subjugation of beasts of burden, or to their food resources by the adoption of various animals which could be used for the needs of food or raiment. The advance of men when they have obtained valuable domesticated animals, and their failure to win a high station where the surrounding nature denied such opportunities, go far to prove the bearing of this accomplishment in the development of peoples.

A little consideration makes it evident to us that the advance of mankind above the original savage state is in several ways favored by the possession of domesticated animals. In the first place, each creature which is adopted into the household or the fields usually brings as its tribute a substantial contribution to the resources which tend to make the society commercially successful. When we consider the enlargements of resources and the diversification of industries which rest upon the adoption of any one of these animals—as, for instance, the horse—we see in a way what the possession of domesticated animals and plants really means, and are in a position to conceive, though at best but dimly, what the scores of these captive species have done for us. We recognize the fact that while, under almost any conditions, a certain manner of advance above the most primitive savagery is possible to a naturally able people, this on-going cannot lead any distance unless the folk have other help than their own weak bodies can give them. It is hardly too much to say that civilization has intimately depended on the subjugation of a great range of useful species.

It would be interesting to trace, if we could, what share the several domesticated animals have had in the development of the human races; but this task is not to be done. We can, however, discern that the Arab without the camel and the horse would not have found the place in history which he has filled, and that our own race could not have attained its place save for the aid which the horned cattle, sheep, and a host of other helpers which we have pressed into service, have afforded. These economic gains have to be judged in mass, they cannot be reckoned in detail. When we have made the best account of them we can, there remains another class of influences, the value of which, though evidently great, is yet harder to reckon; these arise from the education which has been attained through the care of these adopted creatures. Among savages the great need is a training in forethoughtfulness; all primitive peoples are like children, they live in the interests of the day; the cares of the seasons to come, or even of the morrow, are not for them. The possession of domesticated animals certainly did much to break up this old brutal way of life; it led to a higher sense of responsibility to the care of the household; it brought about systematic agriculture; it developed the art of war; it laid the foundations of wealth and commerce, and so set men well upon their upward way. Moreover, the use of domesticated animals of the better sort enabled the more vigorous and care-taking races to gain the strength which led to their advancement in power to a point where they were able to displace the lower and feebler tribes. In other words, the system of domestication has provided a method by which those peoples who were fitted to develop the qualities which make for civilization could advance; it has provided the opportunity for selection.

Of all the influences which have been exercised on man by the care of his flocks, herds, and droves, perhaps the most important is that which has arisen from the broader development of his sympathies. The savage may be defined as a man who cares only for his family and his tribe; the civilized man as one whose kindly interest extends to mankind and beyond to all sentient beings. In the development of this altruistic motive the care of the dependent species has evidently been most effective. We note that the peoples who have attained the first upward step in the association with domesticated animals are in their quality, so far as tested by literature and history, much above the mere savage. With the care of the flocks we find associated poetry, the first notes of higher religious motives, and a largeness of the sympathetic life which is favored by the nature of the occupation. Where the nomadic habits of the original shepherds pass into the more sedentary state of the soil tiller, the element of personal care and the affection and the consequent education of the sympathy were increased. Men had now to care for half a dozen or more kinds of animals; they had to learn their ways, in a manner to put themselves in their places and conceive their needs. Thus the life of a farmer is a continual lesson in the art of sympathy; with the result, certainly in part due to this cause, that there is no class of people from whom the brutal instincts of the ancient savage life which we all inherit have been so completely eradicated.

It is perhaps too much to attribute the advance of the agricultural classes of our civilized peoples, in all that serves to remove them from the brutality of their savage ancestors, altogether to the nature of their work—to the very large element of kindly care for which it calls, and which is the price of success in the occupation. Yet when we note the immediate way in which the people bred in cities, under circumstances of excitement are wont to behave like savages of the lower kind, showing in their conduct a lack of all sympathetic education, and contrast their behavior with that of their kinsmen from the fields—we see essential differences in character which cannot well be explained save by the diverse natures of the training which the men have received. Thus in the French Revolution, the baser, more inhuman deeds were not committed by the peasants, who had been the principal sufferers under the rÉgime which was overthrown, but by the people of the great towns who had been less oppressed by the iniquities of the old system of government.

If it be true—as my personal experiences and observations lead me firmly to believe is the case—that man's contact with the domesticated animals has been and is ever to be one of the most effective means whereby his sympathetic, his civilized motives may be broadened and affirmed, there is clearly reason for giving to this side of life a larger share of attention than it has received. So far the presence of these lower creatures in our society has generally been accepted as a matter of course. Sentimentalists, after the fashion of Laurence Sterne, have dwelt upon the imaginary woes of the creatures. Associations of well-meaning people have endeavored to diminish the cruelty which people of the towns, rarely those bred on the soil, often inflict upon them. It seems, however, desirable that we should place this consideration upon a plane more fitting the knowledge of our time. It should be made plain, not only that the success of our civilization depends now as in the past on the coÖperation which mankind has had from the domesticated animals, but also that the development of this relation is one of the most interesting features in all history. On through the ages of the geologic past comes this great procession of life, in the endless succession of species whose numbers in the aggregate are to be reckoned by the scores, if not by the hundreds of millions. Until this modern age, the throng goes forward blindly, groping its way towards the higher planes of life. At length certain of the more advanced forms attain to a measure of intellectual elevation. Still, for all this advance, the life is not organized so as to attain any large ends; no society arises from it.

Suddenly, in the last geological epoch, man, the descendant of a group which like all others had led the narrow life of the preparatory ages, appears upon the scene. At first, and in his lower human estate, his position was not noticeably higher than that of his kindred, but there was in him the seed of a great unlikeness, of very new things, in that his desires had an element of the unlimited which was to grow apace, and in time to make him greedy of on-going. As this innovating creature sought for agents of power in the wilderness about him, he blindly laid hands upon such of the fellow tenants of the wilds as might serve his immediate needs. This species, both animals and plants, endowed with the capacity for variation, the plasticity which is in general a characteristic of all organic forms, were early led by their new master, as of old they had been guided by the old organic laws. They changed according to his choice, abandoning their ancient ways for the novel paths of civilization. With this association of the higher forms of the earth under the leadership of man, there began an entirely new and unprecedented condition of the world's affairs. In place of the ancient law of nature there came the control of our species which had been, in a way, chosen to be the overlord of life.

At first, the number of species of animals and plants which man brought under his control was very limited; it was indeed confined to those which might readily be subjugated to meet immediate needs. Gradually, however, the list has been extended until it included thousands of forms, which, while they meet no need such as the savage recognizes, are gratifying to the taste or the ambitions of civilized peoples. These Æsthetic devices, or those of necessity, are advancing so rapidly that each generation sees hundreds of new animal and plant species added to our living collections, so that our plant and animal gardens now contain a large share of the more attractive forms which are to be found in the various geographical realms. Our tilled fields yield perhaps a hundred times as many varieties of plants as they did in the earliest historic agriculture. The advance in the process of domestication is not so rapid as regards the animal kingdom as it is with the realm of plants, and this mainly for the reason that animals have a will of their own which has to be bent or broken to that of man. Still it goes on apace. We of to-day have at our command many times the number of sentient species contributive to our pleasure or profit that had been made captive at the beginning of our era. Naturally, in the early days of domestication, men brought under their control the greater number of the animals which gave promise of utility. As no new species of any economic importance have been created within the last geologic period, the field for the extension of economic domestication has of late been very limited. But the realm of sympathetic appreciation, unlike the economic, knows no definite bounds, and promises in time to bring all the more important organic forms under the care of the sympathetic and masterful being who has been chosen as the ruler of terrestrial life.

We thus see that the matter of domesticated animals is but a part of the larger problem which includes all that relates to man's destined mastery of the earth—a mastery which he is rapidly winning. It means that, in time, a large part of the life of this sphere is to be committed to his care, to survive or perish as he wills, to change at his bidding, to give, as other subjugated kinds have done, whatever of profit or pleasure they may contribute to his endless advancement. From this point of view our domesticated creatures should be presented to our people, with the purpose in mind of bringing them to see that the process of domestication has a far-reaching aspect, a dignity, we may fairly say a grandeur, that few human actions possess. If we can impress this view, it will be certain to awaken men to a larger sense of their responsibility for, and their duty by, the creatures which we have taken from their olden natural state into the social order. It will, at the same time, enlarge our conceptions of our own place in the order of this world.

In the following pages little effort has been made to present those facts concerning domesticated animals which would commonly be reckoned as scientific. The several essays which, in larger part, were separately printed in Scribner's Magazine, are intended for those persons who, while they may not care to approach the matter in the manner of the professional inquirer, are glad to have the results which naturalists have attained, so far as they may serve to extend knowledge of things which lie in the field of familiar experiences. To the text as it at first appeared, numerous additions have been made, and the concluding chapters, on the Rights of Animals, and on the Problem of Domestication, are new. In them an effort is made to direct attention to the importance of the problem of man's relation to the lower life which is about him, and which in the future far more than in the past is to be helped or hindered by his rule. Our life is made up of large problems; but there seem few that are greater than this, which concerns our duty by the creatures that share with us the blessings of existence, and over which we have come to rule.