that showed any independence of spirit has been
killed off. Man has tried to produce a purely subservient creature, and
has succeeded in his task. No doubt a dog is faithful and affectionate,
but he would be shot or drowned or ordered to be destroyed by the local
magistrate if he were otherwise. A small vestige of the original spirit
has been left in him, merely from the ambition of his owners to possess
an animal that will not bite them, but will bite anyone else. And even
this watch-dog trait is mechanical, for the guardian of the house will
worry the harmless, necessary postman, and welcome the bold burglar with
fawning delight. The dog is a slave, and the crowning evidence of his
docility, that he will fawn on the person who has beaten him, is the
result of his character having been bred out of him. The dog is an
engaging companion, an animated toy more diverting than the cleverest
piece of clockwork, but it is only our colossal vanity that makes us
take credit for the affection and faithfulness of our own particular
animal. The poor beast cannot help it; all else has been bred out of him
generations ago.

When wild animals become tame, they are really extending or transferring
to human beings the confidence and affection they naturally give their
mothers, and this view will be found to explain more facts about
tameness than any other. Every creature that would naturally enjoy
maternal, or it would be better to say parental, care, as the father
sometimes shares in or takes upon himself the duty of guarding the
young, is ready to transfer its devotion to other animals or to human
beings, if the way be made easy for it, and if it be treated without too
great violation of its natural instincts. The capacity to be tamed is
greatest in those animals that remain longest with their parents and
that are most intimately associated with them. The capacity to learn new
habits is greatest in those animals which naturally learn most from
their parents, and in which the period of youth is not merely a period
of growing, a period of the awakening of instincts, but a time in which
a real education takes place. These capacities of being tamed and of
learning new habits are greater in the higher mammals than in the lower
mammals, in mammals than in birds, and in birds than in reptiles. They
are very much greater in very young animals, where dependence on the
parents is greatest, than in older animals, and they gradually fade away
as