s 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