ery thing, therefore, tends to convince us, that formerly men were
only with regard to the domestic animals, what those who are
particularly charged with the care of them still are--namely, members of
the society which these animals form among themselves; and, that they
are only distinguished, in the general mass, by the authority which they
have been enabled to assume from their superiority of intellect. Thus,
every social animal which recognizes man as a member, and as the chief
of its herd, is a domestic animal. It might even be said, that, from the
moment when such an animal admits man as a member of its society, it is
domesticated, as man could not enter into such society without becoming
the chief of it."[820]

But the ingenious author whose observations I have here cited, admits
that the obedience which the individuals of many domestic species yield
indifferently to every person, is without analogy in any state of things
which could exist previously to their subjugation by man. Each troop of
wild horses, it is true, has some stallion for its chief, who draws
after him all the individuals of which the herd is composed; but when a
domesticated horse has passed from hand to hand, and has served several
masters, he becomes equally docile towards _any person_, and is
subjected to the whole human race. It seems fair to presume that the
capability in the instinct of the horse to be thus modified, was given
to enable the species to render greater services to man; and, perhaps,
the facility with which many other acquired characters become hereditary
in various races of the horse, may be explicable only on a like
supposition. The amble, for example, a pace to which the domestic races
in some parts of Spanish America are exclusively trained, has, in the
course of several generations, become hereditary, and is assumed by all
the young colts before they are broken in.[821]

It seems, also, reasonable to conclude, that the power bestowed on the
horse, the dog, the ox, the sheep, the cat, and many species of domestic
fowls, of supporting almost every climate, was given expressly to enable
them to follow man throughout all parts of the globe, in order that we
might obtain their services, and they our protection. If it be objected
that the elephant which, by the union of strength, intelligence, and
docility, can render the greatest services to mankind, is incapable of
living in any but the warmest latitudes, we may observe that t