its pliability to the will of man, that is, to a power similar in its nature and mode of action to that power to which animals owe their very existence.  The influence of man upon Animals is, in other words, the action of mind upon them; and yet the ordinary mode of arguing upon this subject is, that, because the intelligence of man has been able to produce certain varieties in domesticated animals, therefore physical causes have produced all the diversities among wild ones.  Surely, the sounder logic would be to infer, that, because our finite intelligence can cause the original pattern to vary by some slight shades of difference, therefore an infinite intelligence must have established all the boundless diversity of which our boasted varieties are but the faintest echo.  It is the most intelligent farmer that has the greatest success in improving his breeds; and if the animals he has so fostered are left to themselves without that intelligent care, they return to their normal condition.  So with plants:  the shrewd, observing, thoughtful gardener will obtain many varieties from his flowers; but those varieties will fade out, if left to themselves.  There is, as it were, a certain degree of pliability and docility in the organization both of animals and plants, which may be developed by the fostering care of man, and within which he can exercise a certain influence; but the variations which he thus produces are of a peculiar kind, and do not correspond to the differences of the wild Species.  Let us take some examples to illustrate this assertion.

Every Species of wild Bull differs from the others in its size; but all the individuals correspond to the average standard of size characteristic of their respective Species, and show none of those extreme differences of size so remarkable among our domesticated Cattle.  Every Species of wild Bull has its peculiar color, and all the individuals of one Species share in it:  not so with our domesticated Cattle, among which every individual may differ in color from every other.  All the individuals of the same Species of wild Bull agree in the proportion of their parts, in the mode of growth of the hair, in its quality, whether fine or soft:  not so with our domesticated Cattle, among which we find in the same Species overgrown and dwarfish individuals, those with long and short legs, with slender and stout build of the body, with horns or without, as well as the greatest variety in the mode of twisting the horns,—­in short, the widest extremes of development which the degree of pliability in that Species will allow.

A curious instance of the power of man, not only in developing the pliability of an animal’s organization, but in adapting it to suit his own caprices, is that of the Golden Carp, so frequently seen in bowls and tanks as the ornament of drawing-rooms and gardens.  Not only an infinite variety of spotted, striped, variegated colors has been produced in these Fishes, but, especially among the Chinese, so famous for their