The first
thing to acquire is if I may so express it, the LEGAL FIBRE; a
polity first--what sort of polity is immaterial; a law first--what
kind of law is secondary; a person or set of persons to pay
deference to--though who he is, or they are, by comparison scarcely
signifies. 'There is,' it has been said, 'hardly any exaggerating
the difference between civilised and uncivilised men; it is greater
than the difference between a tame and a wild animal,' because man
can improve more. But the difference at first was gained in much the
same way. The taming of animals as it now goes on among savage
nations, and as travellers who have seen it describe it, is a kind
of selection. The most wild are killed when food is wanted, and the
most tame and easy to manage kept, because they are more agreeable
to human indolence, and so the keeper likes them best. Captain
Galton, who has often seen strange scenes of savage and of animal
life, had better describe the process:--'The irreclaimably wild
members of every flock would escape and be utterly lost; the wilder
of those that remained would assuredly be selected for slaughter--
whenever it was necessary that one of the flock should be killed.
The tamest cattle--those which seldom ran away, that kept the flocks
together, and those which led them homeward--would be preserved
alive longer than any of the others.
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