natural
world. For thousands of years men have preferred the dogs which
manifested a sympathy with them, and the result is a creature which,
though derived from a very brutal ancestry, has in its way as intense
affections as human beings. Now and then they have chosen deliberately
to develop some mental peculiarity of the animal which would be of
service in hunting, and the effect of this care is to be noted in the
considerable variety and perfection of mental development which the
sporting dogs exhibit. In the main, however, the interest of our dog
fanciers has been limited to the physical features of the species;
nothing like a deliberate effort to ascertain how far the development of
their mental parts could be carried has ever been essayed. In no other
field of human endeavor of anything like equal importance has there been
so little understanding applied to the tasks.

Now that we are beginning to know something of the laws of inheritance,
it is high time for us deliberately to consider what our relations to
the organic world are hereafter to be, and how we can guide ourselves in
these relations by the light of modern learning. It is in the first
place clear that the subjugation of the earth which necessarily
accompanies the development of civilization, inevitably tends to sweep
away a large part of the organic life which is not adopted and
protected by man. Already, with the mere beginnings of this culture, we
find that several of the large beasts and birds and a number of plants
have been destroyed. New as civilization is on this continent, it has
already brought the moose and the buffalo to a point where they are on
the verge of extinction, and in the Old World the wild ancestors of the
horse and the bull have quite disappeared from the wildernesses. Within
a few centuries the greater birds, the Dinornis and Epiornis, as well as
the interesting Dodo, have vanished from the southern isles which they
inhabited. In the century to come we can foresee that this process of
effacement of the ancient life will go on with accelerated velocity.

It seems inevitable that man should play the part of a destroyer. It is
his place to break down the ancient order determined by what we call
natural forces and in its stead to set a new accord in which the economy
of the earth will be in a great measure controlled by his intelligence.
Even those who most keenly sympathize with the wilderness life, are not
likely to object to the