In a large way the work of domestication represents one of the modes of action of that sympathetic motive which more than any other has been the basis of the highest development of mankind. Ordinary men of the low grade are content to slay, or otherwise rudely gain what value they find in the wild creatures. Only the higher grades of men perceive much of the charm in the inhabitants of the wilderness, or desire to win them to their homes. If our conquests from the wilds were limited to the grossly profitable life alone, we might say that interest only had determined the work of subjugation; but as soon as men escape from their primitive state, even while in their general motives they are still essentially barbarians, they cultivate flowers and derive a keen pleasure from their company. They domesticate birds which are valuable only for the pleasures which their presence lends to human abodes. This action clearly shows that the element of sympathy, that love for the other life which in any way fixes the attention, has had much to do with this work of bringing other beings into association with our own lives. Not only is the motive which has led our race to such extensive conquests over the wild nature in itself sympathetic, but the process of winning these creatures from the wilderness has served effectively to extend and amplify this same impulse. One of the best features of agricultural life consists in the great amount of care-taking which it imposes upon its followers. The ordinary farmer has to enter into more or less sympathetic relations with half a score of animal species and many kinds of plants. His life, indeed, is devoted to ceaseless friendly relations with these creatures which live or die at his will. In this task his ancient savage impulses are slowly worn away, and in their place comes the enduring kindliness of cultivated men. When we compare the state of mind of the hunter with that of the care-taking soil-tiller, we see the vast scope and influence which this work of domestication has effected in our kind. To it perhaps more than to any other cause we must attribute the civilizable and the civilized state of mind.