If it be true--as my personal experiences and observations lead me firmly to believe is the case--that man's contact with the domesticated animals has been and is ever to be one of the most effective means whereby his sympathetic, his civilized motives may be broadened and affirmed, there is clearly reason for giving to this side of life a larger share of attention than it has received. So far the presence of these lower creatures in our society has generally been accepted as a matter of course. Sentimentalists, after the fashion of Laurence Sterne, have dwelt upon the imaginary woes of the creatures. Associations of well-meaning people have endeavored to diminish the cruelty which people of the towns, rarely those bred on the soil, often inflict upon them. It seems, however, desirable that we should place this consideration upon a plane more fitting the knowledge of our time. It should be made plain, not only that the success of our civilization depends now as in the past on the cooperation which mankind has had from the domesticated animals, but also that the development of this relation is one of the most interesting features in all history. On through the ages of the geologic past comes this great procession of life, in the endless succession of species whose numbers in the aggregate are to be reckoned by the scores, if not by the hundreds of millions. Until this modern age, the throng goes forward blindly, groping its way towards the higher planes of life. At length certain of the more advanced forms attain to a measure of intellectual elevation. Still, for all this advance, the life is not organized so as to attain any large ends; no society arises from it.