a. Domestic Animals

SOME of the most remarkable peculiarities of our theoreticians of race, who call themselves “anthropo-sociologists”, is the fact that they leave us all the more in the dark as to the true nature of the concept of race, the more they have occasion to manipulate with this concept in the explanation of social phenomena. A man’s being, action, performance, are due in their opinion simply to his race; they have been inherited from his ancestors and are transmitted with the certainty of natural law to his descendants. Race is the modern Fate, as inscrutable and immutable as the latter.

It seems self-evident to the anthropo-sociological theoreticians of race that those groups designated as human races should be understood in the same way as we understand races of animals. They seem to be not troubled for a moment by any question as to whether the life conditions of man do not alter the concept of race as applied to man. They do not even take up the question of which type of animal race is represented by the human races.

As a matter of fact, the races of animals are not all of the same type, but may be divided into two different groups: the races of domestic animals, and the races of animals in the wild state.

Zoologists and botanists distinguish these groups with great care. As a rule, they apply the word “race” only to the former, while the latter are termed “varieties” or “species”. The theoreticians of race, the anthropo-sociologists, however, indiscriminately apply observations and laws valid for both the races of domestic animals as well as for the varieties of wild animals, to the human races. This alone must give rise to dreadful confusion, altogether aside from the fact that human beings are neither domestic animals nor animals in the wild condition, but a tribe living under quite peculiar conditions, conditions which do not resemble those of any other animals.

Before taking up the problem of race, we must therefore first attain clarity as to the distinction between the “race” of the domestic animal and the “variety” of the wild animal. We speak here only of animals, since only they are of importance to our problem, which concerns the human races, but the following remarks apply just as well to plants as to animals.

A phenomenon is best understood when its origin is known. In the case of the races of domestic animals, it is not difficult to ascertain this origin, for the process is being accomplished daily before our eyes. The breeding of new races is constantly going on. On the other hand, the formation of varieties in nature cannot be observed; it must be inferred as an hypothesis.

If we regard the organisms in nature, we shall find that none of them serves a purpose lying outside of itself, but that each is an end in itself. Its individual organs must serve for the preservation of the whole, and must therefore be adequate for – or at least compatible with – self-preservation. An organism constituted otherwise cannot continue to exist, and certainly not to multiply.

But in the case of the animal organism, not only its own organs are important, but also those of other organisms with which it comes in contact, which oppose it, or on which it lives. Only man, however, has advanced to the point of altering in such manner the organs of the organisms from which or by which he lives, as to make them more subservient to his purposes. This is one of the means by which he has advanced beyond his primitive condition.

His first step in this process is to cause animals (also plants) which he would otherwise be obliged to seek out and capture with more or less difficulty, to live and multiply in his proximity. His first object in this is probably merely to diminish the difficulties of seeking, perhaps also of overcoming, the organisms on which he lives. But once the latter have been accustomed to live together with man as tame companions, man is also impelled to attempt to adapt the organs of the domestic animal, or of the cultivated plant, to his own purposes, for which nature did not intend them.

This is best attained by adequately altering their conditions of life, by increasing their supply of food, perhaps by fertilizing or battening, decreasing their expenditure of strength in the life process, for instance, by sparing them the necessity of looking for fodder, of fleeing from enemies, of losing heat in the winter cold, etc. But, ultimately, man comes to the point of altering these organisms by making use of his observation that each individual has the tendency to transmit his qualities to his posterity. Much as all the individuals of the same species may resemble each other, they are never completely identical. Slight variations are always present, and these may easily be transmitted.

Most domestic animals finally become so amenable to man’s guidance that he is enabled to mate them, or prevent them from reproducing, as he likes. Once he has advanced to this point, he will, of course, prefer to permit those specimens to reproduce that are most suitable for his purposes, that furnish most milk, meat, or fat, or yield the finest wool, or lay most eggs, have most traction power or swiftness, etc. If those of their posterity continue to reproduce, who present these qualities in the most emphatic form, these qualities will gradually be reinforced to such an extent, and the bodies of the animals will alter so greatly, as to be perceptibly different from those of their ancestors, thus producing a new species from the old species, with permanent, repeatedly transmittable characteristics, provided the breeding-animals are always mated only with their like.

This selection is at first predominantly an unconscious one. The best specimens are reproduced because they are most prized. Without any intention of securing a new race, this final outcome of the process has not been apparent from the outset. But the art of breeding is perfected more and more, becomes more and more conscious, and finally actually sets out to create specific races with specific race traits. At times, new variations may sporadically appear in isolated specimens. If these are of advantage to man, he will attempt to reproduce them. Thus, in 1791, a ram with short, crooked legs and a long back, which was thus prevented from jumping over hedges, gave rise to a new race in America, that of the Ancona sheep. Likewise in France in 1828, a hornless ram with uncommonly soft, long wool, led to the creation of a new race, the Mauchamp sheep. As a rule, however, the creation of a new race is not such a simple matter, but proceeds by means of a slow, gradual reinforcement of traits, often discernible in the first generation only to the trained eye of experienced breeders, and not attaining practical significance until they have been reinforced to a sufficient extent in the course of generations.

The uninterrupted selection of breeding-animals, continued for generations according to the same plan, creates a new race which is maintained by the fact that only such specimens are reproduced as present this race trait in the most emphatic form, that a mating with individuals of other races is strictly avoided, and all specimens of the specific race which present a variation that deviates from the desired race trait are of course excluded from further breeding.

The necessary condition for the formation of such new races is, of course, that the animals reproduce in the tame state and that their mating be under man’s control. The elephant, as a rule, reproduces only in the wild state and has created no new races.

On the other hand, the domestic cat leaves nothing to be desired in the way of prolificness, yet the cat has preserved much of its original freedom in spite of man. Its love-life is carried on not in the stable but on the roofs, and therefore, according to Darwin, it does not furnish any different races within the same country.

However, the formation of new races under otherwise identical circumstances will be the easier, the greater the certainty to mate specific individuals, and the more swiftly the generations succeed each other. This is the reason for the great increase of races of rabbits and pigeons; here the breeding of such races has become a sport.