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“ Perdita : I have heard it said, 
There is an art, which, in their piedness, shares 
With great creating nature.” 
“ Polixenes : Say there be ; 
Yet nature is made better by no mean, 
But nature makes that mean : so, o’er that art, 
Which, you say, adds to nature, is an art 
That nature makes. You see, sweet maid, we marry 
A gentler scion to the wildest stock ; 
And make conceive a bark of baser kind 
By bud of nobler race : this is an art 
Which does mend nature,—change it rather ; but 
The art itself is nature.” 
—{Act iv., sc. j.) 
In considering this argument, it may be well to note 
at the outset how very complex is the idea implied by 
the phrase “ the facts of domestication.” In the first place, 
there is a domestication which takes place altogether apart 
from Artificial Selection. Man introduces animals into 
new conditions, teaches them new habits, or developes old 
habits, and the inevitable consequence is, that a consider 
able change takes place which transmutes species quite 
apart from any selective influences. The man who first 
tamed an animal and used it as his servant never thought 
of modifying the structure of the creature, and was pro 
bably unconscious of any influence which he was exercising 
in that direction. His chief thought was to preserve a race 
which had become useful to him ; and often domesticated 
animals have been produced solely with this view. In some 
cases anything like Artificial Selection is impossible, or so 
difficult that it is never or rarely attempted. 
Here, then, we have simple domestication, or domestica 
tion without selection. But after a time, we can well 
understand that it would occur even to savages that it 
would be well for them not only to preserve the race, but 
to improve the breed. With this object in view, they would 
select the best specimens to become the parents of the