The civilisation, the manners, and the morals of dog-kind[1] are to a great extent subordinated to those of his ancestral master, man.  This animal, in many ways so superior, has accepted a position of inferiority, shares the domestic life, and humours the caprices of the tyrant.  But the potentate, like the British in India, pays small regard to the character of his willing client, judges him with listless glances, and condemns him in a byword.  Listless have been the looks of his admirers, who have exhausted idle terms of praise, and buried the poor soul below exaggerations.  And yet more idle and, if possible, more unintelligent has been the attitude of his express detractors; those who are very fond of dogs “but in their proper place”; who say “poo’ fellow, poo’ fellow,” and are themselves far poorer; who whet the knife of the vivisectionist or heat his oven;[2] who are not ashamed to admire “the creature’s instinct”; and flying far beyond folly, have dared to resuscitate the theory of animal machines.  The “dog’s instinct” and the “automaton-dog,” in this age of psychology and science, sound like strange anachronisms.  An automaton he certainly is; a machine working independently of his control, the heart like the mill-wheel, keeping all in motion, and the consciousness, like a person shut in the mill garret, enjoying the view out of the window and shaken by the thunder of the stones; an automaton in one corner of which a living spirit is confined:  an automaton like man.  Instinct again he certainly possesses.  Inherited aptitudes are his, inherited frailties.  Some things he at once views and understands, as though he were awakened from a sleep, as though he came “trailing clouds of glory."[3] But with him, as with man, the field of instinct is limited; its utterances are obscure and occasional; and about the far larger part of life both the dog and his master must conduct their steps by deduction and observation.

The leading distinction[4] between dog and man, after and perhaps before the different duration of their lives, is that the one can speak and that the other cannot.  The absence of the power of speech confines the dog in the development of his intellect.  It hinders him from many speculations, for words are the beginning of metaphysic.  At the same blow it saves him from many superstitions, and his silence has won for him a higher name for virtue than his conduct justifies.  The faults of the dog[5] are many.  He is vainer than man, singularly greedy of notice, singularly intolerant of ridicule, suspicious like the deaf, jealous to the degree of frenzy, and radically devoid of truth.  The day of an intelligent small dog is passed in the manufacture and the laborious communication of falsehood; he lies with his tail, he lies with his eye, he lies with his protesting paw; and when he rattles his dish or scratches at the door his purpose is other than appears.  But he has some apology to offer for the vice.  Many of the