80 INTRODUCTION. 



horse, were compelled to accept his yoke; and, 

 finally, when, with the same assistance, the wild 

 boar was tamed, the lion repelled, and even attacked 

 with success. Although the total development of 

 canine education must have been the work of ages, 

 yet that it was very early, however imperfect, of 

 great acknowledged importance, is attested by the 

 prominent station assigned to the dog in the earliest 

 theologies of Paganism. We know that his name 

 w^as given to one of the most beautiful stars, among 

 the oldest designated in the heavens, and that it 

 served for the purpose of fixing an epoch in the 

 solar year, by its periodical appearance.* Other 

 constellations, nearly as old, were likewise noted by 

 the name of dogs ; and there are proofs, in typifying 

 ideas by images representing physical objects, that 

 the admiration of mankind degenerating into super- 

 stition, moral qualities of the highest order were 

 figured with characteristics of the dog, till his name 

 and his image became conspicuous in almost every 

 Pagan system of theology, from Nabhass of the 

 Avim, to Kalb, Kan, Sag, Bog, and Dok of the 

 older languages spoken in the highest chains of cen- 

 tral and western Asia.t But if these animals were 



* Sirius, Sothis, Canicula, Nabhas, Anubis, Elur, El-habor, 

 El-schere, Ur-chan, &c. — See Porphyry de Nymphas aut. 

 Herodotus, 1. xi. Senius, ast. of the east. Juvenal, Sat. v., 



+ It would lead us too far in a work of this kind to eater 

 upon an etymological inquiry concerning the singular connec- 

 tion there appears to exist in the mutations of a general rout 



