THE GREAT DOG-SUPERSTITION 271 



ledge that the animal he wishes to train is not a 

 little hollow duck or automaton, but that it has 

 faculties corresponding to the lower psychical 

 faculties in man, and that by the exercise of con- 

 siderable patience it may be made, when the 

 stimulus is applied, to repeat again and again a 

 few actions in the same order. The question which 

 concerns us to know is, has the dose of reason or 

 have these lower psychical faculties in the dog 

 been so greatly developed during its long com- 

 panionship with man as to raise it a great deal 

 nearer to man's level, and place a great gulf be- 

 tween its mind and that of the pig or the crow ? 

 The gulf exists only in our imagination, and the 

 " development " is a fairy-tale, of which Science 

 was probably not the original author, but which 

 she has thought proper to include, somewhat 

 amplified and with new illustrations, in the recent 

 editions of her collected works. The dog, taken 

 directly from a wild life, if taken young, will be 

 tame and understand and obey his master 

 numerous instances are on record and if patiently 

 trained will perform tricks just as wonderful as 

 those that were related to an astonished audience 

 at the late meeting of the British Association by 

 a well-known writer and authority on zoological 

 science. And in the mammalian division there are 

 hundreds of species, some higher, some lower than 

 the dog, which may be taught the same things, or 

 other things equally wonderful. These greatly 

 vaunted performances of the dog only prove that 



