DOG KIND. 9 



From this single consideration, therefore, we 

 may at once pronounce all dogs to be of one 

 kind ; but which of them is the original of all 

 the rest, which of them is the savage dog from 

 whence such a variety of descendants have come 

 down, is no easy matter to determine. We may 

 easily indeed observe, that all those animals 

 which are under the influence of man, are sub- 

 ject to great variations. Such as have been suf- 

 ficiently independent, so as to choose their own 

 climate, their own nourishment, and to pursue 

 their own habitudes, preserve the original marks 

 of nature without much deviation ; and it is pro- 

 bable, that the first of these is even at this day 

 very well represented in their descendants. But 

 such as man has subdued, transported from one 

 climate to another, controlled in their manner of 

 living and their food, have most probably been 

 changed also in their forms : particularly the dog 

 has felt these alterations more strongly than any 

 other of the domestic kinds ; for, living more 

 like man, he may be thus said to live more irre- 

 gularly also, and, consequently, must have felt 

 all those changes that such variety would natu- 

 rally produce. Some other causes also may be 

 assigned for this variety in the species of the dog : 

 as he is perpetually under the eye of his master, 

 when accident has produced any singularity in 

 its productions, man uses all his art to continue 

 this peculiarity unchanged, either by breeding 

 from such as had those singularities, or by de- 

 stroying such as happened to want them ; besides, 

 as the dog produces much more frequently than 



