20 INTRODUCTION. 



tion, they might have been altered in size and form), 

 had all of them, in their future progeny, been found to 

 travel back towards the form, size, and character of 

 the original wild breeds ; which facts alone seem con- 

 clusive, and prove that the dog has, from the creation, 

 existed as a pure, unmixed, and original animal. 



If I could flatter myself that this cursory view of the 

 matter had satisfied the lover of the dog of his un- 

 doubted claim to perfect originality of formation, I 

 might rationally indulge a hope that it would be less 

 difficult to prove that the powerful agencies of habit, 

 food, climate, and domestication, had been of them- 

 selves fully sufficient to produce the endless varieties 

 that are met with in this multifarious race ; and that, 

 therefore, it was totally unnecessary to resort to the less 

 rational opinion, that such varieties had been originally 

 formed as were adapted to the spots whereon they have 

 been placed. The effects of climate on the animal 

 frame have occasioned much controversy amongst na- 

 turalists and philosophers, some of whom have admitted 

 its powerful controul over the external and even inter- 

 nal organization of the inhabitants existing under it ; 

 others, on the contrary, have argued, that the animal 

 machine is endowed with an inherent capability of main- 

 taining itself in its primitive integrity of form and cha- 

 racter under every variety of climate. Adverse as these 

 opinions may seem, the partizans of each have been 

 enabled to bring forward imposing facts in support of 

 it ; neither is it difficult, to a certain degree, to recon- 

 cile these seeming discrepancies, and to allow to each 

 theory a considerable portion of truth. It requires no 

 great depth of research, nor any extensive collation of 

 facts, to prove, that to every branch of animated na- 

 ture there undoubtedly has been imparted an inherent 



