IN OTHER ANIMALS. 223 



The term superstition has more than once been used in 

 connection with the dog. The question may here fitly be 

 raised and discussed whether superstition, such as occurs in 

 man, exists also in the dog or other animals. According to 

 some definitions, at least, we must concede that it does. 

 Thus human superstition has been variously defined as 



1. Excessive reverence or fear. 



2. False worship. 



3. Belief in what is absurd, without evidence. 



4. Idolatry of the unknown and mysterious (Cobbe). 



Such animals as the dog unquestionably possess super- 

 stition of this kind. It exhibits practically a belief in the 

 supernatural or preternatural. It expresses alarm at appari- 

 tions, spectres, ghosts. Thus it has been described as regard- 

 ing an owl as a ghost. And the same kind of ghosts that are 

 occasionally made use of in practical joking, or for more 

 serious ends for the' intimidation of man, and that frighten 

 him produce the same effect, sometimes at least, on the dog. 

 A fertile or morbid imagination frequently leads the horse as 

 well as the dog to be terrified at the first sight of perfectly 

 harmless objects, animate or inanimate, especially when seen 

 in a state of motion and in comparative darkness objects, 

 that is, which are simply for the moment new, not familiar, 

 not understood, and which therefore, being associated with 

 supposed danger, inspire timidity or terror, as well as pos- 

 sibly a sense of the mysterious or supernatural. Omne ignotum 

 is taken not pro magnifico but pro malefico ; it is invested 

 with imaginary, mysterious, undefined, and indefinable 

 powers of evil. Bartlett speaks of a sense of mystery or of 

 mysterious dread in certain animal inmates of the London 

 Zoological Gardens. In many animals, in short, under cer- 

 tain circumstances, awe or dread of the unseen, unknown, 

 untried, unheard, readily gives birth not only to a feeling of 

 mystery, but, as is pointed out in another chapter, to genuine 

 delusion. 



We have had occasion to see, in the last chapter, how 



much of human idolatry may be described as, or ascribed to, 



the religion of fear.^ By way of contrast it is desirable here 



to show how much of the dog's worship of man may be 



16 



