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 
was 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, l. xi. Servius, ast. of the east. Juvenal, Sat. v., 
&e. * 
+ It would lead us too far in a work of this kind to enter 
upon an etymological inquiry concerning the singular connec- 
tion there appears to exist in the mutations of a general root 
