ORDER RUMINANTIA. 295 



upon an improving state of existence. The Dog, by an in- 

 nate inclination, may have associated himself with the for- 

 tunes of human nature at a still earlier period, but his so- 

 ciety could lead no further than to mutual assistance and 

 protection, not to civilization ; while the Goat and Sheep, 

 the best fruits of the united exertions of man and his canine 

 associate, first slain and devoured, then caught, tamed, and 

 reared (for there appears a natural inclination in these 

 animals to familiarize with us *), must have furnished ob- 

 vious inducements to abandon the precarious life of a 

 hunter, perhaps of a cannibal, to relax in the pursuit of 

 his carnivorous wants, for the more peaceful, more humane 

 occupations of pasturage, and its consequent allurements to 

 gradual improvement, such as the arts of clothing and of 

 building. A gift of nature so evidently important to man- 

 kind, led to its usual effect upon minds without cultivation. 

 The wandering shepherd guided his nightly course by the 

 stars ; he observed the connexion of the seasons by the 

 passage of the sun through certain portions of the heavens; 

 he named the stars within this range, after the objects 

 most familiar to his mind, and his zodiac was formed with 

 Capricorn and Aries among its members or houses. These 

 names, at first applied for the purpose of divisional design- 

 ation, as they stood connected with real or supposed duties 

 or events relating to pastoral life, gradually acquired the 

 character of sacred ; and the same minds which had se- 

 lected them from common objects, by no uncommon transi- 

 tion, typified them with characteristic attributes, and then 



* Buffon relates a fact in support of this opinion, and a similar 

 thing has happened to us when landing on a precipitous and wooded 

 bank on the side of the lake of Thun, where these animals breed, and 

 are only occasionally removed by the owners, some goats and kids 

 came bleating to us, went directly into the boat, and required some 

 effort before they would retire, although they wanted neither food, 

 water, or shelter, and in that wild country they cannot be familia- 

 rized with human beings. 



