THE GREAT DOG-SUPERSTITION 277 
that he had been specially created for such an 
object. Thus, Youatt says, “ The dog, next to the 
human being, ranks highest in intelligence, and was 
evidently designed to be the companion and friend 
of man”; and in another place he says that it is 
highly probable that he descended from no such 
inferior and worthless animal as the jackal or wolf, 
but was originally created, somewhat as we now 
find him—the associate and friend of man. 
This was not so very hard to believe in the 
pre-Darwinian days, since domesticated dogs, and 
even some of the breeds which we now possess, were 
known to have existed between three and four 
thousand years ago, while the world was only 
supposed to have existed about six thousand years. 
It seems probable that this curious superstition of 
the dog’s special creation grew up gradually and 
only became popular in very recent times. It was 
gladly seized on by the poets, who made as much 
out of it as they had formerly done out of the 
melody of the dying swan; and the artists were 
not slow in following their example. A dog may 
be choked with pudding, but the human mind 
greedily gulped down as much of this mawkish 
dog-sentiment as any person, with misdirected 
talents, chose to manufacture for it. 
Before proceeding with the story of our dog 
superstition, I will here interpose a remark anent 
that which obtains in the other half, or more than 
half, of the world—the East. ‘“‘ The people of the 
East,” says Youatt, “have a strange superstition 
