nd science, sound like
strange anachronisms. An automaton he certainly is; a machine working
independently of his control, the heart like the mill-wheel, keeping all
in motion, and the consciousness, like a person shut in the mill garret,
enjoying the view out of the window and shaken by the thunder of the
stones; an automaton in one corner of which a living spirit is confined:
an automaton like man. Instinct again he certainly possesses. Inherited
aptitudes are his, inherited frailties. Some things he at once views
and understands, as though he were awakened from a sleep, as though he
came "trailing clouds of glory." But with him, as with man, the field of
instinct is limited; its utterances are obscure and occasional; and
about the far larger part of life both the dog and his master must
conduct their steps by deduction and observation.

The leading distinction between dog and man, after and perhaps before
the different duration of their lives, is that the one can speak and
that the other cannot. The absence of the power of speech confines the
dog in the development of his intellect. It hinders him from many
speculations, for words are the beginning of metaphysic. At the same
blow it saves him from many superstitions, and his silence has won for
him a higher name for virtue than his conduct justifies. The faults of
the dog are many. He is vainer than man, singularly greedy of notice,
singularly intolerant of ridicule, suspicious like the deaf, jealous to
the degree of frenzy, and radically devoid of truth. The day of an
intelligent small dog is passed in the manufacture and the laborious
communication of falsehood; he lies with his tail, he lies with his eye,
he lies with his protesting paw; and when he rattles his dish or
scratches at the door his purpose is other than appears. But he has some
apology to offer for the vice. Many of the signs which form his dialect
have come to bear an arbitrary meaning, clearly understood both by his
master and himself; yet when a new want arises he must either invent a
new vehicle of meaning or wrest an old one to a different purpose; and
this necessity frequently recurring must tend to lessen his idea of the
sanctity of symbols. Meanwhile the dog is clear in his own conscience,
and draws, with a human nicety, the distinction between formal and
essential truth. Of his punning perversions, his legitimate dexterity
with symbols, he is even vain; but when he has told and been detected i