Indeed, our greatest naturalists assure us, that this animal is far before the human species in every ennobling quality. Buffon makes man a very devil compared with the dog; and had he come directly to the point, I presume he would have told us that the dog is one link above man in the great chain from the fossil to the angel. “Without the dog,” says Buffon, “how could man have been able to tame and reduce other animals into slavery? To serve his own safety, it was necessary to make friends among those animals whom he found capable of attachment. The fruit of associating with the dog was the conquest and the peaceable possession of the earth. The dog will always preserve his empire. He reigns at the head of a flock, and makes himself better understood than the voice of the shepherd” (well he might, for it appears he is more knowing, more powerful, and more just.) “Safety, order, and discipline, are the fruits of his vigilance and activity. They are a people submitted to his management, whom he conducts and protects, and against whom he never employs force but for the preservation of peace and good order.” Barr’s Buffon, vol. v. p. 302.
It is to me somewhat remarkable that theorizing Frenchmen, many of whose discoveries are scarcely less important than my own, cannot make them apply in such a manner as to effect some practical good in society. Buffon discovered that a dog was a species of demi-god, and appears on the point of worshipping this great Anubis of the Egyptians. Voltaire tells us, that Frenchmen are half monkey and half tiger, and everybody knows that the one is insufferably mischievous, and the other infinitely ferocious. Now it is surprising that these philosophers could not contrive to improve the breed by a little of the canine blood. Indeed, I should advise them to import some of our Bond street male puppies, to be paired with French female monkeys, and I will venture to assert that there will be very little of the tiger perceivable in their offspring. And since a dog, as Buffon says, “reigns with so much dignity at the head of a flock, will always preserve his empire, never employs force but for the preservation of peace and good order,” and is endowed with so many other great qualifications, which seem to denote him to be a proper personage to wield the sceptre of dominion, I would seriously advise the abbe Sieyes, when he frames his 999th Constitution for the free French Republic (which it is said he has already begun to manufacture) so to organize the executive branch, that at least one of the consuls should be a true blooded English bull-dog.
After the ample proof I have now given of the infinite superiority of the dog to man, when his merits are fairly estimated, which it is very difficult for us, being interested, to do without prejudice, I shall take it for granted, that he must possess all the brilliancy even of a poet’s imagination, and therefore that he is far more likely to be cured by imagination than man.
It now remains to speak of horses, and these (not to mention the Bucephalus of Alexander, or the Pegasus of doctor Caustic) I shall show, in a very few words, can boast of performances and qualifications, to which a lively fancy in the comparison is but as the wit of an oyster to the wisdom of a philosopher. One of the most scientific nations that ever existed, renowned alike for its refinements in the arts, and prowess in war, has been compelled to yield the palm to the superior attainments of a horse, and acknowledge its inability to achieve what he most readily effected. Ten long years was the whole power of Greece engaged in an ineffectual siege of far-famed Troy. The bravest of armies, commanded by heroes allied to the gods, assailed the foe in vain. At this disheartening period stepped forth a wooden horse, and promised a victory, provided his plans were adopted. Aware of the horse’s great capacity, which enabled him to comprehend a great number of subjects, the sagacious Greeks entered into his measures, and Troy was levelled in the dust.
If all this could have been accomplished by a wooden horse, none but a Perkinite will be so absurd as to pretend that one composed of flesh and blood, like man, does not enjoy far greater privileges, among which are those of receiving as many cures by the influence of imagination as he pleases.
Now then, gentlemen, I trust that if any man will con over, digest, comprehend, and admit this my ingenious and learned exposition of the fallacy of the arguments in favor of the tractors, so much harped upon by our adversaries, which are drawn from the circumstance of their having cured crows and infants, dogs and horses, he will with great facility be enabled to confound and overthrow them on all occasions, provided he enforce and proclaim it with the ardency its importance deserves.
For pain itself is all ideal.
So said the learned bishop Berekley, in a scientific treatise called Principles of Human Knowledge, in which his reverence makes it apparent, to those who have a clue to his metaphysical labyrinth, that there is no such thing as matter, entity, or sensation, distinct from the mind which perceives, or thinks it perceives, such ideas or substances. The bishop’s authority being so pat in point, I cannot but admire that it has not more frequently been adduced in opposition to the tractors.