THE SOCIETY OF DOGS.
MR. GUGGENBERGER, in his interesting paper on "Doge in Germany," in the current number of the Nineteenth Century, asserts that dogs play " a conspicuous social part in German life," and especially in the life of South Germany, in proof of which he quotes the practice formerly prevalent in Bavaria, and still more recently in Austria, of always having a regimental dog, which accompanied the band on all occasions, drawing the big drum during the playing of the music; but he admits that, as the German Empire has perfected its war machinery, it has dispensed with this pet of the regiment, though the Intelligence Department has trained dogs as scouts, and will use them freely to obtain information of the proceedings of the enemy in any future war. Again, in the Universities, each corps of students has a superb dog belonging to the corps, in which the whole body of students take delight ; and Mr. Guggenberger maintains that "the German grudges his favourite no comfort, and takes a pride in his education as in keeping him smart and healthy." But then, it appears, on the other hand, that, at least in Bavaria, the law, " not unkindly" according to Mr. Guggen- berger, provides against dogs living to old age. Every year the dog must be taken to the Government office for its yearly licence, when it is inspected by a veterinary, and " if he be found either aged or hopelessly sickly, he is ruthlessly condemned to death. You must go home without him. Decrepit dogs are not allowed in Bavaria." Now, that tells volumes, we think, against the Germans as regards their esteem for doge. If they will submit to a law sentencing their oldest friends to death,—not because they threaten the well-being of the community, but simply because they are aged,—they may find a great deal of kindly amusement in dogs, but they do not and cannot regard them as friends. They cannot feel as Sir Walter Scott felt when he lost Camp,' and declined to go out to dinner on the ground that he had just lost a dear friend. We do not think Englishmen would allow the law to interfere with their friends in this way, and permit the police, on the sentence of a veterinary, to destroy them, not because they are dangerous to anybody, but because the law in its arbitrariness chooses to destroy all infirm dogs. If that had been the rule in ancient Greece, Homer could never have told us the story of the dog which recognised Ulysses after his twenty years' absence, and died at his master's feet. Indeed, half the pathetic evidence of dogs' affection and fidelity, which multiply rapidly with the age of the dog, would be wanting. It is when the dog gets old and dim-sighted, and follows its master or mistress about like their shadow, that we first begin to feel how close is the relation between the dog and the man. Yet, according to the new law in Bavaria, and for anything we know in other parts of Germany, the law takes no account of this most affecting tie, and cuts off the dog simply because it ie infirm, without the least regard to the fact that it is only as the dog gets infirm that the man comes to recognise fully his loyalty and his love. We cannot say we believe much in Bavarian esteem for dogs if it tolerates, as it appears to do, this ruthless destruction of the infirm because they are infirm, even though sagacity, loyalty, and fidelity be all the more conspicuous for the infirmity of the limbs and the dimness of the sight. There is reason in putting an end to the sufferings of a dog from any source of pain that
cannot be removed, or to the life of a dog which is dangerous to either man or beast; but to murder a dog at the age at which he shows most clearly how much life there is in him which is more than animal life, how much that often puts even human affection to shame, does seem a proceeding that no community would tolerate in the social life of which dogs play a really important part.
What does one really learn from the society of dogs, if we observe their characters with close sympathetic insight P One learns at least simplicity, sincerity, and the insufferableness of egotism, for however playful and clever a dog is, he is never an egotist, and even if he shows off his little tricks to please his master, it is because he takes delight in doing what he has been taught to do, never because he thinks himself the perfection of creation and wants everybody to admire him. We do not deny that dogs are at times guilty of affectation, if they can by that means attract pity or get themselves petted. A dog will limp long after he is really quite sound of limb, if there is any one in sight to pity or pet him ; but even this is not egotism ; indeed, it is half delight in the kindness shown him, and half humour, as he will soon show his same of fan if he perceives that he is band out and kindly laughed at for hie affectation. Never was there a dog whose rases of this kind went deeper than the wish to attract affectionate notice; whereas the loyalty of the dog is the deepest instinct in him. What was it Cowper said of his water-spaniel Bean,' after he had watched Bean' capturing and bringing to his master's feet the water-lily which the poet had in vain endeavoured to hook with his stick P- " Bat chief myself I will enjoin Awake at duty's call,
And show a love as prompt as thine, To Him who gives me all."
And what did the great Dublin physiologist and divine, Dr. Houghton, say the other day, when recounting how the little Skye terrier which had been enjoined by his master to fetch the medicines from the ship for the sick children, had refused to touch his dinner, though he had had a sixteen miles' run, till the bottles were safely strung round his neck, after which he devoured it with the utmost seat ?—" Am I as faithful to my Master as that little dog was to his P Do I always refuse to eat or drink, or do my own business, before my Master's work is done ? " So that each of these acute witnesses and close observers insists on the very same lesson,—that we cannot be intimate with the better kind df dogs without learning something of the promptness and simplicity with which they postpone the desires which would be most urgent and natural in them as dogs, to the feelings which their wish to obey their master's will, and to show their love to him, engrafts upon their nature from above. The love for something higher than the dog often transforms the dog much more surely and permanently than the love for something higher than the man transforms the man. And while the dog shows that he is a good actor, if he gets the opportunity, only in order to obtain those signs of regard and pity of which he is so fond, the man usually shows that he is a good actor, if he gets the opportunity, not to obtain signs of love or pity,—the latter of which emotions he can seldom endure,—but in order to get admired for qualities which he does not possess, though he has acquired the art of simulating them. For the purpose of ridding himself of egotism, and understanding the limits within which affectation is innocent and harmless, you could hardly keep better society than that of attached dogs, if you study them well from youth to age. Even the little affectations they have in their youth, fall off as they approach old age, when they become sincerer and more devoted with every year. And yet these are the qualities which Bavarians, in their great love of dogs, repay by describing the law which puts them to death merely for getting old, as one that is " not unkindly." We should like to see what a faithful dog would say to a policeman who marched off his master to death for having attained a certain age. He would show pretty clearly, we think, that he thought of such a law as unkindly as he well could.
One thing seems certain, that neither Hobbes, nor Bentham, nor John Stuart Mill could have been convinced utilitarians as, from their different points of view, they all were, if they had kept good canine society, and availed themselves of the oppor- tunities such society would have given them. For if in the races below us the highest sense of obligation is felt where there is least of benefit to be derived from discharging that obligation, it is quite obvious that the feeling of obligation does not spring from the feeling of utility. The Skye terrier of which Dr.
Haughton gives so impressive an account had no expectation of even getting a caress the more for insisting on obtaining his medicines for the sick children before he would look at his own dinner ; all he felt was the profound desire of his master that he should bring back to the Highland but what Dr. Haughton would hang to his collar ; and till be felt the weight attached to his collar, he was not easy enough in his mind to eat or drink. What could illustrate more clearly the fact that, even in races with nothing like the range of man's experience, the sense of obligation is entirely independent of the sense of utility P The dog knew somehow that his master wanted something which he was to bring, but could not have known that any utility of any sort would arise from his bringing it. The sense of com- mand and of obedience was much deeper and more original than the sense of any consequence advantageous either to himself or to his master. It was a sense deeper than his hunger or thirst, though he was both hungry and thirsty ; and it was cer- tainly deeper than any expectation he could have formed of benefit to arise from his mission, unless be had acquired a real knowledge of the value of drugs and of the skill of the person who sent them. Nothing is more impressive to the psychologist than the evidence which the study of sagacious and obedient animals gives, that the sense of law and of duty is observable at a stage in the development of animal intelli- gence at which the forecast of useful consequences is hardly even conceivable. We see with our eyes the sense of duty and fidelity, and of promptitude in duty, where a calculation of con- sequences is quite inconceivable, and where even the laws of association would not explain the eagerness of the animal to fulfil its mission. An intelligent use of the social advantages to be derived from the company of dogs would, we believe, have guarded many of our most ingenious philosophical writers against some of their most fatal mistakes.
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