Page:Under the Sun.djvu/275

Rh treated, than by anecdotes of his various virtues and vices, for after all he is one of man’s chiefest triumphs, and one of his noblest servants. “In the beginning Allah created Man, and seeing what a helpless creature he was He gave him the Dog. And He charged the Dog that he should be the eyes and the ears, the understanding and the legs of the Man.”

The writer, Toussenel, then goes on to show how the dog was fitted for his important duties by being inspired with an overwhelming sense of the privileges of friendship and loyal devotion, and a corresponding disregard of the time-wasting joys of family and fireside pleasures, thinking, no doubt, with Bacon, that those without families — the discipline of humanity — make always the best public servants. “He that hath wife and children hath given hostages to fortune; for they are impediments to great enterprises, either of virtue or mischief.” And again, “Charity will hardly water the ground where it must first fill a pool.” The dog, therefore, was relieved of paternal affections in order that he might be able to give an undivided mind to the high task set before him, and thus afford primitive man, in the flock-tending days, the leisure necessary for discovering the arts and evolving the sciences.

If Tubal Cain, for instance, had had to run after his own herds he could never have got on with his panpipes; so the dog attended to the sheep and the goats, the kine and the camels, while his master sat in the shade by the river, testing the properties of reeds. Music was the result, thanks to the dog. In the same way, perhaps, we might trace all other great discoveries to the same canine source; and, really, seeing even nowadays, when man has become such a self-helping