profoundly some of our domestic animals: our hens, our pigeons, our
ducks, our cats, our horses, our rabbits, for instance. Yes, perhaps;
although such transformations are not comparable with those undergone by
the dog and although the kind of service which these animals render us
remains, so to speak, invariable. In any case, whether this impression
be purely imaginary or correspond with a reality, it does not appear
that we feel in these transformations the same unfailing and preventing
good will, the same sagacious and exclusive love. For the rest, it is
quite possible that the dog, or rather the inaccessible genius of his
race, troubles scarcely at all about us and that we have merely known
how to make use of various aptitudes offered by the abundant chances of
life. It matters not: as we know nothing of the substance of things, we
must needs cling to appearances; and it is sweet to establish that, at
least in appearance, there is on the planet where, like unacknowledged
kings, we live in solitary state, a being that loves us.

However the case may stand with these appearances, it is none the less
certain that, in the aggregate of intelligent creatures that have
rights, duties, a mission and a destiny, the dog is a really privileged
animal. He occupies in this world a pre-eminent position enviable among
all. He is the only living being that has found and recognizes an
indubitable, tangible, unexceptionable and definite god. He knows to
what to devote the best part of himself. He knows to whom above him to
give himself. He has not to seek for a perfect, superior and infinite
power in the darkness, amid successive lies, hypotheses and dreams. That
power is there, before him, and he moves in its light. He knows the
supreme duties which we all do not know. He has a morality which
surpasses all that he is able to discover in himself and which he can
practise without scruple and without fear. He possesses truth in its
fulness. He has a certain and infinite ideal.