The dog is not gifted with a share of reason; but with him instinct has the power of reason.  The dog has learnt by nature the secret of elaborate inferences, which sages of the world, after long years of study, have hardly been able to disentangle.  When the dog is on the track of game, if he sees it divide in different directions, he examines these different paths, and speech alone fails him to announce his reasoning.  The creature, he says, is gone here or there or in another direction.  It is neither here nor there; it is therefore in the third direction.  And thus, neglecting the false tracks, he discovers the true one.  What more is done by those who, gravely occupied in demonstrating theories, trace lines upon the dust and reject two propositions to show that the third is the true one? cf. Plutarch (ποτ. των ζ.φρ. κ.τ.λ 726).  οἱ δὲ διαλεκτικοί φασι τὸν κύνα τῷ διὰ πλειόνων διεζευγμένῳ χρώμενον ἐν τοῖς πολυσχιδέσιν ἀτραποῖς συλλογίζεσθαι πρὸς ἑαυτὸν ἤτοι τήνδε τὸ θηρίον ὥρμηκεν ἢ τήνδε ἢ τήνδε· ἀλλὰ μὴν οὔτε τήνδε οὔτε τήνδε, τήνδε λοιπὸν ἄρα.  But the dog is said to smell the first, the second, and the third.  If he started off on the third without smelling, he would reason.  As it is, there is no “syllogism.”