COMPARATIVE PSYCHOLOGY 35 
eminent horse-trainer with whom I lately conversed. 
He holds that every horse should be broken and trained 
by some one more or less of an expert; that we expect 
too great a variety of performance from the same animal. 
Each is naturally, to a large extent, best adapted for 
some one kind of work—in a word, each is, to a large 
degree, fitted to be aspecialist. But in this case a good 
many drivers would require to be “ broken” also. The 
brutes are constantly sufferimg from the stupidity, as 
well as the moral obliquity of man, their controller, but 
not always and in all respects their superior. These 
remarks do not apply alone to the horse or the dog. All 
animals must first learn that they are to be subject to 
man when required; but, as I have always maintained, 
the highest results are to be secured only by kindness 
and discretion combined with firmness. A little reflec- 
tion will show why this must be so. One does not 
facilitate the working of a steam-engine by any sort of 
forcible interference with the parts of the apparatus, 
but by supplying good fuel and duly oiling the machine 
where friction is greatest. So it is for man to study 
the mental machinery, so to speak, and provide those 
conditions most favourable to harmonious working ; in 
a word, man must adapt to nature and not attempt to 
make nature adapt to his views. The latter he cannot 
do; her plan was laid before he appeared on the scene. 
If an animal is so stupid or so obstinate as not to yield 
to such treatment, then it should be abandoned, for it 
will not be worth any man’s while to injure his own 
moral nature by what is really cruel treatment for the 
sake of the value of such an animal. 
At another of our meetings Mr Miller referred to the 
case of a dog that was very anxious to accompany his 
master, resorting to the artifice of placing himself some 
two miles in advance on the road usually selected. 
There are many such instances, and it seems impossible 
