The Horse, as Comrade and Friend 



thought of nothing in particular he has been 

 asleep. But in all the mare's moments of 

 excitement, quick mental decisions and vigorous 

 muscular actions, his brain has been educated 

 and his corresponding nerves and muscles 

 have been actuated under like, if shadowy, 

 impulses. Whatever has happened to her has 

 been enacted in parallel, more faintly, in him. 

 Even in the early foetus, rudimentary inchoate 

 stirrings must have taken place, ever growing 

 stronger with the gradual growth and extension 

 of the nervous system, until, with the antenatal 

 development of the foal approaching its 

 maximum, the impressions become so more and 

 more striking in their vividness as to compare 

 with those of the mare herself. 



There is not the least doubt that towards 

 the end, the pictures of men, animals, herbage 

 and landscape formed within the foal's brain 

 are as complete in colour and definition as in 

 the brain of the mare herseK. The picture 

 grows upon the foal's brain exactly as it does 

 upon the ground glass plate of a camera with 

 the gradual opening of an iris diaphragm. 

 First of all nothing, then dim impressions of 

 movement, and of the greater masses of high 

 lights and deep shadows. These brighten and 

 deepen ; then come the beginnings of definition, 

 then in low tone a recognisable picture, and 

 finally, as when the diaphragm is completely 

 open, the same in the sharpest definition and 



186 



