PUNISHMENT. 43 



breaking, the sole benefit to be derived from the infliction, 

 or from the fear, of pain, is to induce the animal to mentally 

 associate with it the particular idea which the breaker 

 wishes to convey, either as a stimulus or as a warning. 

 The horse, following his instinct of seeking safety from 

 danger by flight, tries, as a rule, to escape from threatened 

 or inflicted pain. Thus, the horse goes forward when we 

 raise the driving whip behind him, or touch him on the 

 quarters with it. If we threaten him with the whip in front, 

 he will usually recoil from it. I think we may take for 

 granted that if the horse yielded to instinct, uninfluenced 

 by previous training, he would, on being struck on the front 

 part of the body, be more inclined to go back than to go 

 forward. By association of ideas, however, we can teach 

 him to increase his pace almost as well by hitting him on 

 the shoulder as on the hind quarters. The latter method 

 is, I need hardly say, much to be preferred to the former, 

 on account of its being more in harmony with the animal's 

 instinct. If an irritating fly happens to pitch on the horse's 

 side behind the girths, he will instinctively try to dislodge 

 it by whisking it off with his tail, or, failing that, by kicking 

 at it. As we wish him to employ neither of these means on 

 being touched with the spur, we should teach him to regard 

 its application as an indication of our wishes, and not as a 

 cause of irritation. Pain as a warning may be illustrated 

 by the use of the wooden gag (see page 352), to make the 

 biter connect in his mind the idea of pain with the practice 

 of his pet vice, which he will forsake as soon as the sug- 

 gested thought becomes habitual to him. 



The chief practical reasons against the employment of 



