30 PECULIARITIES AND EXTREMES OF DISPOSITION. 



kindness. The expression is softened, there is a natural 

 willingness excited to do whatever is properly and carefully 

 shown ; but if in addition to this the mind can be held and 

 controlled at will, thus lessening the confidence and pow- 

 ers of resistance, obedience can be secured and won with a 

 quickness and ease that is surprising. 



This is the true principle, as I have shown, as it enables 

 addressing and winning the full cooperation of the under- 

 standing and better nature, without exciting resistance, or 

 to so limited a degree as to be easily overcome, and really 

 implies teaching the horse in a reasonable practicable man- 

 ner in accordance with the laws of his nature. 



PECULIARITIES AND EXTREMES OF DISPOSITION. 



The extremes of intelligence, temper, size and texture of 

 body demands attention, when attempting to train or sub- 

 due a horse. And here this apparently threadbare subject 

 reveals an apparently new and most interesting field for the 

 careful student. 



We are told in Genesis, that after all the lower animals 

 were created they were brought before Adam to receive their 

 names; and whatsoever he called any animal, whether beast, 

 bird, fish or reptile, that was the name thereof. In a word, 

 all representing the different stratas or modifications and 

 extremes of his own higher or lower nature. Hence, in 

 understanding his own nature, he could readily comprehend 

 that of theirs. There are not only classes but modifications 

 in each family, each representing some type or modification 

 of others becoming clearer to the observation in the do- 

 mestic animals. For though each family, in a general 

 sense, preserves its own peculiarity of identity in size, color, 

 disposition, &c., yet no two of any family are exactly alike, 

 each showing some peculiar phase of distinction. Hence, 

 one ox, cow, dog, or other animal, is seen to be more 

 vicious, wild, or difficult to manage than others of the 

 same family, and vice versa. The horse shows these peculi- 

 arities of extreme sometimes to a most marked degree. 

 Hence we see there are horses so docile, fearless and man- 

 ageable that they can hardly be made to do anything mean, 

 submitting to being handled or driven in harness from the 

 start without trouble, while others are so flighty, foolish or 



