ON THE EDUCATION OF THE HORSE. 
557 
Pleasure and pain are the only movers of the human mind; 
the same feelings are excited in horses, but with this difference— 
that the pleasures and pains which actuate the minds of horses 
are those only which exert their influence upon the organs of 
sensation ; whilst in children, as the faculties of the mind begin 
to exert their influence, the mind, from her own emotions, and 
from those ideas which she alone can form and embody, becomes 
capable of receiving the emotions of pleasure and pain . Hence, 
in order to actuate in any manner the minds of animals, a 
different method must be adopted from that by which we w T ould 
influence the minds of boys. We must have recourse to bodily 
punishments, or bodily gratifications, to stimulate their minds to 
exertion. Indeed, the whole business and aim of their education 
may be reduced to one simple precept—so to regulate the emo¬ 
tions of pleasure and pain, that the greatest vigour may be 
imparted to the mind and the body. “The gods,” says Zeno- 
phon, “ have granted speech to men, that they may learn what 
they ought to do. But you can certainly teach a horse nothing 
by speech. If, therefore, when he does as you wish, you caress 
him, and when he is disobedient you punish him, you will thus 
best teach him to perform what he ought.” 
Reason and observation afford sufficient proof that horses 
possess different degrees of sagacity and penetration; and it 
ought always to be remembered, that they have more reason than 
they can shew, from their want of words, from our inattention, and 
from our ignorance of the import of those symbols which they 
make use of in giving intimation to one another and to us. They 
are as truly actuated by the feelings and principles of fortitude, 
fear, joy, courage, timidity, attachment, and prejudice, as the hu¬ 
man species. We do not suppose that the reason of brutes and 
that of mankind is the same: ours is more extensive, our wants are 
universal, and we, therefore, possess universal reason. Man ob¬ 
serves the w r ants of other animals ; “but may it not,” says St. 
Pierre, “be relatively to himself that he has made this his study ? 
If the dog gives himself no concern about the oats of the horse, 
it is, perhaps, because the horse is not subservient to the wants of 
the dog.” Upon a conviction, then, that the different passions 
actuate horses as well as men, only in a different manner, we 
presume to recommend a method of rendering horses subservient 
to man, more by gentle means than coercive treatment. The 
talents even of the dull and phlegmatic ox are roused to exer¬ 
tion by education. In our own county (Cornwall), where they are 
worked in the plough and on the road, they arc excited to exertion 
more by the chaunt of the driver than the prick of the goad. In 
the southern provinces of Africa and Asia, the wild bisons, of 
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