The Arabian Art of Taming and Training Wild and Vicious Horses | Page 4

servant. This truth we can see verified in
every day's experience by the abuses practiced upon him. Any one who
chooses to be so cruel, can mount the noble steed and run him 'till he
drops with fatigue, or, as is often the case with more spirited, fall dead
with the rider. If he had the power to reason, would he not vault and
pitch his rider, rather than suffer him to run him to death? Or would he
condescend to carry at all the vain imposter, who, with but equal
intellect, was trying to impose on his equal rights and equally
independent spirit? But happily for us, he has no consciousness of
imposition, no thought of disobedience except by impulse caused by
the violation of the law of nature. Consequently when disobedient it is
the fault of man.
Then, we can but come to the conclusion, that if a horse is not taken in
a way at variance with the law of his nature, he will do anything that he
fully comprehends without making any offer of resistance.
_Second._ The fact of the horse being unconscious of the amount of his
strength, can be proven to the satisfaction of any one. For instance,
such remarks as these are common, and perhaps familiar to your
recollection. One person says to another, "If that wild horse there was
conscious of the amount of his strength, his owner could have no
business with him in that vehicle; such light reins and harness, too; if
he knew he could snap them asunder in a minute and be as free as the
air we breathe;" and, "that horse yonder that is pawing and fretting to
follow the company that is fast leaving him, if he knew his strength he
would not remain long fastened to that hitching post so much against
his will, by a strap that would no more resist his powerful weight and
strength, than a cotton thread would bind a strong man." Yet these facts
made common by every day occurrence, are not thought of as anything
wonderful. Like the ignorant man who looks at the different phases of
the moon, you look at these things as he looks at her different changes,
without troubling your mind with the question, "Why are these things
so?" What would be the condition of the world if all our minds lay
dormant? If men did not think, reason and act, our undisturbed,
slumbering intellects would not excel the imbecility of the brute; we
would live in chaos, hardly aware of our existence. And yet with all our

activity of mind, we daily pass by unobserved that which would be
wonderful if philosophised and reasoned upon, and with the same
inconsistency wonder at that which a little consideration, reason and
philosophy would be but a simple affair.
_Thirdly._ He will allow any object, however frightful in appearance,
to come around, over or on him, that does not inflict pain.
We know from a natural course of reasoning, that there has never been
an effected without a cause, and we infer from this, that there can be no
action, either in animate or inanimate matter, without there first being
some cause to produce it. And from this self-evident fact we know that
there is some cause for every impulse or movement of either mind or
matter, and that this law governs every action or movement of the
animal kingdom. Then, according to this theory, there must be some
cause before fear can exist; and, if fear exists from the effect of
imagination, and not from the infliction of real pain, it can be removed
by complying with those laws of nature by which the horse examines
an object, and determines upon its innocence or harm.
A log or stump by the road-side may be, in the imagination of the horse,
some great beast about to pounce upon him; but after you take him up
to it and let him stand by it a little while, and touch it with his nose, and
go through his process of examination, he will not care any thing more
about it. And the same principle and process will have the same effect
with any other object, however frightful in appearance, in which there
is no harm. Take a boy that has been frightened by a false-face or any
other object that he could not comprehend at once; but let him take that
face or object in his hands and examine it, and he will not care anything
more about it. This is a demonstration of the same principle.
With this introduction to the principles of my theory, I shall next
attempt to teach you how to put it into practice, and whatever
instructions may follow, you can rely on as having