The discovery was made in Arabia, also in Kentucky, in Ireland and elsewhere, that if a foal is handled as a pet, and so brought up that he remembers nothing but kindness and constant care at the hands of men, it never occurs to him that he needs to defend himself from his master as from an enemy. He never develops the arts of self-defence. As a colt he learns that to get at his feed he must jump over a stick on the ground. As he grows the stick is raised inch by inch until jumping over it becomes a part of his accomplishments in which he takes a natural pride and delight. So with the rest of his education. Horses can learn a great deal of the language we speak, to enjoy music, to select colours, to add up figures, to take a vivid interest in sport, to share with us the terror and glory of battle. {71} They will set us an example in faithfulness, in self-sacrifice, and every finer trait of character. But if we teach a young horse nothing but distrust, making fear and hatred the main traits of his character, it is the last outrage upon common sense to call his honest methods of self-defence by such a name as vice. We have the power to raise up angels or devils, but if we breed a horse to be a devil, we cannot expect the poor beast to behave himself like an angel. [Sidenote: Varieties of character] Horses vary in character almost as much as we do, and there are with them as with us a small proportion of born criminals whose warped or stunted brains cannot be trained aright by any means we know. What we do not and can never understand is the mysterious power of saints who charm wild men and beasts to tameness, and of certain horsemen to whom the worst outlaws are perfectly obedient. Among ourselves there are certain dreams such as the falling dream, the flying dream, and that of being eaten by wild beasts, which are supposed to be race-memories dating from the time when man was a forest animal like an ape, before the immortal Spirit entered into his body. Among horses there are race-memories dating from ancient times in the wilderness when {72} the pony was driven to self-defence on pain of a violent death. These race memories take the form of habits, and explain the various methods by which the horse defends himself from human enemies. Pawing, for example, is the subject of many theories. Not that the habit really needs explanation, because we fidget ourselves when we have nothing better to do. Yet when a horse paws the water at any drinking place, the learned are apt to say he does it to clear away the mud. I doubt if any horse is such a fool. Other observers note that the action is really stamping, a motion of race-memory dating from the time when thin ice had to be tested to see if a frozen river could be safely crossed. That sounds most reasonable, until one wonders dimly how it accounts for either pawing or stamping on dry ground. [Sidenote: Race memories]