Passing thought by Roger Scruton
nervous system, just as the rider’s startled face reveals that he has lost the use of his limbs. Neither horse nor rider enjoys this moment, since happiness for both lies in complete surrender to a collective movement. But when harmony prevails their faces radiate serenity. Their togetherness is akin to that of a happy marriage, with four eyes looking at a common target, and four feet going towards it at their own considered pace. One of the most interesting results of this togetherness is the jump. Left to themselves horses seldom jump, and can be kept in a field by the lowest of fences. When ridden at those fences, however, they will jump smoothly over them. This fact proves the essential incompleteness of the horse. He will jump as part of the herd; but alone, as an individual, he lacks the will. Because I treat my horse as an individual, therefore, I see him as incomplete – or rather, as something to be completed, and completed by me. From this fact flows all the emotion that I pour into our subsequent union. I would not call this emotion love: it is both more visceral and more distant than love, requiring me both to surrender to the horse’s rhythms and at the same time to govern his will. Nevertheless, it is one of the most rewarding emotions that a human being can feel. From it spring all the gestures of endearment, all the tender caresses and pleasurable gifts pianist plays the keyboard, in a dialogue so that our horses enjoy. And even if they do intimate that the player becomes the played. not understand these gestures as a human The horse’s mouth is your true fingertip, would – for after all, they lack the concept and the tremor in the rein continues of gift, and regard us, when on our feet, the pulse in your nerves. Likewise, the as amazing and perplexing features of the movement in your back and neck begins natural order – they come to understand in his hindquarters, and your eyes move in that we belong together. And it is there obedience to his feet. Together you master that our shared joy in each other begins. the land, and at no point should there be the slightest difference of opinion as to how Professor Roger Scruton was Professor of and how fast to traverse it. Aesthetics at Birkbeck College London and If differences of opinion arise Professor of Philosophy at Boston University nevertheless, the result is a kind of Massachusetts. He now describes himself schizophrenia, as action and intention fall as Grand Panjandrum of Horsell’s Farm apart. When a horse refuses a fence he rolls Enterprises – Britain’s fastest-growing posthis eyes and puts back his ears, showing modern rural consultancy. Services range from that he has lost contact with his central logic chopping to log cutting.
LEE PETERS
HORSES ARE BEAUTIFUL TO LOOK AT, and exciting to ride. Their smell is alluring, and their smooth coats invite you to touch, to pat and to stroke. Probably no animal more directly appeals to the human senses and the human heart. But all this is nothing besides the unique bond between horse and rider, whereby each makes use of the other’s best endowment – the legs of the horse, and the brain of the man. The resulting centaur is equipped to triumph over dangers that neither horse nor man could confront alone. Stephen Budiansky has even argued that our two species have survived only because we learned to pool our resources, so heavily were the evolutionary odds stacked against us. (See The Nature of Horses, London 1998.) Whether or not that is true, those who have entrusted themselves to a horse in some risky adventure – be it polo, hunting, racing or even a cavalry charge – will have some inkling of the extraordinary mutuality that arises between man and horse when facing danger together. He trusts you because you trust him because he trusts you – and so on to infinity, the deep infinity of our species bond. To the ignorant observer, a rider is simply a person sitting on a horse, who uses bit and boots to start and stop the vehicle beneath him. It is an organic vehicle, entirely biodegradable. But in every other respect it is inferior to a car, and not much preferable to a bicycle. To the practised rider, however, the horse is not a vehicle at all, but an extension of himself. The legs move with a human will, just as the thoughts and plans arise from a body with four feet on the ground. You do not make the horse turn: the two of you turn together, with a single movement that originates in your common brain. You do not stop the horse or start him; you move off as one, and come to a halt together. Every little movement is informed by the same mutuality of impulse, and every muscle is jointly owned. Your fingers play the bridle as a
What explains the unique bond between horse and rider? A leading philosopher offers a personal view
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