Chopping logic with Horses

In response to Sarah's post below, I'll add that the limnal space that Gulliver occupies was a space of great controversy and debate in the early 18th century, and theological writers in particular got tangled up in complicated debates about where to draw the line between animal and human. See for example this excerpt from John Claggett, Arianism anatomized: or animadversions on Mr. Thomas Chubb's book, intitled, The supremacy of the father asserted. Being a reply to his eight ... London, M.DCC.XVIII. [1718].

"Suppose we, that an Angel by the power of God should be united to and accuate the fleshy part of a horse, as the animal soul of a horse doth; I demand whether the Composition (tho' to human appearance he might seem a horse) would be therefore a true Horse; and ... whether then Angel would be really and truly a part of the Brute, whose Body he acted" (66).

Clearly, the flesh vs. soul problem is what underwrites this argument, and this kind of logic (which was to his mind deeply irrational) is certainly a target of Swift's satire.