42 -^ BREEDING. 



However difficult it may be to furnish an 

 opinion applicable to every idea, I believe 

 with the scientific investig-ator there need be 

 little scruple to hazard a professional descrip- 

 tion, by what means so serious a revolution 

 in the frame is effected ; for the brain being 

 the very basis of the nervous system, and 

 the nerves the acknowledged seat of pain and 

 pleasure^ any exquisite or preternatural ex- 

 treme in either may be productive of great 

 debilitation, and the optic nerves being nearest 

 the origin, may become more sensibly affect- 

 ed in a paralytic or some other degree, than 

 any subsequent part, and the sight gradually 

 decline from a partial vision to total blindness. 



For the honour of human nature, I can 

 but most earnestly wish the applicable intro- 

 duction of these remarks may induce the pari- 

 ties interested in the event, to be in future a 

 little less strenuous in their different exer- 

 tions, whether for credit or emolument ; the 

 first, never to distress one of the noblest ani- 

 mals on earth, by those frequent and severe 

 runnings that evidently* exhaust nature to 

 such a state of mortification ; or the latter, 

 in the truly contemptible method of letting a 



