THE HORSE OF THE PRESENT AND THE PAST 475 



and the fame of it reached even the king and the queen. From the ante- 

 room to the presence-chamber Zadig's name was in everybody's mouth; 

 and although many of the magi were of opinion that he ought to be burnt 

 as a sorcerer, the king: commanded that the four hundred ounces of gold 

 which he had been fined should be restored to him. So the officers of the 

 court went in state with the four hundred ounces; only they retained three 

 hundred and ninety-eight for legal expenses, and their servants expected 

 fees." 



That the method of Zadig is the method which is pursued by all 

 reasonino- men must be evident from this illustration. In Zadis's case 

 the method was exhibited in a condition of the highest refinement, and 

 since his time, and possibly before it, has been practised by many, the 

 untutored savage among them, who never heard the philosopher's name. 

 In considering the facts and arguments on the development of the horse, 

 which is the subject of the following pages, the reader is invited to bring 

 Zadig's method to bear, and that he may begin with a clear understanding 

 of the object which will be kept in view throughout it is stated in plain 

 terms in the following proposition. 



The horse of the present time may be traced, through a long line of 

 fossil remains of ancestral forms, back to the first discovered hoofed 

 mammals in the earliest beds (Eocene) of the Tertiary formation.-' 



The relation between the fossil remains and the jjresent living animal 

 is the more easily shown in the case of the horse, and its immediate 

 relatives the varieties of the ass, zebra, and C[uagga, as these are all marked 

 by special characters, most of which can be very readily recognized in the 

 fossil specimens of the progenitors of the race which have been brought 

 to light in the course of geological explorations. 



Before noticing the particular features of the ec[uine group, it will be 

 necessary to define the position which its members occupy in nature. 



The whole of the Equidae or horse family belong to the Vertebrate 

 kingdom and to the class Mammalia, which is separated by old writers 

 into two great orders or divisions, the Ungulata or hoofed mammals, and 

 the Unguiculata, including all animals with claws. This classification 

 originated with John Ray in his Synojysis MethocUca Animaliam, published 

 in 1693. Sir William Flower in his work on the horse remarks on the 

 artificial character of the mode of division, but adds that some portion of 

 the system has survived, especially the grouji Ungulata, which has been 

 resuscitated of late years and used as a convenient designation for the 

 group of quadrupeds that are distinctively hoofed. 



' The Tertiary is the third of the great life-periods known to geologists, being followed by the Post-tertiary 

 or Quaternary, to which present-day life belongs. 



