154 THE HORSE. 



deliberately reject the horse for having such a method 

 of going. I have never yet met a man so foolish as 

 this comes to ; but if I do ever meet him, I will send 

 him up to the British Museum, as a specimen well 

 worthy of preservation. 



Mr. Paton and Mr. Dyer object to a comparison with 

 man. If the comparison is put forward as a proof, 

 they have every right to reject it, because proof can 

 result only from careful, special ohservation on the 

 horse himself; but if it is used merely as an illus- 

 tration in connexion with previous obsei-vation, their 

 objection does not hold good. For instance, when I 

 wanted to account for the occasional deviation from the 

 natural action, where the toe is laid first to the ground, 

 it was quite allowable to take the example of man, in 

 whom all parties agree to the heel first as natural, for 

 the purpose of showing that even here we may some- 

 times have the toe or flat of the foot brought to the 

 ground, as the result of debility or bad formation. No 

 person would argue that the toe, or flat, is the natural 

 action in man, because he is occasionally found to lay 

 these parts first to the floor ; neither should any man 

 argue that the horse has no definite method, or that the 

 toe, or flat, is the natm'al plan, merely because we 

 sometimes find him planting these parts fii'st upon the 

 surface. The plan which, by observation, is found, in 



