460 THE HORSE OF AMERICA. 



the writer quoted above is at bed-rock in the sources of his in- 

 formation. This makes my major proposition so plain and so 

 triumphantly sustained that it is doubtful whether there is now 

 living an intelligent horseman who would even think of disput- 

 ing it. 



In the spring of 1872 I wrote a series of articles under the 

 caption of "How shall we breed the Trotting Horse?" which was- 

 published in the Spirit of the Times in February and March 

 of that year. These papers were revised and enlarged and pub- 

 lished, as an introductory treatise on breeding the trotter, in the 

 second volume of the "American Trotting Register." This 

 treatise is the genesis of all discussions in which the laws govern- 

 ing the breeding of the trotter are considered. Up to that period 

 contributions to the press on breeding subjects were generally 

 transient and confined to the writer's own experience. If he was 

 trying to breed trotters a comparison of his material always 

 corresponded with his arguments, and the only thing he demon- 

 strated was his own inability to see over the fence surrounding 

 his own paddocks. I love a man who loves his horse, and, as a 

 man, I cannot dislike him because he thinks his horse is the very 

 acme of all equine perfection, although he may be a worthless 

 brute; but when a man spends a whole lifetime in trying to breed 

 trotters from blood that cannot trot, I lose all respect for his men- 

 tal operations. The man who cannot widen out and take profit 

 from the demonstrated experiences of the whole trotting world, 

 had better turn his attention to some business suited to his 

 capacity. Not a single thought advanced nor a position taken 

 in the article referred to has ever been successfully controverted, 

 although they excited much opposition. An attempt was made 

 to laugh the phrase "trotting instinct" out of court, but that 

 little phrase not only held the fortress, but became, as it were, 

 the basis of the whole system of thought represented in the' 

 treatise. It had a meaning and a fitness in what it meant that 

 put it in everybody's mouth, and there it stays for all time. In- 

 stinct is "the sum of inherited habits;" and these five words ex- 

 press the best practical definition of its meaning that I have ever 

 met with. 



THE LAWS THAT GOVERN. In all animal life the resemblance 

 of the offspring to the parents is the universal law. The law is 

 not only true in the physical conformation of the offspring, but 

 it is also true in the mentality and instinctivity of the offspring. 



