10 THE HORSE IN MOTION. 



Though the relative importance of the horse as a factor in the 

 progress of civilization has been reduced by the introduction of steam 

 in our century, it cannot be forgotten that he has been the con- 

 stant companion of the Caucasian race in all its migrations, an in- 

 dispensable ally in all its conquests, and the most efficient agent of 

 its civilization. We have no history that is not interwoven with his; 

 and if by some sudden cataclysm he should be eliminated, we should 

 then be made to realize how indispensable he still is to our business 

 and pleasure. Whatever concerns him will never cease to interest 

 mankind. 



The interest in the paces of the horse is not new : it had engaged 

 the attention of philosophers from ancient times. Aristotle, the 

 father of Philosophy, thought it not unworthy his investigation ; but 

 with all other rational questions, it was lost to human thought dur- 

 ing the long reign of religious bigotry. When the intellects of men 

 were again set free, and Science woke from her slumber, Anatomy 

 was studied and taught in the schools, and attention became directed 

 to that of our subject ; but even Borelli, who wrote about two hundred 

 years ago, and published the work on Animal Mechanics that most 

 later writers have drawn upon, thought it necessary that he should 

 not confound flesh and muscle. Vital force was as yet unknown, 

 and all treated the subject as a physical science, and deduced its 

 laws from the motions of the pendulum, and mathematically formu- 

 lated them. 



Two brothers, named Weber, who are quoted much by the author of 

 "Animal Motion," in the "Encyclopaedia of Anatomy and Physiology," 

 followed Borelli on the purely physical theory of Animal Motion. 



Professor Marey has contributed the result of many laborious and 

 painstaking experiments on the slow paces, by means of apparatus 

 attached to the feet, and connected by elastic tubes with registers in 

 the hands of the rider. This apparatus would determine the force 

 of the footfalls and time of pressure, and by the system of notation 

 a chart could be made of the paces. But it failed to interpret the 

 paces correctly, or furnish the basis of a theory of quadrupedal loco- 

 motion. The importance of the subject had been fully appreciated by 



