42 THE HORSE. 



CHAPTER IV. 



EXTERIOR. 



I have no wish to augment the existing difficulties in 

 coming to an agreement upon the qualification of beauty \ 

 with reference to the horse, and I assent to the following 

 opinion by Rigot. " An animated machine should only 

 appear so far beautiful as, by inspection of its external 

 characteristics, an a priori judgment of the good effects 

 it possesses the capacity of producing, can be arrived at. 

 Therefore vigour, force and energy should constitute 

 beauty." 



This is in accordance with the signal appreciation 

 daily exhibited by the most expert connoisseurs and even 

 by the dealers. Their admiration is extorted by a horse of 

 beautiful shape, yet, on trying it, they find neither parts, 

 nor depth nor pace ; in a word nothing good : this is 

 what they term a fine sell. 



Let these remarks be concluded by laying stress upon 

 the authority of Bouley. "In animate bodies, there exists 

 a motor, a principle of action called nerve influx, varying 

 in intensity in individual instances, which produces in 

 frames the most defective according to physical law, the 

 most unforeseen effects. As, for example, these horses 

 which according to the popular expression have only 

 instinct. Looking at their external appearance with those 

 small muscles, thin necks, projecting haunches, the ribs 

 which can be enumerated through the skin, the up-turned 

 flanks and stomach, the temptation would be to consider 

 them worthless animals ; but examination of the head, the 

 expression of the eye, the situation of the ears, the dilation 

 of the nostrils, in a word the fades, tends to show that 

 everything reveals energy. In fact, when in motion, they 

 falsify all calculations arrived at after inspection of their 

 conformation." 



