OF THE MOUTH AND THE BIT. 105 



inconceivable error, that people have forged 

 bits of so strange and various forms, real 

 instruments of torture, the effect of which 

 is to increase the difficulties they sought to 

 remove. 



Had they gone back a little further, to 

 the source of the resistances, they would 

 have discovered that this one, like all the 

 rest, does not proceed from the difference 

 of formation of a feeble organ like the bars, 

 but from a contraction communicated to the 

 different parts of the body, and above all 

 to the neck, by some serious fault of consti- 

 tution. It is then in vain that we attach 

 to the reins, and place in the horse's mouth 

 a more or less murderous instrument; he 

 will remain insensible to our efforts, so long 

 as we do not communicate to him that sup- 

 pleness which alone can enable him to yield. 



In the first place, then, I lay down as a 

 fact, that there is no difference of sensi- 



