OF THE riAFFER. 187 



not to bow before this supreme arbiter and 

 respect its decrees ? 



This opinion is undoubtedly convenient 

 for justifying its own ignorance, but it 

 is none the less false. We can hring all 

 horses toj^iaffer ; and I will prove that, in this 

 particularly, without reforming the work of 

 nature, without deranging the formation of 

 the bones, or that of the muscles of the 

 animal, we can remedy the consequences of 

 his physical imperfections, and change the 

 vicious disposition occasioned by faulty con- 

 struction. There is no doubt that the horse 

 whose forces and weight are collected in 

 one of his extremities will be unfit to exe- 

 cute the elegant cadence of the piaffer. 

 But a graduated exercise, the completion of 

 which is the rassemhler, soon allows us to 

 remedy such an inconvenience. We can 

 now reunite all these forces in their true 

 centre of gravity, and the horse that bears 



