USE OF THE SPUES. 81 



these impressions to concentrate in the brain. He will 

 then be a furious madman whose limbs we have bound 

 to prevent him from carrying his frenzied thoughts into 

 execution. 



The best proof we liave that the promptness of a horse 

 in responding to the effect of the legs and spurs, is not 

 caused by a sensibility of tlie flanks, but rather by great 

 action joined to bad formation, is that the same action 

 is not so manifest in a well-formed horse, and that the 

 latter bears the spur much better than one w4iose equili- 

 brium and organization are inferior. 



But the spur is not useful only in moderating the too 

 great energy of horses of much acfion ; its effect being 

 equally good in combating the dispositions which lead the 

 animal to throw its centre of gravity too much forward, 

 or back. I would also use it to stir up those that are 

 wanting in ardor and vivacity. In horses of action, the 

 forces of the hind-parts surpass those of the fore-parts. 

 It is the opposite in dull horses. We can thus account for 

 the quickness of the former; the slowness and sluggish- 

 ness of the latter. 



By the exercise of suppling, we have completely 

 annulled the instinctive forces of the horse. We must 

 now reunite these forces in their true centre of gravity, 

 that is, the middle of the animal's body ^ it is by the 

 properly combined opposition of the legs and hands that 

 we will succeed in this. The advantages we possess 

 already over the horse, will enable us to combat from 

 their very birth, all the resistances which tend to make 

 him leave the proper position, the only one in which we 

 can successfully practice these oppositions. It is also of the 

 first importance to put into our proceedings tact and 

 gradation, so that, for example, the legs never give an 

 impulse that the hand is not able to take hold of and 



