350 THE EXTERIOR OF THE HORSE. 



it matters little which. The head has been rightly selected, because this unit is 

 easy to be obtained, and its individual variations in the same race are more rare 

 than those of the other regions. It is just as convenient to compare the different 

 dimensions of the horse, with the head, and to find their harmonious combina- 

 tions, as to determine the relations of height, width, and depth of a room, for 

 example, by the same yard measure. 



Bourgelat has been criticised for the minutise into which he has entered, 

 notably, of the width and the thickness of the articulations and the members, 

 the separation of the eyes, etc. But would he have fallen into this error if he 

 had not especially worked to guide artists in the realization of their works? 

 No doubt he forgot that the more minute his measurements became the more 

 liable they were to show what was erroneous in them, for if the generality of 

 horses are in conformity with his principal rules, they are notably different from 

 the secondary as soon as dissimilar types are in question. This is the very 

 reason why these rules have been successfully opposed, and without difficulty, by 

 most horsemen. It seemed, in fact, a deduction from the ideas of Bourgelat, that 

 there was but one single type of beauty for the horse, while it is evident that the 

 type is multiple. To attempt to apply the same scale to the heavy-draught 

 horse and to the race-horse, and assert it beforehand as infallible, was the obliga- 

 tory consequence that his opponents were sure to draw from Bourgelat's forget- 

 fulness, and to make the most of against him. He believed that his rules had 

 an absolute value, whilst they are essentially relative to some particular types. 



His other great fault is to have misunderstood the compensations which 

 exist between these regions. In assigning such precise limits to what he believed 

 to be the ideal beauty, he has tacitly declared defective all that was not in 

 conformity with his measures, a logical deduction of his system. The head, for 

 example, was in his opinion either proportionate, too short, or too long. In these 

 latter cases it was to be rejected, whatever might be the length of the neck. 

 Still, we have seen that a neck which is too long redeems a small head ; a neck 

 that is short and massive ameliorates in the same manner the effects of a head 

 that is too large. It follows from this that the defects of certain regions are 

 capable of compensating those of some others, always on condition that these 

 last, by agreement with the preceding, are of a reverse order in their results. 



Another criticism which can be made against Bourgelat lies in his having 

 absolutely ignored, so to speak, the relations between the angles of the osseous 

 segments of the members. He has occupied himself with little more than 

 the relations of length, width, and thickness of the parts, without considering 

 the desired angles of locomotion which tend to an increase of speed. This is a 

 regrettable omission in this sense, that if the founder of veterinary schools had 

 thought of it with the same intelligence that he showed in the establishment of 

 his horse-measuring rules, science would have possessed at least some correct 

 ideas upon this subject, which would have prevented General Morris from 

 inventing, aside from all positive observations, his theory upon the similitude 

 of angles and the parallelism of the bony segments. 



Finally, Bourgelat has also omitted to speak of the relations of the body as a 

 whole with the nervous system, another important consideration which might 

 have caused him to speak of the interesting question of the blood, — that is to 

 say, of the moral qualities, transmissible by heredity, which endows the horse 

 with the highest qualities of the choicest families of the species. 



