356 THE EXTERIOR OF THE HORSE. 



themselves really irreproachable? To nothing, since upon these subjects the 

 shoulder, the croup, the forearm, the neck, the leg, etc., would exactly enter into 

 the conditions of length, width, and thickness required by his contradictor. And 

 yet this is the very merit, we do not say of all, but of many, of the proportions 

 of the founder of veterinary schools, and M. Richard would not have failed to 

 recognize it if he had seriously undertaken to verify, with compass in hand, the 

 assertions of the former. This is the reason why, when we take literally the 

 data of an author, without taking account of the almost inevitable exaggerations 

 to which he is naturally inclined, one is easily led to draw from them wrong 

 conclusions, to overlook the good in order to see only the weak points, and 

 present these as the only result which this theory can attain. 



Most certainly we would ourselves deserve this reproach if we should not 

 now make prominent the correct and truly practical idea which is apparent in 

 M. Eichard's criticisms. This distinguished horseman desires principally to 

 call the attention of the observer to the absolute beauties of the horse, beauties 

 which we should never oppose, since they are the best index of the conditions of 

 strength and speed, attributes which should never be limited, for they are funda- 

 mental qualities of the animal machine, elements indispensable to its proper 

 action. If the eye is impressed with a want of harmony in the whole, it is not 

 to the fulness of the chest, the length of the croup, of the forearm, of the leg, 

 the obliquity of the shoulder, the height of the withers, the width of the articu- 

 lations, etc., that this defect is to be attributed ; it is due to the weakness, the 

 bad conformation, of the other regions. The disproportion should be considered 

 especially as characterizing the predominance of defects, and not as being de- 

 rived from excess of the beauties. A horse is defective not because he is too well 

 formed in some of his parts, but because he is not enough so in others. A kind of 

 correlation of development exists between all the organs ; if one of them acquires 

 dimensions somewhat considerable, others follow it, so to speak, in the same 

 measure ; and this is what justifies to a certain extent the words of M. Eichard, 

 when he asserts that he does not understand how we can limit the width of the 

 forehead, the height of the cranium, the development of the withers, the height 

 of the chest, and the length of the shoulders ; when he defies us in some way to 

 find too wide a fetlock, a forearm too long, a knee too much developed, a tendon 

 too much detached ; when he rejects the limits imposed to the width of the hock, 

 that of the forearm and the leg, the width of the croup and that of the ribs. 

 The giraffe-, dromedary-, or elephant-horse is not possible, even in driving to ex- 

 tremities M. Eichard's exaggerations, on account of those very organic correla- 

 tions of which we have just spoken. This has been mentioned only to show the 

 consequences which may be the result of the a priori in matters concerning the 

 horse. We get to believe that facts are overthrown by words, and the more readily 

 so, as we are encouraged in it by the mass of those who content themselves with 

 admiring facts through the eyes of others. 



