HISTORICAL. 349 



Bourgelat adds that " these are, in the horse, nearly all the parts correspond- 

 ing through reciprocal dimensions. The eye which is experienced in these dif- 

 ferent data will recognize them without the use of the hippometre, the compass, 

 or the scale upon the parts whose defects he wishes to judge by the measure- 

 ment with as much facility as the painter reduces his sketch in making from 

 an ordinary figure one that is colossal." 



Bourgelat's work is almost entirely contained in the preceding data ; con- 

 trary to the accepted opinion, it is based upon a profound knowledge of the 

 horse, as well as upon observations as positive as those which are daily recorded 

 by purely descriptive sciences, as anatomy, for example. 



Still, the first and most frequent of the criticisms made against the founder 

 of veterinary schools is his having acted under the inspiration of his own ideas 

 and borrowed from other sources than from nature itself. How can we, indeed, 

 uphold the bad expression, the ugly form, of the model upon which he has traced 

 his geometrical lines? This model, known to-day by the name the Bourgelat 

 horse, with his Roman nose, his arched neck, and massive, straight shoulder, 

 rounded croup, flattened haunches, round buttocks, angular hock, and long 

 canons, appears to have aimed at the establishment of a special and new type, 

 very different, however, from that which he had mentally devised. The beholders 

 failed to see all the beauty and accuracy contained in that rough scheme which 

 Vincent's pencil produced Under the very eyes of the master. Disagreeably 

 impressed by the whole work, they missed the harmony of the important lines, 

 they objected to the minuteness of the measurements, and looked upon it as a 

 work of pure imagination, without reflecting that the most gifted imagination is 

 powerless to create such combinations. 



It is true Bourgelat did establish his laws according to his own idea of the 

 beautiful horse, but he has obtained the proportions from a real type, which still 

 exists, and which by a unanimous acknowledgment connoisseurs also consider 

 the type of beauty. 



That there are exaggerations, inaccuracies, in his system is incontestable. Is 

 not this the danger of all inventors, and does it follow from this that we should 

 discredit any of the truths that are offered? Bourgelat has attempted to deter- 

 mine the agreement of the parts with one another and with the whole ; this is 

 his main idea ; to have seen and appreciated these relations is his merit ; finally, 

 he has found some which will live and which show the results to which a correct 

 idea, supported by a good judgment and an exceptional talent, may lead. 



But we do not think that we can, following the example of Professor 

 Baron, 1 blame him for having estimated all the external measurement of the 

 body by only one and the same unit : the length of the head. According to 

 our colleague, the length of this region should only be used to measure the lon- 

 gitudinal axes, its width the transverse, and its thickness all that which, in the 

 body, is an element of thickness. Truly, this logic appears a little exclusive. 

 In practice it results in this : a single rule being insufficient, three are necessary. 

 Instead of simplifying a rule already too complex, we increase the difficulties 

 threefold at the time when it is so important to point out, in passing, the excep- 

 tions and the deviations that are of some interest. To understand the regional 

 relations, one single common measure is sufficient, the head or any other part, 



1 Baron, Methodes de reproduction en zootechnie, p. 159, Paris, 1888. 



