DEFINITIVE SYNTHESIS. 429 



the constitution, the mechanism, the primary material of the tissues, 

 the blood, and the reflex power of the nervous system. 



By training (functional gymnastics) he acquires the habit and the 

 ability to work, to economize strength and use it with all its intensity. 



Finally, from the medium conditions he borrows the nutriment for 

 his activity and the repairing materials for his incessant losses, as well 

 as that continual influence which blunts the too great susceptibility of 

 his organism and permits him, already strong and adapted to resist 

 external modifying causes, to struggle victoriously against fatigue and 

 privations. 



Endurance is composed, then, of two kinds of qualities : the one 

 innate, more permanent, and stronger, is bequeathed by ancestors ; the 

 other acquired, less constant, and also less durable, is the result of that 

 special gymnastics, training. 



Now, the horse may lose this principal faculty. First, his own 

 reserve stock will disappear, then will come the turn of what he has 

 inherited from his ancestors. And even though the elements of the 

 latter, less transitory, should still remain with him in substance, we 

 may readily understand how the neglect of certain elementary precau- 

 tions might depreciate them or deprive them entirely of their value, in 

 the same manner as those objects of art which are allowed to spoil, 

 or those monuments which are not preserved against the injuries of 

 time. 



This is why, through want of exercise and particular care, by an 

 ill-regulated hygiene, the animal becomes weakened, the tissues lose 

 their properties, the articulations their suppleness, the nerves their 

 excitability, the muscles their vigor, and the chest its wind. The 

 horse is now but the shadow of his former self; force, energy, en- 

 durance, ardor, nobility, distinction, all those brilliant faculties which 

 he possessed at first, disappear, little by little, never more to return. 



CHAPTER IV. 



DEFINITIVE SYNTHESIS. 



LITTLE remains to be said about the proportions of the horse. We 

 have indicated in what they consist, and what their isolated or their 

 combined effects upon the living machine are ; we have analyzed with 

 care the details and the whole, shown the importance of each fact in 



