436 THE EXTERIOR OF THE HORSE. 



teacher useful, and frequent association with horsemen, whoever they 

 may be, is likely to render signal service to the beginner. 



"Prejudice," says Littre, "is an opinion, a belief, acquired with- 

 out examination." l In most cases it rests upon a pure coincidence or 

 upon a simple probability, never upon a demonstrated truth, and varies 

 according to persons, places, and times. The result of routine and 

 ignorance, it encumbers the advancement of science, and should bo 

 regarded as the greatest obstacle to progress. " It wages war against 

 any bold spirit that declines to bow before it, and men whose taste is 

 most delicate and best trained are unable to shake off the tyranny of 

 a preconceived idea." 2 



Prejudices abound in respect to the external form of the horse. 

 What has not been said about the forms of the head, the withers, the 

 shoulder, the croup, the tail, the chest, the flank, the blemishes, the 

 dress, the white-foot, the horse-hairs, etc. ? What an accumulation of 

 errors, the more difficult to eradicate as they are based on the unknown, 

 always so full of attraction for the laity ! 



Prejudice is the most redoubtable foe of reason. Hence we must 

 battle against it to the last, but without allowing ourselves to be too 

 deeply moved by the opposition of our contemporaries. "It is in 

 reality," adds Eug. Ve"ron, " only a question of a momentary disturb- 

 ance, which is explained by the very effort necessary for any innovation 

 we undertake in order to establish the general concordance of our ideas, 

 exactly in the same way as a current of air passing over a stream is 

 sufficient to make the water lose its transparency." 3 



Nevertheless, this does not mean that we must delude ourselves 

 into the belief that all is prejudice. It would be wrong to reject an 

 opinion point-blank under the pretence that it lacks probability or 

 certainty, or for the sole satisfaction of creating something new, for 

 this opinion may prove true as well as erroneous. Hence the advisa- 

 bility of verifying everything, jof examining everything, in order to 

 ascertain the worth of this opinion and profit by it, if we may. 



Fashion is a transient custom prompted by fancy and caprice 

 (Littre). It is the symptom of a sort of wandering of the imagina- 

 tion, this " madcap of the house," stimulated by vanity and ennui much 

 more frequently than by the expression of a true a?sthetic sentiment. 

 Its characteristic, in truth, is to change for fear of monotony and not 

 for the sake of discovering something better. Rarely are its innova- 



1 Littr6. Dictionnaire de la langue fran^aise. 

 a Eug. V<ron, L'esthetique, p. 73, Paris, 1878. 

 3 Loc. cit., p. 74. 



