LOGIC. 109 



thing that you do not wish, without one. If his head 

 and neck are so formed by nature that he carries them 

 both in a proper place, we cannot improve on nature : 

 but unless this is decidedly the case, practical experi- 

 ence has taught me that a martingal can alone insure 

 our comfort and safety, and enable us to render our 

 horse obedient to the rein, which we never can make 

 him if his head is in an improper degree of elevation. 

 We will suppose, that from carelessness, the pole-pin 

 of a carriage has not been properly put in, or put in 

 at all ; we probably find no inconvenience arise from 

 it so long as we go on a level road or up hill: but 

 suppose, on beginning to descend the hill, we find the 

 end of the pole on a level with our horses' ears, I can 

 make a quotation tolerably apt to our situation facilis 

 descensus Averni. I think we should wish there had 

 been such a thing invented as a pole martingal. A 

 horse getting his head up is not perhaps likely to lead 

 to so serious a catastrophe ; but whenever he does 

 get it proportionably above the proper level, we have 

 no more command of him than of the carriage. I 

 believe every riding man (I mean horseman) will al- 

 low that all our command over a horse while riding 

 him both begins and ends in our command over his 

 mouth. This I shall consider as a point given. I 

 have thus endeavoured to prove getting his head up 

 loses us this command : if this point is also ceded to 

 me, I think we may fairly come to the conclusion, 

 that whatever prevents his doing that by which we 

 do lose our command of him is a resource never to 

 be dispensed with where we run the slightest chance 

 of wanting it, and this resource is of course the mar- 

 tingal. 



I do not know whether race-horses were better tern- 



