28 SYMMETRY, POWER, AND HEALTH J [BOOK I. 



then a butcher's hack) were discovered ; for people 

 of this trade generally try the utmost their nags can 

 perform in the trot. 



To be able to judge of a horse's defects as to 

 what he cannot do, undoubtedly it seems necessary 

 to ascertain what constitutes a fine figure, or a per- 

 fect one, that can do every thing ; but, when it is con- 

 sidered that the exposure of those defects is intended 

 to apply wholly to the origin of disorders for which 

 he will require medical treatment, if he does not de- 

 serve rejection in toto, we shall find less occasion for 

 adverting to any known horse, entirely without 

 error in his form or built. In most cases, however, 

 good symmetry being accompanied not only by the 

 power of achieving great feats, but a good portion of 

 health also, or at any rate, the absence of the dis- 

 eases incident to a bad form, we may be allowed, 

 while exposing his faults, to deviate a little, and to 

 contemplate some few of his perfections also. 



3. The most obvious physical truths are those 

 which can be explained upon the principles of 

 mechanics * ; upon such a basis, even the more 



* Sir Charles Scarborough, it seems, was the first doctor of medi- 

 cine who introduced mechanical and geometrical reasoning on mus- 

 cular action ; but we had never heard of him, or any person employ- 

 ing this means of elucidation, until several years after the passage in 

 the text was printed. Sir C. S. delivered lectures for seventeen years, 

 at Surgeons' hall, from 1658. After much enquiry, we are led to be- 

 lieve that no one followed Dr. Scarborough until we of these times. 

 Since our first Edition, however, that highly gifted body, " the Society 

 for Promoting Useful Knowledge," have followed the same mode of 

 instruction, in the 9th No. of their Tracts, entitling it, " Animal Me- 



