30 



PROGRESSION, INSECURE. [BOOK I. 



various workmanship, some for heavy work, or rough 

 usage, others more for show, and to sustain light 



weights. But, if the fore 

 and hind legs bend towards 

 each other upon the ground, 

 (like cut 1.) any carpenter 

 may see that this first element 

 of visible ill-formation must 

 sooner or later produce a fall; he will know, that 

 more strength for supporting great weights would 

 be produced by making all four legs perpendicular. 

 But a horse, not being like a table, immoveably 

 fixed upon its legs, and being required not only 

 to bear up but to proceed with his load, — which 

 is sometimes effected with difficulty on account of 

 its weight, then must his powers of pressing on- 

 wards be estimated by the positions in which he 

 can place the bones of his hinder part, the legs 

 particularly, since it is to these the propulsion 

 of his body forward is chiefly indebted. In his 



efforts to accomplish this 

 duty, the position of his 

 hindlegs will resemble those 

 of the second ad in the 

 margin, stretched out con- 

 stantly as much as these 

 are, and each leg alternately twice as much be- 

 yond his body; while his fore legs will bend 

 under him alternately also, like those in theirs* 

 table. In both movements his legs are stretched 

 to their utmost when the heavy drag is up hill, 



