ANALOGIES. 241 



the great desideratum, whether in a horse or any 

 thino' else. The dealer is aware of this infatuation 

 on the part of his customers : he knows the horse is 

 a better and more useful animal than when he sold 

 him, but he knows his customers would not like him 

 as well : he finds them horses ; he is not bound to 

 find them sense ; and till he or something else does, 

 the new horse will be preferred. 



This predilection for very young horses would 

 almost lead to the belief that people imagine that in 

 every five-year-old unused horse they have a right to 

 expect a given quantum of work, as in every bottle 

 of wine they have a given number of glasses full : 

 now if there was any analogy between the certain 

 quantum of work in the horse and the quantum of 

 wine in a bottle, there can be no doubt but the pre- 

 dilection would be judicious. The bottle from which 

 two glasses have been taken is not worth as much by 

 one sixth as the fresh bottle that contains twelve ; so 

 if we could be certain that in every five-year-old horse 

 there were twelve years of work, the horse that had 

 been used two years would, like the bottle, be just 

 one sixth diminished in value. But this is not the 

 case : the same calculation in no way holds good be- 

 tween the two objects : but between a horse and a 

 watch something like a simile may be brought to 

 bear, as we naturally expect both to go ; and so they 

 both, do more or less ; some go very well, some mo- 

 derately so, some very badly, while some, figuratively 

 speaking, cannot go at all. The action of both de- 

 pends beyond doubt in a general way on the scientific 

 manner in which the working parts of each have been 

 put together ; and the duration of time that each will 

 continue to go depends on the goodness of the ma- 



VOL. I. R 



