EOAD ACTION. 125 



he had never been on his knees before : this is all 

 true, for everything must have a beginning ; but he 

 wiU most certainly be there again. 



Unsafety on the road generally arises from one or 

 more of the following causes — bad action, bad forma- 

 tion, sluggishness, or infirmity, or all combined, 

 if we can suppose any man's sins to be so great that 

 such an animal has got into his hands as a just 

 retribution of them. 



To begin with action. There may be a diversity 

 of opinion as to what is pretty action, and each man 

 may harmlessly indulge his taste in this particular : 

 but there should be but one opinion as to what is safe 

 action. Many persons conceive, if a horse has high 

 action, it denotes perfect safety : there can be no 

 greater error : high action has very little to do with 

 safety ; in fact, in many particulars it very much con- 

 tributes to its reverse. The most moderate action is 

 generally high enough to clear all the imperceptible 

 inequalities of a road, and it is only of such we need 

 have any fear ; and so far as loose stones go, if they 

 are large enough to want high action to get over, the 

 horse would step on one side of such, not over them : 

 we do not leave mile-stones lying about. It is chiefly 

 the way in which a horse puts his foot to the ground 

 that constitutes safety, or the reverse : if he puts it 

 down with a shove (for I can find no better expres- 

 sion), he must be unsafe, as the shock he would expe- 

 rience from any opposing substance would very likely 

 bring him down ; and this would of course be just 

 the same whether the action previous to putting the 

 foot down had been high or low. If he puts it fairly 

 on the ground, whether the foot was placed on the 

 ascending part of a rise, on its summit, or on its 



