260 
ON SOUNDNESS. 
seller says, “ It's of no consequence—I will be answerable for 
it,” I apprehend he makes himself liable to an action at law 
should inflammation of the lungs shortly after set in. Then, 
again, much will depend upon how the animal has been 
treated in the intermediate time. Our evidence on such occa¬ 
sions will be wanted principally to establish the fact of the 
catarrhal affection being present at the time of sale ; and we shall 
have to give an opinion as to its continuance or termination: the 
lawyers will settle all the rest. I repeat, therefore, I would 
resign this point entirely to them. 
You say I seem to have mistaken you with regard to natural 
defects, deformities, &c. That part of my letter, I beg to ob¬ 
serve, alluded only to what was said at the discussions, not to 
any thing advanced in your paper. 
I cannot, I must confess, see my way at all clearly through 
your third corollary proposition ; viz. “ That every horse is to 
be regarded as unsound in that state in which (although he is 
free both from disease and lameness) he is not equal to what he 
ought by nature to be adequate ; or, in other words, in a state in 
which he, compared with another horse who is not in that state, 
labours under manifest unnatural incapacity.” This seems to 
open a door that would lead—I do not profess exactly to know 
where; but I think we should find ourselves upon the very ex¬ 
treme point of Mr. Coleman’s position, and, consequently, on the 
horns of a dilemma. Stripped of the luxuriant, and I cannot help 
thinking the somewhat too enigmatical dress, which obscures this 
proposition, does it not, in plain terms, amount to this—that 
eveiy horse is to be regarded as unsound if he cannot perform the 
Ordinary duties of an ordinary horse; A doctrine, I repeat, that 
the world will never subscribe to. And I am not one of those, 
I say it again, who profess to despise the opinion of the public. 
In conclusion, I would observe, that if we cannot agree 
amongst ourselves upon two or three plain and simple rules, as a 
guiding principle upon which to conduct the examination for 
soundness, we had far better have let the subject alone alto¬ 
gether. I have endeavoured to trace out the practical, or rather 
I would say the practicable, line. If I have taken a sound view 
of the matter I shall expect to be supported by some of the prac¬ 
tical part of my brethren ; and if I am not, I shall begin to 
suspect u there’s something rotten in the state of Denmark.” 
But, in the mean time, depend upon it I shall fancy myself 
quite snug in this said nutshell position of mine. 
I have endeavoured to free this “ intricate question” from the 
“ difficulties that surrounded it on all sides*” I have ventured 
