AND HIS VARIOUS BRKKDS. 
721 
consideration of breeding ; and the Grand Duke Alexander rivals 
the heir apparent of the King of the French in his interest in all 
that concerns the noblest and most useful of animals. 
But important and interesting as this subject is, I fear that it 
much too often meets with neglect, more especially amongst our 
agriculturists, whose object seems merely the obtaining a foal, with¬ 
out any regard to those principles which would certainly render it 
a source of profit to themselves, or national pride in the improve¬ 
ment of the breed of this noble servant of man. Yet, surely, an 
object that embraces the more enlarged and comprehensive purpose 
of promoting perfection and preserving the bodily frame in the full 
and vigorous exercise of all its functions is entitled to our best and 
most earnest consideration. 
Life has been defined to consist of a continued series of actions 
and reactions—ever varying, yet constantly tending to definite ends. 
Perpetual mutation appears to constitute the fundamental law of 
living nature; and mortality, to which all the beings who have re¬ 
ceived the gift of life are subjected, is a necessary consequence of 
this law. The utmost solicitude has been shown in every part of 
living nature to secure the perpetuity of the race, by the establish¬ 
ment of laws of which the operation is certain in all contingent cir¬ 
cumstances. The animal dies, but it is only to give place to other 
beings alike in nature and in form, equally partaking of the bless¬ 
ings of existence : 
“ They fall successive, and successive rise.” 
Although the phenomenon of reproduction can be only imper¬ 
fectly analyzed, and its occult origin is enveloped in mystery, we 
are permitted to trace many of the subsequent steps in its gradual 
development; and nothing can be more admirable than the pro¬ 
gressive architecture of the frame. No part of the economy of ani¬ 
mated nature is more calculated to lead our thoughts upwards, 
through the chain of cause and effect, to that world-producing 
Essence who alone possesses being immutable. 
Leaving the mysterious impregnation of the germ, I will simply 
assert its vivifying principle to be a portion of the vital power of 
the parent, employed for the purpose of giving origin and birth to 
the offspring. As all the families of animals appear in a state of 
perpetual improvement or degeneracy, it becomes a subject of im¬ 
portance to detect the causes^of these mutations. 
Felix qui potuit reruiii cognescerc causas! 
A tendency to hereditary diseases and malformations in the 
sexual progeny of animals will be admitted by those who deny the 
hereditary descent of the diseases themselves. It is, therefore, rea- 
