CHRONIC FOOT LAMENESS. 
153 
learned disquisition or illustration not so at all, as all veterinary 
readers possessing only ordinary acquirements will agree with ; and 
I know most coincide with me in the feeling which has led me to 
introduce these observations here. 
I have said I am tied to no person or opinions. As far as I 
am enabled to judge for myself, 1 desire to do so. I think every 
one who seeks to truly know should listen to and try to estimate 
the arguments advanced in favour of any set of opinions, on any 
subject in which he is interested; but while I say, hearken to 
opinion or counsel coming from those more able, more expe¬ 
rienced, or senior, I add, there should be no blind devotion. 
Bring every thing advanced fairly to the test of the reasoning of 
one's own mind on the one hand, and to the ordeal of one’s own 
practical judgment on the other; and then let every one’s “ faith 
be according to his lights.'” If both criteria bear it out, he will stick 
to that text. Mr. Coleman’s opinions, in reference to the foot and 
shoeing, have been much commented on, and not a little snarled 
at by some; and I am neither anxious to examine the what, the 
why, or the how. They can stand by themselves, for inquiry is 
open to every one who wishes satisfaction ; but that, as deliver¬ 
ed by Mr. Coleman, they are concisely and clearly deduced from 
a chain of evidence that seems to speak proofs at once to moral 
and physical comprehensions, I believe not many who have heard 
him will dissent from. That they are, however, plausible in 
theory, and otherwise unerringly right, I, for one, am not prepared 
to say; for we know the long received and most established 
opinions have been overthrown by extraordinary new light in 
science : but here I am a believer, till some enlightened one 
springs up to furnish us with yet better grounds for other belief. 
Let veterinarians take Mr. Coleman’s theory on the foot of the 
horse, and his corrected view 7 s of it as applicable to practice, and 
submit it, as before said, in all candour, to their own unprejudiced 
examination; let them do the same with other theories we have 
seen spring up from and follow his; let conviction be neither 
biassed by any fond individual fancy, nor swayed by private 
pique or feelings, nor influenced by sinister view s or interests; 
and 1 would soberly like to hear whose principles, and the prac¬ 
tice founded on them, are almost universally adopted and acted 
on ? I need hardly add the conviction I boast; and I have 
sought to be alone influenced and guided by truth. 
I he further remarks I thought to make had their source in 
the same publications already referred to; but I am not sure it 
were not better I leave them alone. I shall, however, be brief; 
and only presume to observe, that it is surely much to be 
deplored, that, within the last few years, what should have 
VOL. IV. Y 
