Twelve lectures on the form and action of the horse: to which are appended, some experimental inquiries into the effects of medicine on horses / [William Percivall].
- Percivall, William, 1792-1854.
- Date:
- 1850
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Twelve lectures on the form and action of the horse: to which are appended, some experimental inquiries into the effects of medicine on horses / [William Percivall]. Source: Wellcome Collection.
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![must not only correspond in its dimensions with the adjoining parts, but be likewise commensurate with the magnitude of the entire structure, it must be evident that we shall not be able to determine this just proportion with any thing approaching geometrical preci- sion, unless we possess some definite measure or scale wherefrom to proceed. The French school, we have seen, took the head of the horse as a standard whereby all the other parts were to be mea- sured, and whereto they were to bear certain proportions : others, however, objected to this standard, and assumed the height of the animal as the proper primitive measure. In either case a great difficulty presents itself, and St. Bel experienced this. ‘“ Nature has so diversified the forms of individuals,” says the Professor, ‘“‘that no common measure can be made to apply equally to every species.’—‘‘If each species has its own style of beauty; if even each individual has its own peculiar beauty; if it is not pos- sible to find two horses that perfectly resemble each other, we cannot pretend to assign any one form preferably to another as the rule of beauty for the horse. Were persons the best qualified to endeavour to collect together the different beauties dispersed among the different individuals, they might, indeed, compose a model of each species sufficiently perfect to direct the painter or the statuary, but which would deceive any one who would venture to choose a horse by it for his own use.” At length, however, St. Bel met this difficulty by paying no attention to what in form is called “ handsome,” but solely to “that mechanical] construction of the animal from which result the possibility and extent of those motions by the means of which he is enabled to transport himself from one place to another with greater or less speed.” —“ Eclipse was never esteemed handsome; yet he was swift, and the me- chanism of his frame was perfect.” St. Bel had a right to come to these conclusions from the performances of Eclipse ; and yet the proportions of this celebrated horse varied from those of the stand- ard of the French school, setting up, as it were, another standard in the English college. The French school, I repeat, regulated their scale of propor- tions of the horse by the measure of the head; this regulator, how- ever, has by others been objected to; they arguing that it was more in accordance with nature to assume the hezgAt of the animal](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b33099364_0109.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
