A DISSERTATION ON HORSES WHEREIN IT IS DEMONSTRATED, BY MATTERS OF FACT, AS WELL AS FROM THE PRINCIPLES OF PHILOSOPHY, THAT INNATE QUALITIES DO NOT EXIST, AND THAT THE EXCELLENCE OF THIS ANIMAL IS ALTOGETHER MECHANICAL AND NOT IN THE BLOOD TEXT

Horse's ever yet seen; behind the shoulders, there was but a very small space; before, the muscles of his loins rose excessively high, broad, and expanded, which were inserted into his quarters with greater strength and power than in any Horse I believe ever yet seen of his dimensions. If we now consider the plainness of his head and ears, the position of his fore-legs, and his stinted growth, occasioned by the want of food in the country where he was bred, it is not to be wondered at, that the excellence of this Horse's shape, which we see only in miniature, and therefore imperfectly, was not so manifest and apparent to the perception of some men as of others. It has been said, that the sons of the Godolphin Arabian had better wind than other Horses, and that this perfection of the wind was in the blood. But when we consider any Horse thus mechanically made, whose leavers acquire more purchase, and whose powers are stronger than his adversaries, such a Horse will be enabled by this superiority of mechanism, to act with greater facility, and therefore it is no wonder that the organs of respiration (if not confined or straitened more than his adversaries) should be less fatigued. Suppose now, we take ten mares of the same, or different blood, all which is held equally good, when the Mares are covered, and have been esteemed so long before, and put to this Godolphin Arabian, let us suppose some of the colts to be good racers, and others very inferior to them; shall we condemn the blood of these mares which produced the inferior Horses? If so, we shall never know what good blood is, or where it is to be found, or ever act with any certainty in the propagation of this species, and it is this ridiculous opinion alone of blood, that deceives mankind so much in the breed of racers. If we ask the jockey the cause of this difference in the performance of these brothers, he (willing to account some how for it) readily answers, that the blood did not nick; but will a wise and reasoning man, who seriously endeavours to account for this difference, be content with such a vague, unmeaning answer, when, by applying his attention to matters of fact, and his observation to the different mechanism of these brothers, the difference of their performance is not only rationally, but demonstratively accounted for? But if this excellence of the racer should really be in the blood, or what is called the proper nicking of it, I must say, it is a matter of great wonder to me, that the blood of the Godolphin Arabian, who was a confined Stallion, and had but few Mares, should nick so well as to produce so many excellent racers; and that the blood of his son Cade, who has had such a number of Mares, and those, perhaps, the very best in the kingdom, should not nick any better than it seems to have done; for I do not conceive the performances of the sons of Cade to have been equal in any respect to the sons of the Godolphin Arabian; though I do not pretend to determine this myself, but shall leave it to the opinion of mankind. The question then is, whether this excellence of Horses is in the blood or the mechanism; whoever is for blood, let him take two brothers of any sort or kind, and breed one up in plenty, the other upon a barren heath; I fancy he will find, that a different mechanism of the body will be acquired to the two brothers by the difference of their living, and that the blood of him brought up on the barren heath, will not be able to contend with the mechanism of the other, brought up in a land of plenty. Now if this difference of shape will make a difference in the performance of the animal, it will be just the same thing in its consequences, whether this imperfection of shape be produced by scarcity of foot, or entailed by the laws of nature; if so, does it signify whether the colt be got by Turk, Barb, or what kind of blood his dam be of? or where shall we find one certain proof of the efficacy of blood in any Horse produced in any age or any country, independent of the laws of mechanics. If it should be urged, that these foreign Horses get better colts than their descendants, that therefore the blood of foreign ones is best, I answer, no; for that according to the number of foreign Stallions we have had in this kingdom, there have been more reputed and really bad than good ones, which would not happen in the case of Horses, who come from the same country, and are of the same extraction, if this goodness was in the blood only. But the true reason why foreign Horses get better colts than their descendants, if they do get better, is that (mechanism alike) their descendants from which we breed, are generally such Horses as have been thoroughly tried, consequently much strained, and gone through strong labour and fatigue; whereas the foreign Horse has perhaps seldom or never known what labour was; for we find the Turk a sober grave person, always riding a foot pace, except on emergencies, and the Arab preferring his Mare to his Horse for use and service. As a proof of this truth, let us take two sister hound bitches, and ward them both with the same dog; let us suppose one bitch to have run in the pack, and the other by some accident not to have worked at all, it will be found that the offspring of her who has never worked, will be much superior to the offspring of her who has run in the pack. All I have now to ask of my brother jockeys is, that for the future, when speaking of these Horses, they will, instead of the phrase HIGH-BRED, say only well-bred, and that they will not even then be understood to mean any thing more by it, than that they are descended from a race of Horses, whose actions have established their goodness: and that I may have leave to prefer my opinion of the mechanical powers of a Horse, to all their opinions concerning blood, which is in reality no more than a vain chimera. If these things are so, have not we and our fore-fathers been hoodwinked all our days by the prevalence of a ridiculous custom, and the mistaken system, when by consulting our own reason and understanding, this mist of error had fled before it? If this mechanical power was considered as it ought to be, it would excite a proper emulation amongst all breeders: and when the excellence in the breed of Horses was found to be the effect of judgment, and not of chance, there would be more merit as well as more pleasure in having bred a superior Horse. Add to this, mankind by applying their attention to this mechanism of animals, would improve their judgment in the laws of nature, and it would not only produce a much better breed of racers than any we have yet seen, but the good of it would extend to all sorts of Horses throughout the kingdom of what kind soever. It is a cruel thing to say, but yet a very true one, that amongst the present breed of Horses in this nation, a man of any tolerable judgment can hardly find one in fifty fit for his purpose, whether designed to draw or ride; whereas if the purchasers would endeavour to make themselves masters of this mechanism, the breeders of every kind of Horses must consult it also, or keep their useless ones in their own hands, which I conceive would be a proper punishment for their ignorance. And now the author appeals not to the illiterate and unlearned (whose obstinacy is too great to receive instruction, and whose prejudices are too strong to be obliterated by any reasons) but to the candid and impartial inquiry of reasoning and unprejudiced men into these principles, and hopes this may be a means of exciting some more able pen, to vindicate a truth so many ages buried in darkness. If aught conducive to the pleasure or use of mankind shall accrue from these hints, he will think himself happy; on the other hand, if the principles here advanced should prove erroneous, and any man be kind enough to point out the fallacy of them, he will kiss the rod with chearfulness** and submission. FINIS. End of Project Gutenberg's A Dissertation on Horses, by William Osmer