Clever Hans Part 1

Clever Hans.

by Oskar Pfungst.

INTRODUCTION

[BY C. STUMPF]

A horse that solves correctly problems in multiplication and division by means of tapping. Persons of unimpeachable honor, who in the master's absence have received responses, and a.s.sure us that in the process they have not made even the slightest sign. Thousands of spectators, horse-fanciers, trick-trainers of first rank, and not one of them during the course of many months' observations are able to discover any kind of regular signal.

That was the riddle. And its solution was found in the unintentional minimal movements of the horse's questioner.

Simple though it may seem, the history of the solution is nevertheless quite complex, and one of the important incidents in it is the appearance of the zoologist and African traveler, Schillings, upon the scene, and then there is the report of the so-called Hans-Commission of September 12, 1904. And finally there is the scientific investigation, the results of which were published in my report of December 9, 1904.

After a cursory inspection during the month of February, I again called upon Mr. von Osten in July, and asked him to explain to Professor Schumann and me just what method he had used in instructing the horse.

We hoped in this way to gain a clue to the mechanism of Hans's feats.

The most essential parts of the information thus gleaned are summarized in Supplement I. Mr. Schillings came into the courtyard for the first time about the middle of July. He came as skeptical as everyone else.

But after he, himself, had received correct responses, he too became convinced, and devoted much of his time to exhibiting the horse, and daily brought new guests. To be perfectly frank, at the time this seemed to us a disturbing factor in the investigation, but now we see that his intervention was a link in the chain of events which finally led to an explanation. For it was through him that the fact was established beyond cavil, that the horse was able to respond to strangers in the master's absence. Heretofore, this had been noted only in isolated cases. Since it could not be a.s.sumed that a well-known investigator should take it upon himself to mislead the public by intentionally giving signs, the case necessarily from that time on appeared in the eyes of others in a light quite different from that in which ordinary circus-tricks would appear, to which it bore such a striking external resemblance. No matter how this state of affairs may have arisen in the course of years, no matter how it might eventually be explained,--the quality of the extraordinary would necessarily attach itself to this particular case, as it did.

Of course, to many persons in the interested public the result was merely that Schillings, also, was placed in the category of deceivers.

On the other hand there were reputable scientists who could not dispose of the matter in that fas.h.i.+on, and these now openly took their stand with Schillings and declared that they believed in the horse's ability to think. Zoologists especially, saw in von Osten's results evidence of the essential similarity between the human and the animal mind, which doctrine has been coming more and more into favor since the time of Darwin. Educators were disposed to be convinced, on account of the clever systematic method of instruction which had been used and which had not, till then, been applied in the education of a horse. In addition, there were many details which, it seemed, could not be explained in any other way. So far as I myself was concerned, I was ready to change my views with regard to the nature of animal consciousness, as soon as a careful examination would show that nothing else would explain the facts, except the a.s.sumption of the presence of conceptual thinking. I had thought out the process hypothetically, i. e., how one might conceive of the rise of number concepts and arithmetical calculation along the peculiar lines which had been followed in Hans's education, and on the basis of the a.s.sumption that the beginnings of conceptual thinking are present in animals. Also, I had too much faith in human nature to fear lest nothing peculiarly human should remain after the art of handling numbers should be shown to be common property with the lower forms. But under no circ.u.mstances would I have undertaken to make a public statement in favor of any particular view in this extraordinary case, before a thorough investigation, in accordance with scientific principles, had been made. I expressed this sentiment at the time, and recommended the appointment of an investigating commission (in the "Tag" of September 3, 1904).

The purpose of this commission was misunderstood, and therefore many were disappointed with the report which it published, (Supplement II).

Some had been expecting a positive conclusive explanation; the commission recommended further investigation. Some had asked for a solution of the question whether or not the horse was able to think; the commission maintained neither the one, nor the other. Some had indicated as the main condition of a satisfactory investigation, that both Mr. von Osten and Mr. Schillings be excluded from the tests; this was not done.

But the commission--which, by the way, did not give itself this name, since it had been delegated by no one--undoubtedly had the right to formulate its problem as it saw fit, and this was carefully expressed at the beginning of its report as follows: "The undersigned came together for the purpose of investigating the question whether or not there is involved in the feats of the horse of Mr. von Osten anything of the nature of tricks, that is, intentional influence or aid on the part of the questioner." It was this preliminary question, and not whether or not the horse could think, which the commission intended to answer. They proposed to act as a sort of court of honor for the two gentlemen who had been attacked. It is only in this light that even the _raison d'etre_ of this body can be understood; for a scientific commission composed of thirteen men, possessed of varying degrees of scientific preparation, would have been an absurd travesty, and it will readily be seen why the two men, who had been attacked, should not be excluded, since it was they, and primarily Mr. von Osten, upon whom the observations were to be made.

To be sure the commission did go one step beyond that which it had proposed to itself, since it added that it believed that unintentional signs of the kind which are at present familiar, were also excluded.

This led many to the unwarranted conclusion that the commission had declared that Hans was able to think. Whereas the thing which might have been logically suggested was that instead of the a.s.sumption of the presence of independent thinking, the commission may have had in mind unintentional signs of a kind hitherto unknown. I explained this to a reporter of the "Frankfurter Zeitung" (Mr. A. Gold), who had come to me for information, and in his article he made this hypothesis appear as the most probable one.[A] Certain statements of the circus-manager Busch, who speaks of a 'connection' of some sort, go to show that other members of the commission held to the view just stated.

[Footnote A: "Frankfurter Zeitung" of September 22, 1904: "Concerning the question whether the horse was given some sort of aid, Professor Stumpf expressed himself freely. He said: 'We were careful to state in our report that the intentional use of the (actual) means of training, on the part of the horse's teacher, is out of the question, ... nor are there involved any of the known kinds of unconscious, involuntary aids. Our task was completed after we had ascertained that no tricks or aids of the traditional sort were being employed'." After some remarks on unconscious habituation and self-training on the part of animals, the writer arrives at the conclusion that "the horse of Mr. von Osten has been educated by its master in the most round-about way, in accordance with a method suited for the development of human reasoning powers, hence in all good faith, to give correct responses by means of tapping with the foot. But what the horse really learned by this wearisome process was something quite different, something that was more in accord with his natural capacities,--he learned to discover by purely sensory aids which are so near the threshold that they are imperceptible for us and even for the teacher, when he is expected to tap with his foot and when he is to come to rest."]

But how did it come to pa.s.s that the commission should deny completely the presence of intentional signals, while, as regards the unintended, it excluded only those which were of the known sort? The report clearly shows that the decision as to the absence of voluntary signals was based not merely upon the fact that no such signals had been detected by the most expert observers, but also upon the character of the two men who exhibited the horse, upon their behavior during the entire period, and upon the method of instruction which Mr. von Osten had employed. In the case of unintentional signs, on the other hand, one had to deal with the fact with which physiologists and experimental psychologists are especially familiar, viz., that our conscious states, without our willing it--indeed, even in spite of us--are accompanied by bodily changes which very often can be detected only by the use of extremely fine graphic methods. The following is a more general instance: every mother, who detects the lie or divines the wish in the eyes of the child, knows that there are characteristic changes of facial expression, which are, nevertheless, very difficult of definition.[B]

[Footnote B: "From the productions of the 'thought-readers' we see how slight and seemingly insignificant the unconscious movements may be, which serve as signs for a sensitive re-agent. But in this case no contact is necessary. There would have to be some sort of visible or audible expression on the part of the questioner. No proof for this has as yet been advanced."

How any one possessing the power of logical thought could possibly infer from these words of mine (published in the above-mentioned article in the "Tag"), that I denied the possibility of the occurrence of visual signs, is to me incomprehensible. What I did deny, and still deny, is that up to that time any had been proven to occur.]

The commission did not even maintain or believe that unintentional signs within the realm of the senses known to us, were to be excluded.

Professor Nagel and I would never have subscribed to any such conclusion. The sentence in question, therefore, could only be interpreted as follows: that signals of the kind that are used intentionally in the training of horses, could not have occurred even as unintended signs, for otherwise Mr. Busch would have detected them.

And in order to be observed by him it was immaterial whether they were given purposely or not. The same signs, therefore, which as a result of his observations were declared not to be present, could not be a.s.sumed to be involved as unintentional.

For my part I am ready to confess that at this time I did not expect to find the involuntary signals, if any such were involved, in the form of movements. I had in mind rather some sort of nasal whisper such as had been invoked by the Danish psychologist A. Lehmann, in order to explain certain cases of so-called telepathy. I could not believe that a horse could perceive movements which escaped the sharp eyes of the circus-manager. To be sure, extremely slight movements may still be perceived after objects at rest have become imperceptible. But one would hardly expect this feat on the part of an animal, who was so deficient in keenness of vision, as we have been led, by those of presumably expert knowledge, to believe of the horse,--one would expect it all the less because Mr. von Osten and Mr. Schillings would move hither and thither in most irregular fas.h.i.+on while the horse was going through his tapping, and would therefore make the perception of minute movements all the more difficult.

Nor was there anything in the exhibitions given at the same time in a Berlin vaudeville by the mare "Rosa," which might have shattered this belief. For, in the case of this rival of Hans, the movements involved were comparatively coa.r.s.e. The closing signal consisted in bending forward on the part of the one exhibiting the mare, while up to that point he had stood bolt upright. Most persons were not aware of this, because this change in posture cannot be noticed from the front. I happened to sit to the side and caught the movement every time. It was the same that was noted by Dr. Miessner, another member of the commission, (see page 256), but concerning which he did not give me a more complete account. Later I learned through Professor Th. W.

Engelmann that the very same movement was employed not long ago, for giving signals to a dog exhibited at Utrecht. This particular movement is very well adapted to commercial purposes, since the spectator always tries to view the performance from a point as nearly in front of the animal and its master as possible, thus making the detection of the trick all the more difficult.

The details of the various experiments made by this commission are given in an excerpt from the records kept by Dr. von Hornbostel, which I showed to a small group of persons a few days after the 12th of September (Supplement III). At that time none of the particulars was published, because the commission wished to wait until some positive statement might be made. The public was merely to be a.s.sured that a group of reputable men, from different spheres of life, who could have no purpose in hazarding their reputation, believed that the case was one worthy of careful investigation.

I left Berlin on September 17th and did not return until October 3d. In the meantime Mr. Schillings continued the investigation, and was a.s.sisted in part by Mr. Oskar Pfungst, one of my co-workers at the Psychological Inst.i.tute. For the first time a number of tests were now made in which neither the questioner, nor any of those present knew the answer to the problem. Such tests naturally were the first steps toward a positive investigation. The results were such that Mr. Schillings was led to replace his hypothesis of independent conceptual thinking by one of some kind of suggestion. In this he was strengthened somewhat by having noted the fact that in his questions which he put to the horse, he might proceed as far as to ask the impossible. He has always been ready to offer himself in the tests which have been undertaken since then.

On October 13, 1904, together with the two gentlemen mentioned in the beginning of my report, I began my more detailed investigation, and finished on November 29. We worked for several hours on the average of four times each week. I take this opportunity of giving expression of the recognition which is due to the two gentlemen. They were ready to go to the courtyard in all kinds of weather, at times they went without me, and they always patiently discussed the order and method of the experiments and the results. Dr. von Hornbostel had the important task of keeping the records, and Mr. Pfungst undertook the conduct of the experiments. It was he, who, soon after the blinder-tests disclosed the necessary presence of visual signs, discovered the nature of these signs. Without him we might have shown the horse to be dependent upon visual stimuli in general, but we never would have been able to gain that ma.s.s of detail, which makes the case valuable for human psychology.

But I am tempted to praise not merely his patience and skill, but also his courage. For we must not believe that Mr. von Osten's horse was a "perfectly gentle" animal. If he stood untied and happened to be excited by some sudden occurrence, he would make that courtyard an unsafe place, and both Mr. Schillings and Mr. Pfungst suffered from more than one bite. In this connection I would also express my obligations to Count Otto zu Castell-Rudenhausen, for his frequent intercession on our behalf with the owner of the horse, and for his many evidences of good-will and helpfulness.

After the publication of this report (Supplement IV), there was still some further discussion of the case in societies of various kinds and in the press, but no important objections were raised. A hippologist thought that men of his calling should have been consulted, a telepathist believed that telepathists should have been called in. There was also some further talk of suggestion, will-transference, thought-reading and the occult, but no attempt was made to elucidate these vague terms with reference to their application to the case in hand. Others adhered to the old cry of "fraud," for a share of which Mr.

Pfungst now fell heir. There were a few who felt it inc.u.mbent upon themselves to preserve their 'priority,' and therefore stated with a show of satisfaction that I had finally 'confessed' myself to hold their respective points of view. As if there were anything like "confessions"

in science! As if mere affirmations, even though sealed and deposited in treasure vaults, had any value with reference to a case in which every manner of supposition had been advanced in lieu of explanation. Why did they wait so long, if they had convincing proof for their position?

And finally there were disappointed Darwinists who expressed fear lest ecclesiastical and reactionary points of view should derive favorable material from the conclusions arrived at in my report. Needless fear.

For lovers of truth it must always remain a matter of inconsequence whether anyone is pleased or displeased with the truth, and whether it is enunciated by Aristotle or Haeckel.

Mr. von Osten, however, continued to exhibit Hans, and is probably doing so still, but in what frame of mind, I dare not judge. The spectators continue to look on, they are doubly alert to catch movements, and many of them have learned from Mr. Schillings what kind of movements they are to expect. But these "initiated" ones regularly return and declare that there is nothing in the movements and that they simply could not discover any aids given to the horse. Nothing can so well show how difficult the case is, and how great the need of a thorough exposition of the whole matter, than the account given in the following pages of Mr. Pfungst. Its publication has been delayed on account of the additional tests made in the laboratory, but we have reason to suppose that through these additional tests the work has gained in permanent value. Experimental psychologists will perhaps be greatly interested in the graphic registration of the minute involuntary movements which accompany the thought process, and in the artificial a.s.sociation of a given involuntary movement with a given idea. Likewise the tests on sense-perception in horses, which have led to essential changes in hitherto current views, and the critical review of the comprehensive literature on similar achievements of other animals, will be welcomed by many.

Before closing these introductory remarks, I would make one more statement concerning Mr. von Osten. The reader will notice that the judgment pa.s.sed upon him in this treatise is placed at the end, whereas in the report of the commission it came first. This was brought about by the change that was made in the way of stating the problem. Then the question discussed was whether 'tricks' were involved; now the question is: What is the mechanism of the process? The question of the good faith of the master was taken up once more only because the facts that were brought to light by the later experimentation seemingly brought forward new grounds for distrust. But by placing this discussion toward the end of our report we wished to indicate that everything that is said of the present status of facts, is quite independent of the view taken concerning Mr. von Osten. Even a.s.suming that the horse had been purposely trained by him to respond to this kind of signal, the case would still deserve a place in the annals of science. For visual signs, planned and practiced so that they could not only be more readily perceived by the animal than by man, but could be transferred from their inventor to others without any betrayal of the secret,--this would be an extraordinary invention, and Mr. von Osten would then be a fraud, but also a genius of first rank.

In truth he probably was neither, but I was brief in my report, for otherwise I would have been obliged to go into more detail than the case warranted. And a judgment pa.s.sed upon a human personality is quite a different matter from a judgment upon a horse. If it is unscientific to make unqualified statements concerning a horse after the performance of only a few experimental tests, it is certainly an unwarranted thing to pa.s.s a moral judgment upon a man upon the basis of meagre material.

Anyone who would a.s.sume the role of judge should bear in mind that here too we have more than a hundredfold the material which they could bring forward, and among it some which, if taken alone, would be more unfavorable than any that they had. But here all things should be weighed together, and not in isolation. A former instructor of mathematics in a German gymnasium, a pa.s.sionate horseman and hunter, extremely patient and at the same time highly irrascible, liberal in permitting the use of the horse for days at a time and again tyrannical in the insistence upon foolish conditions, clever in his method of instruction and yet at the same time possessing not even the slightest notion of the most elementary conditions of scientific procedure,--all this, and more, goes to make up the man. He is fanatic in his conviction, he has an eccentric mind which is crammed full of theories from the phrenology of Gall to the belief that the horse is capable of inner speech and thereby enunciates inwardly the number as it proceeds with the tapping. From theories such as these, and on the basis of all sorts of imagined emotional tendencies in the horse, he also managed to formulate an explanation for the failure of the tests in which none of the persons present knew the answer to the problem given the horse, and also for the failure of those tests in which the large blinders were applied. And he would often interfere with or hinder other tests which, according to his point of view, were likely to lead us astray. And yet, when the first tests with the blinders did turn out as unmistakably sheer failures, there was such genuine surprise, such tragi-comic rage directed against the horse, that we finally believed that his views in the matter would be changed beyond a doubt. "The gentlemen must admit,"

he said at the time, "that after seeing the objective success of my efforts at instruction, I was warranted in my belief in the horse's power of independent thought." Nevertheless, upon the following day he was as ardent an exponent of the belief in the horse's intelligence as he ever had been.

And finally, after I could no longer keep from him the results of our investigation, I received a letter from him in which he forbade further experimentation with the horse. The purpose of our inquiries, he said, had been to corroborate his theories. On account of his withdrawal of the horse a few experimental series unfortunately could not be completed, but happily the major portion of our task had been accomplished.

THE HORSE OF MR. VON OSTEN

CHAPTER I

THE PROBLEM OF ANIMAL CONSCIOUSNESS AND "CLEVER HANS"

If we would appreciate the interest that has been aroused everywhere by the wonderful horse solving arithmetical problems, we must first consider briefly the present state of the problem of animal consciousness.[C] Animal consciousness cannot be directly gotten at, and the psychologist must therefore seek to appreciate it on the basis of the animal's behavior and with the a.s.sistance of conceptions borrowed from human psychology. Hence it is that animal psychology rests upon uncertain foundations with the result that the fundamental principles have been repeatedly questioned and agreement has not yet been attained.

The most important of these questions is, "Does the animal possess consciousness, and is it like the human consciousness?" Comparative psychologists divide into three groups on this question.

[Footnote C: Since the present treatise is intended for the larger public, this brief resume will probably be welcome to many.]

The one group allows consciousness to the lower forms, but emphasizes the a.s.sertion that between the animal and the human consciousness there is an impa.s.sable gap. The animal may have sensations and memory-images of sensations which may become a.s.sociated in manifold combinations. Both sensations and memory images are believed to be accompanied by conditions of pleasure and of pain (so-called sensuous feelings), and these in turn, become the mainsprings of desire. The possession of memory gives the power of learning through experience. But with this, the inventory of the content of animal consciousness is exhausted. The ability to form concepts[D] and with their aid to make judgments and draw conclusions is denied the lower forms. All the higher intellectual, aesthetic and moral feelings, as well as volition guided by motives, are also denied. Among the ancients this view was held by Aristotle and the Stoics; and following them it was taught by the Christian Church. It pervaded all mediaeval philosophy, which grew out of the teachings of Aristotle and the Church. It is this philosophy, in the form of Neo-Thomism, which still obtains in the Catholic world.

[Footnote D: Ideas are copies of former sensations, feelings and other psychic experiences and retain also the accidental signs which belonged to those earlier experiences. They are images in the concrete, such as the memory of a certain horse in a certain definite situation ... say a well fed, long-tailed one standing at a manger. A concept, on the other hand, is a mental construct which has its rise in ideas, or memory-images, in that their essential characteristics are abstracted. For this reason the concept has not a definite image-content. (Thus the thought of "horse" in general, is a concept. Not so the thought of a certain individual horse,----that is an idea, with a definite image-content.)]

During the 17th century, even though temporarily, another conception of the consciousness of lower forms came to prevail and was introduced by Descartes, the "Father" of modern philosophy. Far more radical than the earlier conception, it denied to animals not only the power of abstract thought, but every form of psychic life whatever, and reduced the lower form to a machine, which automatically reacted upon external stimuli.

This daring view, however, prevailed for only a comparatively short period; but owing to the opposition which it aroused, it gave a tremendous impetus to the study of animal consciousness. Most of the great philosophers following Descartes, such as Locke, Leibniz, Kant, and Schopenhauer, however greatly they may have differed in other points, in this one returned to the Aristotelian point of view.

A third belief avers that animal and human consciousness do not differ in essentials, but only in degree. This conclusion is regularly arrived at by those who regard so-called abstract thought itself, as simply a play of individual sensations and sensation-images, as did the French and British a.s.sociationists (Condillac and the Mills). The superiority of man accordingly consisted in his ability to form more intricate ideational complexes. Again, this conception of the essential similarity of the human and the animal psyche has also always been arrived at by the materialists (from Epicurus to C. Vogt and Buchner) who impute reason to the animal form as well as to man. The same position is, furthermore, taken by the evolutionists, including those who do not subscribe to the doctrines of materialism. It has almost become dogma with them that there exists an unbroken chain of psychic life from the lowest protozoa to man. Haeckel, preeminently, though not always convincingly, sought to establish such a graded series and thus to bridge the chasm between the human and the animal consciousness.

Two tendencies, therefore, are discernible in animal psychology. The one seeks to remove the animal psyche farther away from the human, the other tries to bring the two closer together. It is undoubtedly true that many acts of the lower forms reveal nothing of the nature of conceptual thinking. But that others might thus be interpreted cannot be denied. But need they be thus interpreted?--There lies the dispute. A single incontrovertible fact which would fulfil this demand, [i.e., proof of conceptual thinking], would, at a stroke, decide the question in favor of those who ascribe the power of thought to the lower forms.

At last the thing so long sought for, was apparently found: A horse that could solve arithmetical problems--an animal which, thanks to long training, mastered not merely rudiments, but seemingly arrived at a power of abstract thought and which surpa.s.sed, by far, the highest expectations of the greatest enthusiast.