Clever Hans Part 7

No. of sheets : 5 6 7 8 9 10 Correct inferences: 77% 72% 72% 69% 73% 68%

With but few exceptions, the errors were, as a rule, of one place. The series with an odd number of sheets (5, 7, 9) gave better results than those with an even number (6, 8, 10). In the tests with the odd number of sheets the experimenter (K.) stood in front of the middle sheet, so that it was at the apex of a right angle made by the series of papers and the median plane of the subject's body; whereas in the case of the even number of papers the subject stood opposite the s.p.a.ce between the two middle sheets, thus making the position of the sheets less favorable.

In the preceding tests the distance between the centers of the neighboring sheets was always 50 centimeters, so that the angle through which the median plane of the experimenter's body would have to turn in order to pa.s.s from one sheet to the next, was about 3-3/4 degrees. In the following tests these distances were gradually decreased. The sheets, always five in number, were replaced by ever narrower white strips of paper mounted on dark cardboard and illumined by a Nernst lamp. The following table shows the decrease in correct inferences running parallel with the decrease of the angle through which the subject would have to turn in order to be in line with the several pieces of a series successively. The percentage in each case is based upon at least 100 tests.

Angle: 3-3/4 3 2-1/2 2 1-1/2 1 Distance between the centres of two neighboring papers: 50cm. 39cm. 33cm. 26cm. 20cm. 13cm.

No. of correct inferences: 77% 73% 71% 68% 66% 61%

A curious and unexpected change was here noted in the subject, Mr.

Koffka, who, while concentrating his attention to the uttermost, began unawares to develop a new system of expressive movements of the head.

When the distance between the sheets was relatively great, he had been in the habit of turning his head and eyes in the direction of the sheet intended, and as the distances became less he had reacted only by a turning of the eyes. But now, as the distances were still further decreased, he began again to react by means of head movements, and these were of exaggerated magnitude, for which he would compensate, as it were, by an eye-movement in the opposite direction. Although the head movements decreased in scope as the distances between the sheets were steadily decreased, they still were always decidedly greater than the eye movements, which I was now normally led to expect and which could be judged without much difficulty. This form of reaction was much more satisfactory as a cue, and therefore it came to pa.s.s that, whereas in the preceding series I had made only 60% correct inferences when the angle was 1 degree, I now found that--the angle remaining the same--80% of my inferences were correct. (My final judgment I continued to base, as before, upon the position, and not upon the movement, of head and eye). The number of correct inferences continued relatively high, even after the distance between the papers was decreased tenfold,--as will be seen from the following table:

Angle: 1 30' 15' 9' 7' 6' 5' 3' 2'

Distance between the centres of two neighboring papers: 131 65 33 20 15 13 11 6-1/2 4mm.

Percentage of correct inferences: 80 79 78 81 84 80 77 68 68%

Beginning with an angle of 1' (distance between the centers of two neighboring papers = 2 mm.), the subject was unable to focus, with sufficient steadiness of vision, upon one paper alone, and the movements, for that reason, ceased to manifest themselves. Comparing the results obtained in the case of this subject with those obtained from two others, whose reactions had remained normal, B. and Miss St., we find that with them there were only 53% correct inferences in both cases (based each upon 200 tests), when the angle was 5'. In my errors, too, I often shot wider of the mark. In another series of 200 tests, in which Miss St. "merely thought of the places", I had a percentage of 56% correct inferences, and my errors did not become any coa.r.s.er. Miss St.

believed this a case of true telepathy, but I had been guided in my judgments entirely by her unwittingly made movements--or rather the direction--of her eyes. The magnitude of these movements bore a constant relations.h.i.+p to the distance between papers as it was conceived by the subject.

Reviewing the experiments discussed in this chapter, we find that the same kind of movements and postures, which had been noted in persons experimenting with the horse, tended to recur in the laboratory, in so far as the mental att.i.tude of the subjects, given in their introspective accounts, corresponded with that of the questioners of the horse.

CHAPTER V

EXPLANATION OF THE OBSERVATIONS

The author having described the observations made upon the horse, and having discussed the activities of the questioner upon the basis of observations made objectively and upon his own introspections, and having verified the results thus obtained, by means of laboratory tests,--we are now in a position to solve satisfactorily all the problems which this interesting case has presented.

That which is least difficult to understand is the horse's seeming knowledge of language and particularly his ability to answer questions, no matter by whom, or in what dialect, they were put. As a matter of fact, it made no difference who desired an answer, for the only person upon whom the experiment depended was the questioner, that is, the one who asked the horse to tap. We have everywhere designated this person as the experimenter or questioner. It was he who gave the directions, and since all that were involved were visual signs, the drama in which Hans appeared as the hero, was nothing but a pantomime. All speech was superfluous and, except in so far as the tone of voice in which it was spoken was soothing or reprimanding, it was quite unintelligible to the horse.

From the foregoing, the reader understands without further explanation Hans's ability to count and to make computations. If the number of taps had depended solely upon the length of time and the angle at which the questioner bent forward, the horse would have been able to tap any number desired. Since, however, only the right foot was employed, the left one being used at most for making a final tap, the number of taps had an upper limit which was due to the fatigue of the animal. This limit was about 100. That it was possible to ask such questions as: "How many times is 100,000 contained in 654321?", and thus to give problems involving millions, is perfectly clear.

All wonderful feats of counting and computation which were accomplished while thus experimenting with the horse are to be accredited, not to the horse, but to the questioner. If such is the case, they certainly cannot be considered astonis.h.i.+ng. Thus, when to the question, "How many of the gentlemen present are wearing straw hats?" the horse answers correctly in accordance with the wording of the question and omits the straw hat of a lady, then Mr. von Osten is the guide. It is no wonder that Hans never showed the slightest excitement when confronted with difficult problems, nor that it apparently took no time whatever to solve them.

Hans, however, was also a faithful mirror of all the errors of the questioner. Aside from mistakes due to occasional interruptions on the part of visitors, these errors had two sources: faulty computation and inadequate concentration--i. e., aside from arithmetical errors on the part of the questioner, were his premature or belated movements. Since both of these factors might be operative, the following three possibilities arise.

(_a_) The questioner computes correctly but does not move at the proper moment. Nearly all the errors which had been accredited to the horse, were of this kind.

A part of these errors had the appearance of being significant, that is, they might be interpreted as a misapprehension of the question. If, for instance, instead of a sum only one of the quant.i.ties was given, or, if instead of a product only one of the factors was given, it might be interpreted that the horse simply wished to repeat the problem. Thus, Mr. von Osten in response to the question: "How much is 3 times 5?", twice in succession received the answer, "3", and upon my question, "How much is 3 plus 4?" he answered, "3", and to "How much is 2 times 6?" he tapped 6, and to "What is one-fourth of 36?" 4. In part (certainly in the second and third example cited) an individual quant.i.ty or factor had been emphasized in the consciousness of the questioner (cf. page 105) and in part the reactions were due to chance. Thus, when Mr. Hahn asked the question: "What is one-half of 10?", he received the following responses: 2 and 10, and then 17 and 3. To this cla.s.s belong also, the tests made by the Commission of September and reported in Supplement III. (See page 255).

Other errors, even though they may not have appeared to be significant, might yet have been characterized as mistakes due to speed; as when, e.

g., Hans made an error of one unit--and sometimes, though less frequently, of two units--too much or too little in his response. One might be led to believe that Hans had not made an error of calculation but merely of counting in the process of giving his result, which always had to be done by the c.u.mbersome method of tapping. As a matter of fact, the trouble lay in the wrong degree of concentration on the part of the questioner: In errors of +1, tension was too slight, in those of -1, it was too great (see page 91). This comes out clearly in a comparison of the two more extensive series which I took in the case of Mr.

Schillings. During the first series, he was well disposed, and was able to concentrate effectively, while during the second, he was nervous and easily diverted. This difference in intensity of concentration in the case of the two series is attested, not only subjectively by Mr.

Schillings's introspective statement, but may be measured objectively by means of the number of final taps which the horse gave with his left foot during these two series. We saw (page 94) that these final taps were always a sign of intense concentration and, as a matter of fact, one-half of the horse's responses to Mr. Schillings during the first series were made in this way; whereas, in the second series, only one-third were of this sort. (I, myself, was never able to get, without conscious control, a greater number of this type of response.) We may therefore say that, in the first series we had a high degree of tension, or concentration, whereas, in the second series, we had a low degree.

The errors distribute themselves over the two series as follows:

+1 +2 -1 -2 Series I (31 tests) Correct responses: 87% Incorrect " : 0% 0% 13% 0% Series II (40 tests) Correct responses: 40%.

Incorrect " : 40% 8% 2.5% 0% (and 9.5% other kinds of errors.)

We find in Series I no "+1" errors, but only "-1" errors; in series II, on the other hand, the errors are almost exclusively of the "+1"

category, equaling the number of correct responses, and there is only one "-1" error. A series obtained in the case of Mr. von Osten is almost as satisfactory an ill.u.s.tration. When he first began to take part in tests in which the procedure was the one we characterized as "without knowledge" and had to note their complete failure, he was thrown into such confusion that the responses in the case of procedure with knowledge were also incorrect. The errors there were always +1, (whereas those in the case of procedure with knowledge, which were due to quite different causes, were very great and inconstant.) The number of +1 errors obtained on this occasion comprises one-fourth of all the plus errors which were ever obtained in the case of Mr. von Osten during the entire course of these experiments. Finally, I would mention two examples of my own. In the course of my very first attempts with Hans I obtained, as I said on page 89, three responses in a total of five which exceeded the correct result by 1. This I would explain by the fact that although I employed a high degree of concentration, I nevertheless was somewhat skeptical. The result was a certain deficiency in the degree of concentration. A second example which I would cite is taken from the period in which I had already discovered the cue to Hans's reactions and goes to show that I was then still able to eliminate the influence of this knowledge and to work ingenuously. To the question, "How much is 9 less 1?" I, momentarily indisposed, received the answer 10, and then six times in succession the answer "9", and finally the correct response, "8".

Errors of another kind--the not infrequent offenses against the very elements of counting and the fundamental arithmetical processes--were regarded in part as intentional jokes and by an authority in pedagogy as a "sign of independence and stubbornness which might also be called humor". Hans emphatically a.s.serted that 2+2 was 3 or he would answer questions given in immediate succession as follows: "How many eyes have you?"--2. "How many ears?"--2. "How many tails?"--2. These errors, as a matter of fact, evince neither wit nor humor, but prove incontrovertibly that Hans had not even mastered the fundamentals.

Many of the errors baffle every charitable attempt at interpretation.

These gave the horse the reputation of capriciousness and unreliability.

If Hans designated the tone "e" as the seventeenth, or "g" as the eleventh, or when he called Friday the 35th day of the week or believed 50 pfennige to be worth only 48, the cause for these responses lay either in the insufficient degree of tension on the part of the questioner (as in the first three examples) or in the extravagant expenditure of the same (as in the last case). If, therefore, the horse at times would "hopelessly flounder" which would seem to be indicated by tapping now with the right and now with the left foot, then as a matter of fact, this form of reaction came about as was described on page 61, with this difference that there we had to do with voluntary controlled movements on the part of the questioner, whereas here, they are the result of an unsuitable degree of tension which expressed itself in frequent and disconcerting jerks. Besides the answer 3, this so-called floundering was the only reaction the average person could obtain from the horse in the absence of Mr. von Osten and Mr. Schillings. It would however occur also in the case of these gentlemen and would be received by them with resentment when in truth it was Hans's greatest feat, for he showed his extremely keen reaction upon every movement of the questioner. To this group belong also the errors in the case of higher numbers, the sole cause of which lay in the difficulty with which tension could be maintained and the body kept motionless for so long a period. These errors occurred in accordance with a certain law. If, for instance, a certain test repeatedly evoked incorrect responses, the questioner would gradually increase the duration of tension and would thus come a little nearer to the desired goal with every test. In this way, Mr. von Osten desiring 30 as an answer obtained consecutively the responses, 25, 28, 30; and I, myself, for the answer 20, received consecutively the responses 10, 18, 20 (see also the laboratory tests, page 105). Sometimes too, the questioner would flag in his efforts before the goal was reached. Thus in one of my first tests, I received for the answer 11 the following responses: 1, 4, 5, 7, 4. I was unable to get beyond 7. In other instances, the horse responded first with too few and then with too many taps. The correct response therefore could only be obtained after an appreciable amount of gauging of tension, as in target practice there must be a gauging of distance. (See page 92).

In this way Mr. von Osten obtained for 10 the responses 8, 8, 11, 10, and Mr. Schillings for 17, received 9, 16, 19, 18, 18, 14, 9, 9, and finally, after some efforts, 17 taps. Thus there was a rise from 9 to 19, then a fall back to 9 and after eight tests the correct response. As long as we attempt to explain this fact as error on the part of the horse, so long will it remain inexplicable, but the moment we regard it from the point of view of the psychology of the tension of expectation, it becomes perfectly plain.

The same holds true for the curious predilection which Hans appeared to have for the numbers from 2 to 4, especially for 3 (see page 68). As a matter of fact the cause of this lies in nothing other than the inadequate concentration of attention on the part of the questioner and less often in an extravagant expenditure of concentration, which explodes immediately after the first tap on the part of Hans (as in the case of my first tests); but usually the cause lay in a complete lack of concentration, though the same result may be produced by various causes.

It is usually after 2 to 4 taps of the horse's foot that the questioner, who does not concentrate, makes his first move which naturally puts an end to the tapping on the part of the horse. As a rule this jerk follows immediately upon the second tap. (On the other hand, relaxation of attention is very difficult upon the first tap. See page 95). The questioner, however, would expect further tapping and therefore would not bring his body back to a completely erect position and the result would be a 3, the last unit of which would be given by the final tap with the left foot. Here we also obtained light as to the answers which Hans gave in those tests in which the method was that of "procedure without knowledge". These responses had nothing to do with the problem, for neither the horse nor any one else knew the solution. But in the horse's responses the degree of tension of the questioner's concentration was faithfully mirrored. An experimenter who was as skillful in concentrating as Mr. von Osten, obtained--almost without exception--very high numbers, whereas one whose concentration was slight would receive in response to nearly all questions the answers 2, 3 or 4.

Thus, the Count zu Castell received in response to seventeen questions the answer 2, three times, the answer 3, six times, and the answer 4, four times, two answers being accidentally correct.

Another group of errors was characterized as stubbornness on the part of Hans, such as his persistence in repeating an incorrect response, or his repet.i.tion of a former correct answer in response to later questions where it was perfectly senseless. During a demonstration before a large number of persons, I held a slate with the number 13 upon it within the horse's view and also within view of the spectators. I, myself, did not know what number was written on the slate. Having been asked to tap the number, Hans responded by tapping 5. The grand-stand shouted "Wrong!" I asked Hans to try again. Four times in succession he answered 5. At another time Mr. von Osten and I each whispered a number (7 and 1, respectively,) into the horse's ear and asked him to add the two. Three times in succession he tapped 11. After the test had been repeated in accordance with "procedure with knowledge" and a correct response had been received, we tried once more a test of "procedure without knowledge". Again, he responded with an 11. On a third occasion, I asked Hans to tap 5. He responded with a 4 and then, correctly, with a 5.

Thereupon, I asked him to tap 6. Again, he responded with a 4. Then I asked him to tap 7. Once more he responded with a 4, and only when I proceeded to count aloud did he tap 7 correctly. I had him repeat the 7 and then went over to 9. Promptly he responded with another 7. In these cases, which by-the-way were not very frequent, we have to do, not with stubbornness on the part of Hans, but with the persistence of that number in the consciousness of the questioner. Modern psychology has recognized this tendency of ideas, which have once been in consciousness, to reappear on other occasions even though they are wholly inappropriate. It has been termed "perseverative tendency."

(Perseverationstendenz).[21]

While the errors thus far discussed appeared sporadically in long series of correct responses, there still might be observed at times a ma.s.sing of errors, usually at the beginning of a day of experimentation or at the beginning of a new series. We were regularly told that Hans always had to have time to adjust himself to new circ.u.mstances. The records often showed comments such as these: "After a number of practice tests the horse appears particularly well disposed", or "Hans, at first inattentive, does not respond. Suddenly he gets the hang of things".

Different questioners who worked with the horse required different lengths of time to obtain proper responses. Some needed a quarter of an hour, others scarcely half a minute. I, myself, found that in the degree in which I learned to control my attention, in that degree did this phenomenon tend to disappear, but would reappear the moment I became indisposed. From this we see that, instead of attributing all sorts of mental characteristics, such as stubbornness, etc., to the horse, we should lay them to the account of the questioner. As a matter of fact we find that this "getting into the sweep of things", i. e. the overcoming of psycho-physical inertia, has long been known in the case of man and has been experimentally determined and called "Anregung" (excitation) by the psychiatrist, Kraepelin,[22] and his pupil, Amberg.[23] A ma.s.sing of errors toward the end of a long series occurred only when the questioner was fatigued. There was nothing which had to be interpreted as fatigue or as indisposition on the part of the horse, (except in the few cases of very large numbers, cf. page 67). To be sure, Mr. von Osten always offered these two excuses. That they were without warrant is shown by the fact that Hans, after appearing indisposed or fatigued while working with one questioner, would nevertheless react promptly and correctly a moment later for some other experimenter, and furthermore, when working with me, the number of his correct responses would rise or fall with my own mental disposition.

Finally, I would here note a rather interesting observation for which I am indebted to Mr. Schillings and the Count zu Castell. They had noticed, independently of each other, that the horse would often fail to react when for any length of time he was given problems dealing with abstract numbers, even though they were of the simplest kind; but that he would immediately improve whenever the questions had to do with concrete objects. They believed that Hans found applied mathematics more interesting, and that abstract problems, or those which were altogether too elementary, bored him. The Count zu Castell furthermore noticed that the responses tended to be more correct as soon as he had the horse count objects which he, himself, (Castell) could see during the test.

Quite in accord with this is the statement to be found in the report of the September-Commission, in which we find this note in a discussion of the arithmetical problems (not involving visible objects), which the gentlemen already mentioned had given the horse. "The horse responded with less and less attentiveness and appeared to play with the questioner." Here again, that was looked for in the animal which should have been sought in the man. Mr. Schillings was capable of intense, but not continued concentration and it was he who was bored, and not the horse. And it was the Count zu Castell and not the horse that found it necessary to invoke the aid of perceptual objects to bring his attention to the proper height of concentration.

The reader will see that thus far I have supposed the horse to be a never-failing mechanism and that I have placed all errors to the account of the questioner. The horse never failed to note the signal for stopping and therefore never was the immediate cause of an error. It is not to be denied that now and then he would cease tapping spontaneously and in this way would become the cause of an error. We have no data on this point, but undoubtedly the horse's share in the total number of errors was very slight.

(_b._) Another source of error was faulty computation on the part of the questioner. The questioner made the signal for stopping when the expected number of taps had been reached. The horse faithfully mirrored the miscalculation of the questioner. I have knowledge of only one such case. The journals report that once Mr. von Osten, when someone called to his attention that Hans had indicated the wrong day of the week, replied: "Yes, you are right, it was not Thursday, but Friday,"

whereupon Hans being asked again, promptly responded correctly. This appeared to the reporter in question as proof of the subjective influence of Mr. von Osten upon the horse.

(_c._) When errors in calculation and failures in proper concentration combine, i. e. when the questioner makes a mistake in calculation because he is excited or inattentive and for the same reason does not make the movement, which is the signal for stopping, in accordance with the number which he deems to be the correct answer, then the result is usually wrong, but it may be correct in the few cases in which the two errors exactly compensate each other. Nothing has been so effective in establis.h.i.+ng Hans's reputation, nothing has brought him so many followers, as these cases in which he, rather than his mentor, has been in the right. Compared with the ma.s.s of cases in which Hans was wrong these latter cases are diminis.h.i.+ngly few in number, yet these few made such an impression upon the observers that their number tended to be overestimated. As a matter of fact, I have been able to discover records of only seven such cases. Two of these were reported by the Count zu Castell. On the 8th of September, he entered the horse's stall, alone, and believing it to be the seventh day of the month, he asked Hans the date. The horse responded correctly with 8 taps. At another time he held up before Hans a slate on which were written the numbers 5, 8 and 3 and asked the horse to indicate their sum which in the momentary excitement, vaguely appeared to Castell to be 10. To his chagrin he noticed that Hans continued to tap. Thereupon he intentionally remained motionless until the horse had stopped tapping spontaneously--as he thought--at 16.

(The newspapers reported that the numbers to be added had been 5, 3, and 2; that the questioner had expected the answer 11, but that Hans had in three tests always ceased tapping at 10.) In both cases the questioner regarded the answers of the horse as wrong and recognized his mistake when his attention was called to it. I, myself, had the same experience.

One time I received in response to the question, "What day of the week is Monday?", the answer 2, although I had expected the answer 1; at another time I asked, "How much is 16 less 9?", and the horse responded with 7 taps, although I had erroneously expected 5. I noticed my mistake only when my attention was called to it by one of those present. Another example is related by Mr. Schillings. A row of colored cloths lay before Hans. Beside them stood an army officer. Pointing to the latter's red coat Mr. Schillings asked the horse to indicate, by means of tapping, the place in the row where a piece of the same color lay. Hans tapped eight times, but Mr. Schillings reprimanded him because the red piece was, as a matter of fact, second in the row. Upon a repet.i.tion of the test, Hans again tapped 8. (By some, the facts are recounted as having been the other way round; viz.: Hans tapped 2 instead of 8. This of course would call for a different explanation.) It was noticed that at the place which would be indicated by eight taps there was not a red piece but a carmine colored piece of cloth. A newspaper reports, somewhat vaguely, a sixth case as follows: Hans was asked to spell the name "Donhoff" and began correctly: "Do". Mr. von Osten, who somehow began to think of another name, "Dohna", interrupted him and wished to correct him by suggesting o instead of o (i. e., 2 taps instead of 3).

Hans, however, continued to spell the entire word with the greatest equanimity. He had not erred. A similar experience is reported by Mr. H.

von Tepper-Laski, the well known hippologist. Although the details have slipped from his memory, he reports that in the case in question the correct answer was thrice refused by the questioner who thought that the horse's answer was incorrect. Hans, upon being severely reprimanded in a loud and harsh tone of voice, turned about as if disgusted with the injustice of the man and made straight for his stall.--It is clear that in the cases described we are not dealing with accidentally correct responses, for in nearly every case the test was repeated a number of times and the same responses were received each time. As a matter of fact, my own introspection convinced me that the third and fourth cases were surely, and the first and sixth were very probably, due to insufficient concentration on the part of the questioner. Accordingly there is everywhere in these cases a difference of +1 or +2 between the number thought of and the number tapped (see page 92 f.). The data in the second and fifth and still more in the seventh case were too meager to warrant an attempt at explanation, for it is not even known whether Hans responded with more or fewer taps than was expected by the questioner. It is unfortunate that a more complete record was not made.

The frequent and intentional attempts of Mr. von Osten to induce the horse to give an incorrect response,--which, by-the-way, were regularly unsuccessful--belong only apparently to this group. Thus he asked, e.

g., "2 times 2 is 5, is it not?" "3 times 3 is 8?", etc., but Hans refused to be misled, and responded correctly. This was from the very beginning one of the main arguments for independent thinking on the part of the horse. The actual procedure was as follows, even though the questioner had said "2 times 2 is 5", there still was present in his consciousness the number 4. I, myself, would think either of the first member of the equation, i. e., 2 times 2, in which case Hans would respond with 4 taps or I would have in mind the second member, i. e., 5, in which case he would respond with 5 taps. Never did I succeed in thinking of both at the same time. The a.s.sociation between the thought "2 times 2" and the concept "4" is so close and supported by so many other a.s.sociations that the attempt to form a new one, that is at complete variance with all these, is futile. One may say "2 times 2 equals 5" but it is impossible to conceive it.

Let us turn now, from the tests in counting and computation to those in reading. We have seen that Hans manifested his seeming knowledge of language symbols in a threefold manner: he might approach a slate on which was written the symbol asked for, or he would indicate its location in a series of slates by means of tapping, or finally by means of so-called spelling of the word which was written upon a slate or placard. The responses by means of approaching a placard were very often unsuccessful, while indications by means of tapping were scarcely ever unsuccessful. If it were true that higher intellectual processes[T] were here involved, then the converse would have been expected, for tapping required not only the ability to read, but also the ability to count.

If, on the other hand, we a.s.sume that the horse simply followed the directions given by the questioner's movements, this seeming difficulty resolves itself, for it would be more difficult for Hans to perceive the signs which he receives while moving than those which he receives while tapping. When we recall that it was easier to direct the horse to a placard near the end of a row than one nearer the center (see page 81), we can readily understand how it was that during the experimentation carried on by the September-Commission (Supplement III; page 255), Hans was able to point out immediately the placards on which were written the names "Castell" and "Stumpf", for they were at the two extreme ends, but was unsuccessful in locating the one on which was written the name "Miessner" which was not a bit more difficult to read, but was located at the fourth place in the row. He first approached the fifth card, then upon repet.i.tion of the test he pointed out the other neighboring tablet, viz., the third.

[Footnote T: Professor Shaler[24], a well-known American savant, mentions a three-year old pig belonging to a Virginian farmer, that was able to read and had some understanding of language. From numerals which were written upon cards and spread out before it, this pig could compose dates. It could also select from among certain cards one upon which was written a given name, asked for by the master. Supposedly no signs of any kind were given. (Shaler thought to exclude effectively the sense of smell, which is so highly developed in the pig, in that he, Shaler, himself smelled at the cards, since he also "possessed an acute olfactory sense!") Since we are told that the farmer in question made a business of supplying trained pigs for exhibition purposes, the case appears suspicious. We hear of a pig exhibited in London, that was able to read and spell, and could also tell the time by the watch[25]. We cannot tell, however, whether the two pigs, which beyond a doubt were mechanically trained to respond to signals, are identical or not.]

In spelling, Hans was quite indifferent whether his table with the eighty-four number signs upon it stood before him, for he had no knowledge of letters. Neither Mr. von Osten nor Mr. Schillings required it, for the former knew the table by heart and Mr. Schillings told me that before every test he made a note of the numbers which were necessary to indicate the required letters, trusting in this way to control the responses of the horse and never guessing that by so doing he was making it possible for the horse to answer correctly. The newspaper reports aroused much interest at the time by stating that Hans was able to spell such proper names as "Pluskow" and "Bethmann-Hollweg", even to putting in the difficult "w" and "th". The friends of Mr. von Osten at the same time called attention to the exquisite auditory acuteness of the horse which enabled him to perceive the aspirated "w"

and to discriminate between the "th" and "t", (the "th" is softer than the "t" in German.--_Translator_). This explanation, of course, must have appeared somewhat daring even at that time.

Hans was quite guiltless of the many limitations imputed to him concerning his knowledge of symbols. That he was unable to read capitals or Latin script was merely a vagary of the master, like the belief that it was necessary to confine one's self in one's questions to a certain vocabulary and to a certain form. Mr. von Osten's apparent failure to elicit responses from the horse on topics of which it was ignorant is a beautiful ill.u.s.tration of the power of imagination. Mr. von Osten was convinced from the very first that Hans could not answer such questions.