PREVIOUS ACQUAINTANCE WITH SUBJECT 25 



After a year and a half I felt sufficiently at home at 

 the work to be able to turn my attention to such 

 matters of interest as lay outside that of my daily 

 work, and I now called to mind the subject of the 

 " Thinking Horses," deciding to attempt some experi- 

 ments. The approach of such a solitary season as 

 winter seemed to me particularly suited to this attempt 

 and I placed myself in communication with Professor 

 Ziegler so as to hear of a likely animal. It was to be 

 a dog, and for preference a relation of Rolf. In- 

 deed, I felt sure of excellent results, should my quest 

 meet with success. A dog is of all animals the one that 

 has for generations associated most with man ; its 

 attachment is of the most intimate and the most 

 faithful nature, so that by inheritance, as it were, 

 it would seem to be in a greater state of " prepared- 

 ness " for fulfilling man's behests. Horses, oxen, 

 asses, pigs, and poultry, etc, are each and all, of 

 course, accustomed to the guidance of man's hand, but 

 here in Europe, at all eventsthey live their lives 

 apart and are not so domesticated ; they cannot, 

 therefore, form so intimate an acquaintance with man, 

 by means of eye and ear, as can enable them to com- 

 prehend both language and gestures. For practical 

 purposes horses would seem to come next to dogs in 

 the matter of intelligence more particularly Arab 

 horses. An Arab talks to his horse as he would to a 

 friend, and the sparkle in the eye of this animal 

 denotes its intelligence. In the matter of actual 

 sensibility, the ox, the ass, and other creatures have 

 practically nothing in common with us, showing 

 an utterly foreign type of intelligence, and one, more- 

 over, which has owing to the existent century-old 

 customs of keeping them isolated in their stalls 

 depressed even such intelligence as was originally 



