460 APPENDIX 



on the actual face of the evidence, we cannot explain Muhamed's 

 success in this case. Let us assume for the moment that it was 

 memorising what does that mean ? It means that Muhamed 

 could associate a double series of taps, 3 with the right, 5 with 

 the left foot, with a complex symbol ; and if memorising is a 

 serious part of the explanation of the horse's achievements, it 

 means that he was capable of forming many such associations. 

 This is a very wonderful capacity to attribute to a horse, but less 

 remote from what we already know of animal intelligence than 

 bona fide arithmetical calculation. In mitigation of the difficulty 

 the frequency of mistakes must be borne in mind, and the tendency 

 of all the horses to prefer certain numbers to others. I think that 

 this must be admitted as a bare possibility. 



We then come to the simple sums which Muhamed did. Most 

 of these are additions. It is barely possible that Muhamed can so 

 far be said to read the figures, I, 2, 3, etc., as to respond to them 

 with the appropriate number of taps. This again is what no one 

 would readily believe of a horse, but it is less difficult to believe than 

 to credit him with some of the powers claimed by Herr Krall. 

 Now if Muhamed can in this sense read 6, 7, and 3, it is possible 

 that when 6 + 7 + 3 is put on the board, he should tap out 16 in 

 all, not adding them in the strict sense of the term, but tapping 

 them in succession. The test here is a simple one. If there were 

 true addition Muhamed would render the 16 by 6 taps with the 

 right and I with the left foot ; if the figures were read off, he 

 would give all 16 taps with one foot. Most unfortunately, 

 Dr. Haenel does not tell us which he did, but all the additions 

 which he mentions amount to small sums, which might have been 

 tapped with one foot without great fatigue. 



Lastly, there remain four simple multiplications, two of which 

 were given wrong in the first instance and which again might 

 conceivably be memorised. In a word, if we keep to the cases in 

 which, if the report is accurate, any possibility of a signal is 

 excluded, we find that they postulate a definite memorising, both 

 of simple and complex signs, that is to say, the association with 

 such signs of the number of taps. But it must be admitted that 

 this alone is a forced explanation, and that it would be natural on 

 the ground of these experiments alone to attribute to the horse at 

 least the capacity for simple addition and possibly of very simple 

 multiplication. The alternative is to reject Dr. Haenel's evidence 

 in toto. 



There, for the moment, the matter must rest until further 

 evidence is available. The question will hardly be solved until 

 some more general evidence of intelligence is available than these 

 highly specialist methods provided ; for example, when we find that 

 the horse wholly fails to understand a statement that Monsieur 



