Natural Telepathy 



communication appears now and then among the 

 brutes, it should be regarded as merely freakish or 

 sensational, like a two-headed calf; while others 

 will surely ask, "Why, if our dogs possess such a 

 convenient faculty, do they not use it more fre- 

 quently, more obviously, and so spare themselves 

 manifold discomforts or misunderstandings?" 



Such an objection is natural enough, since we 

 judge as we live, mostly by habit; but it has no 

 validity, I think, and for two reasons. First, 

 because such animals as we have thus far seen 

 exercising the faculty (and they are but a few 

 out of many) are apparently normal and sensible 

 beasts, precisely like their less-gifted fellows ; and 

 second, because the telepathic power itself, when 

 one examines it without prejudice, appears to be 

 wholly natural, and sane or simple as the power 

 of thought, even of such rudimentary thought as 

 may be exercised in an animal's head. As for 

 emotions, more intense and penetrating than any 

 thought, it is hardly to be questioned that a man's 

 fear or panic may flow through his knees into the 

 horse he is riding, or that emotional excitement 

 may spread through a crowd of men without vis- 

 ible or audible expression. That a dog should re- 

 ceive a wordless message or impulse from his 

 master at a distance of three or four miles is, 

 fundamentally, no more unnatural than that one 



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