90 THE HORSE OF MR. VON OSTEN 



horse, and, what was, as I later discovered, more to the 

 point, control of myself, some practice was needed. But 

 I was able to work with the horse quite successfully, 

 while I was still in the dark as to my own behavior. 



From the very beginning Hans responded as promptly 

 to those questions which I articulated merely inwardly, 

 as to those which were spoken aloud. That all formula- 

 tion of the question was unnecessary, however, was shown 

 by the following experiments. If, for example, I did not 

 think of any particular number until after the horse had 

 begun to tap, and then fixed upon 5, he would tap 5. If, 

 however, I told him to count to 6, but gave no further 

 thought to the command after he had begun tapping, I 

 would get an entirely wrong response. It was easy to 

 obtain any answer one wished to a question, simply by 

 focussing consciousness, with a great degree of intensity, 

 upon the answer desired. Thus Hans answered my ques- 

 tion : " How many angles has a hexagon ? ", first by 6, 

 then 2, then 27, in accordance with the numbers that came 

 into my mind. The animal always followed the ideas 

 which were in the questioner's mind, and never his words, 

 for it was with the former that the movements upon which 

 the horse depended were bound up. 



It was not enough, however, simply to imagine the 

 number desired. It was furthermore necessary that the 

 questioner be conscious of the moment when the horse 

 reached that number. Larger numbers (above 6) were 

 therefore, successful only when every single tap was in- 

 wardly counted to the end. The manner of counting was 

 indifferent. Thus I counted 6 as follows: i, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 

 and later: 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, i, and then again : 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 6. 

 Finally I used the Greek letters and also nonsense syl- 

 lables. And in all cases I obtained six taps, the correct 



