158 THE HORSE OF MR. VON OSTEN 



planation, of course, must have appeared somewhat 

 daring even at that time. 



Hans was quite guiltless of the many limitations im- 

 puted 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 neces- 

 sary to confine one's self in one's questions to a certain 

 vocabulary and to a certain form. Mr. von Osten's ap- 

 fparent failure to elicit responses from the horse on topics 

 'of which it was ignorant is a beautiful illustration of the 

 I power of imagination. Mr. von Osten was convinced 

 from the very first that Hans could not answer such ques- 

 tions. When the belief in success was lacking, of course 

 there was not the requisite amount of concentration 

 which, alone, leads to perceptible expressive movements 

 and thus elicits a successful reaction on the part of the 

 horse. 



"~~" Mr. Schillings, owing to his great impressionability, 

 remained long under the spell of Mr. von Osten's point 

 of view. Thus I find in the record of the September- 

 Commission that the question " How much is 3 plus 2 ? " 

 was answered incorrectly by Hans, but he responded cor- 

 rectly the moment Mr. Schillings replaced the word 

 " plus " which was " tabooed ", by the word " and ". For 

 a long time also he could receive no response to ques- 

 tions put in French until one day he made the discovery 

 that, curiously enough, the animal never responded ade- 

 quately unless he himself firmly believed in the possi- 

 bility of success. It is noteworthy that the Count zu 

 Castell, independently of Mr. Schillings, made the same 

 discovery. Mr. Schillings made his curious discovery— 

 which he was unable to interpret, but which aroused some 

 suspicion— on the following occasion. One day — whether 



