i62 THE HORSE OF MR. VON OSTEN 



was said to have recognized 1500 signals/^ but all proof 

 is lacking and the report is so meager that we cannot 

 discover whether these signs were auditory or visual.* 

 Having thus disposed of all questions concerning the 

 horse's apparent feats of reason and memory, let us turn 

 to those in the field of sensation. We shall begin with 

 vision. That Hans was unable to sel ect colore d pieces 

 of cloth merely upon the basis~of color quality, without 

 reference to their order, was shown in Chapter II. It 

 would, however, be somewhat hasty to infer color-blind- 

 ness from this fact, as did Romanes ^^ on the basis of 

 similar unsucessful responses on the part of a chim- 

 panzee (" Sally" of the London Zoological Garden). It 

 is much easier to explain the failure of the horse than 

 that of the monkey on the basis of intellectual poverty, 

 a poverty of associative activity. It presumably can 

 _discriminate between . the various colors, but it cannot 

 asociate with these their names. The existence of 

 chromatic vision in the lower forms is by no means as 

 unquestionable as is assumed by popular thought. Even 

 teleological considerations which are often brought for- 

 ward (especially that of the ornamental and protective 

 coloring of so many animals) can never do more than 

 establish a certain probability. For definite proof, we 

 need data given by observation (we have none in this 

 case), or experimental evidence. Such evidence we 

 have, but it is insufficient in quantity and unfortunately 

 most of it was obtained under inadequate experimental 



* The French investigators Vaschide and Rousseau make a reference 

 to this case, and mistakenly state the number of signals as 1500 instead 

 of 115 '". Ettlinger ^' taks over this wrong figure and makes the 

 additional mistake of assuming that the reference is to an original inves- 

 tigation made by the two Frenchmen. 



