i8o THE HORSE OF MR. VON OSTEN 



subscribe to the view that this dog did not require either 

 visual or other sensory signs. The tests which were 

 made for the purpose of strengthening that view, are on 

 a par, I believe, with those mentioned on page 45. 

 And since auditory, olfactory, and other stimuli, though 

 not impossible, still are improbable, I believe that out 

 Hans, Huggins's dog, and the one belonging to Mr. 

 Kretschmer, differ from one another only in this, that 

 the first taps, the second barks, and the third presses a 

 bell-button. 



And finally I have access to a letter from the Rhine 

 Province in which there is a brief account of a dog that 

 would promptly obey any cornmand that was given with- 

 out a sound and supposedly without the accompaniment 

 of the slightest kind of gesture. It is specially mentioned 

 that the animal steadily watched its master during these 

 tests. The perception of the slightest involuntary ex- 

 pressive movements is in all probability the secret in this 

 case also. Here, too, suggestion has been invoked by 

 way of explanation, but there was not the slightest at- 

 tempt made to find for it a more specific foundation, and 

 we cannot suppress an objection based on the matter of 

 principle. It is incumbent upon anyone who uses a term 

 so ambiguous, to define what content he desires to have 

 put into it. If he does not do this, he is giving us, in^ 

 stead of a concept, a bare word, instead of bread, a 

 stone. 



While we must reject the explanation based on sug- 

 gestion,* we believe, on the other hand, that we have 



* I can find examples of supposed suggestion in the case of animals 

 given only by Rouhet." He says that by means of'suggestion he taught 

 a half-year old half-blooded mare-colt which he had raised himself, to 

 fetch and carry, and this in a very short time. In order to indicate to 



