l84 the horse of MR. VON OSTEN 



that of our Hans, excepting that instead of visual signs 

 they involve aids of a mechanical nature, which, however, 

 does not alter the general principle, since both of them are 

 of the nature of sensory stimulation. But we must not 

 overlook the essential difference between this so-called 

 thought-reading on the part of animals and that which is 

 done by man. The human thought-reader can interpret 

 movements, for he is familiar with the ideas which are 

 their source. Thus when at the second tap, I notice a 

 very slight jerk of the subject's head, and a stronger one 

 at the fifth tap, I infer that he thought of the problem 

 2 -f- 3 = 5- While the experimenter thus cannot be said 

 to read thoughts, he still infers them. The animal, on the 

 other hand, we may be reasonably sure, draws no such 

 inferences. In its conscious life it remains ever on the 

 sensory level. If we could ask Hans about it, he would 



pened that he had merely thought of making a certain turn, when the 

 horse immediately executed it, before he, the rider, had to his knowl- 

 edge given any sign or aid. An observation belonging under this head 

 is also made in Tolstoi's " Anna Karenina " '■', this perfect mine of 

 acute psychological observation. In the famous description of the race 

 we are told concerning Count Wronskij riding his Frou-Frou just behind 

 Machotin mounted upon Gladiator, who was leading the race : " At the 

 very moment when Wronskij thought that it was time to overtake 

 Machotin, Frou-Frou, divining her master's thought, increased her pace 

 considerably and this without any incitement on his part. She began 

 to come nearer to Gladiator from the more favorable, the near side. 

 But Machotin would not give it up. Wronskij was just considering 

 that he might get past by making the larger circuit on the off-side, 

 when Frou-Frou was already changing direction and began to pass 

 Gladiator on that side." Similar experiences might be gathered else- 

 where. Not infrequently the reflection of the rider that his horse had 

 not for a long time indulged in some trick peculiar to him, will imme- 

 diately call it forth ; or doubts on the part of the rider concerning the 

 possibility of crossing some barrier, are often the cause of the horse's 

 fall or of his refusal to leap and of his running away. 



