EXPLANATION OF OBSERVATIONS 211 



planation. All the known achievements of the horse, all 

 the successes and failures of the questioner, have been re- 

 duced^ ts^^^^^ggle principle ;, no secondary hypothesis has 

 been invoked, and but slight place has been given to the 

 element of chance. Nevertheless, it may not be out of 

 place to forestall two objections which might possibly be 

 raised. |[ First, some may assert that it was through our 

 experimentation that the horse became mechanized and 

 incapacitated as regards conceptual thinking; that form- 

 erly he really could solve arithmetical problems, and only 

 later developed the very bad habit of depending upon the 

 signs which I gave him. This objection is to be refuted 

 in that I did not originate these signs, but first noted them 

 in Mr. von Osten, himself, and in that Hans still works 

 as faithfully as ever for Mr. von Osten. I have learned 

 from many trustworthy witnesses that the horse still con- 

 tinues to give brilliant exhibitions of his " ability ". If, 

 on the other hand^nyone should assert that it was only 

 with us that HansVeacted to movements, but that with 

 his master he really thought and still thinks, then I must 

 ask for proof. This latter argument is hy no means very 

 original. When Faraday in 1853 proved experimentally 

 that "table-rapping" is the result of involuntary move- 

 ments on the part of the participants standing about the 

 table, the spiritualists asserted that his experiments had 

 nothing in common with their own proceedings, because 

 his subjects (who by the way, had been up to that time 

 firm believers in table-rapping) probably did move the 

 table, they said, while they (the spiritualists) do no such 

 thing.*" 



