224 THE HORSE OF MR. VON OSTEN 



suit of the poorly concentrated attention of the questioner. 



i^^dded to this was the seeming independence and self- 

 sufficiency of the horse. Often the number given by him 

 was other than that desired by his master. Usually Hans 

 was in the wrong in such cases, but sometimes, too, he 

 was right. At any rate, this served to give the impression 

 of independence of thought which his master so thor- 

 oughly believed he possessed, and which was the goal 

 of his endeavors — though as a matter of fact he was 

 farther removed than ever from that goal. 



Some may ask : Does not this whole process partake of 

 the essentials of all training, (though cumbersome and 

 misunderstood, to be sure), and is there any need of in- 

 vestigating whether or not the actual development was 

 of the sort here outlined, or whether it actually took the 

 course common to all training? 



In order to answer this question we must determine 

 more specifically what we mean by the term " training ". 

 Usually we take it to mean the establishment in the ani- 

 mal, of definite habits of motor reaction in response to 

 certain stimuli purposely selected by the trainer, and with- 

 out involving any process of animal consciousness other 



^^;th5n_assQ.ciationj Such a conception may be applied also 

 to man, if we assume that the higher thought processes 

 can be eliminated. If that were the case, the above defini- 

 tion would not have to be changed, not even with regard 

 to the word " animal ", for we must take it in the antique 

 sense of " zoon ", a signification readopted by modern 

 zoology. The concept may be widened, however, by 

 omitting the differentia of " purpose ", or even more, by 

 including the habitual association of ideas or images 

 (instead of movements) with certain sensory stimuli. 

 But in so doing, we must bear in mind that we are going 



