230 THE HORSE OF MR. VON OSTEN 



the errorless results which I obtained in my " voluntary " 

 experiments. 



But we must be careful not to confuse non-voluntary 

 movement and lack of knowledge of the movement. And 

 again we must distinguish between knowledge of the 

 grosser and the finer signals. Mr. von Osten was aware 

 of the grosser movements, and talked quite freely con- 

 cerning them, but in so doing, showed that he was quite 

 unaware of their true function. He undertook to show 

 us what we already knew — that, when he remained stand- 

 ing perfectly erect, he could elicit no sort of response 

 from Hans. Furthermore, that whenever he continued to 

 bend forward, Hans would always respond incorrectly 

 and with very high numbers. He knew, also, that Hans 

 was distracted in his operations every time the questioner 

 resumed the erect posture while the tapping was in prog- 

 ress. This he demonstrated to us on one occasion in the 

 following manner. He said to Hans : " You are to count 

 to 7 ; I will stand erect at 5 ". He repeated the test five 

 times, and each time Hans stopped tapping when the mas- 

 ter raised his body. Several such tests resulted in the 

 same way. Mr. von Osten, however, believed this to be a 

 caprice of the horse and at first declared that he would 

 yet be able to eliminate it, but later became resigned to it 

 as an irremediable evil. Mr. von Osten was also aware 

 that the questioner ought not move while the horse was 

 approaching a colored cloth, and cautioned me in regard 

 to it, though I had already noted as much. And finally, he 

 also knew what influence his calls had while the horse 

 was selecting the cloth, and he told me that it was of great 

 assistance to Hans to be admonished frequently, since 

 thus his attention was brought to bear upon the proper 

 cloth. Yet, when we requested Mr. von Osten to desist 



