REPORT OF DECEMBER qth, 1904 263 



giving any sort of command. But Mr. Pfungst meets 

 with the same success when he does not attend to 

 the movements to be made, but rather focuses, as 

 intently as possible, upon the number desired, since 

 in that case the necessary movement occurs whether he 

 wills it or not. In the near future he will give a special 

 detailed report of his observations, which gives promise 

 of becoming a valuable contribution to the study of in- 

 voluntary movements. Also he will give an account of 

 our tests and of the mechanism of the various accomplish- 

 ments of the horse. We must also defer, till then, the 

 disproof of certain seemingly relevant arguments in favor 

 of the horse's power of independent thought. 



Some defenders of the view which maintains the 

 horse's rationality may urge that it was only through 

 our experiments that the animal became trained and 

 spoiled in so far as the ability to think is concerned. 

 They are refuted in this, however, by the fact that the 

 horse still continues to solve problems involving decimal 

 fractions and to determine calendar dates for Mr. von 

 Osten, as brilliantly as ever, as is shown by his recent 

 demonstration before a large group of spectators. That 

 these results are now being achieved in a manner essen- 

 tially different from formerly is nothing but a bare asser- 

 tion. 



On the other hand, now that the possibility has been 

 established that these wonderful results may be obtained 

 in all their complexity by means of intentional signs, 

 many will question whether Mr. Von Osten did not 

 himself train the horse from the very beginning to 

 respond to these signs. No one has the right, how- 

 ever, to charge an old man, who has never had a blemish 

 on his reputation, with having invented a most refined 



