So, now that the ability to count and solve problems had become fixed—as the old gentleman thought—he began to instruct the horse in other branches. Since everything had been translated into terms which were to be expressed by means of tapping with the foot, and thus really put into terms of number—which was perhaps natural for an old teacher of mathematics—the same mechanism was involved in these accomplishments as in those of counting, etc. Mr. von Osten saw the animal's intelligence steadily increase, without having the slightest notion that between his words and the responsive movements of the horse, there were interpolated his own unconscious movements—and that thus instead of the much desired intellectual feats on the part of the horse, there was merely a motor reaction to a purely sensory stimulus. It has been a common custom of man to posit some extraneous cause for movements resulting from certain involuntary motions of his own, of which he is not aware, (witness the divining-rod).[AM] And furthermore, when these results appear to be rational, the tendency is to seek their cause in some extraneous intelligence, not his own. Just as the spiritualists ascribe the "messages" which are revealed to them through table-rapping, to certain rational spirits, so Mr. von Osten credited the intelligence of the horse with the result produced by his own involuntary signs—i. e., with the proper solution of problems.
Two other phenomena may have tended to strengthen Mr. von Osten's belief in Hans's intelligence. One was the misleading similarity with which the horse's supposed errors in computation and the poorly adjusted concentration of the questioner, were expressed. We recall the difficulty in the case of very high numbers. This might easily be considered as being due to the horse's ability to work more readily with small, rather than with large numbers, whereas, as a matter of fact, it was due solely to the difficulty of the questioner to keep his attention concentrated upon the number for so long a time. We recall also the frequency of errors of one unit too few and one unit too many. These were easily interpreted as miscounts on the part of Hans, but in truth were the result of the poorly concentrated attention of the questioner. Added 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 thoroughly 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 investigating 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 animal, of definite habits of motor reaction in response to certain stimuli purposely selected by the trainer, and without involving any process of animal consciousness other than association. 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 definition 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 beyond the usual content which in everyday practice is put into the term "training". Especially, when we cease to regard the presence of purpose in the trainer's mind (both in giving the stimulus as well as in the habituation of the animal to them) as essential. When this is done, the conception of training really resolves itself into the much wider conception of habit-building, and the whole discussion becomes merely a quarrel over words. In order to obviate this, let us bear in mind that in the following, the word "training" is always taken in the usual and narrower sense. The term then is still ambiguous only in so far as it has not merely its original significance of the act of purposely habituating (a person or an animal) to perform certain definite movements, but by transference is also used to denote the effect, i. e., the occurrence of the movements in question. But this does not really detract from the clearness of the concept itself.
Having cleared up the question of definition, let us return to our original problem: Does the hypothetical account of the probable development of the horse's reactions, which is given on pages [213] to [220], represent a case of training? This must be denied decidedly with regard to the tapping of numbers and the solution of arithmetical problems. For here the sensory stimuli which were purposely given, i. e., the wooden pins, the balls, and the spoken words, were intended to subserve the function of arousing not movement, but thought processes in the horse; whereas the function of the horse's movements was to give expression to these thought processes. Of the really effective stimuli—the slight movements on his part—the master was never conscious, much less were they purposely made. The same holds true for the "up" and "down", "yes" and "no", etc., for here also Mr. von Osten counted upon the rise of the corresponding concepts, and not merely upon a purely external, mechanical association of meaningless sounds with certain movement-responses on the part of the horse. This might also explain the genesis of Mr. von Osten's belief that Hans was able mentally to put himself in the place of the questioner, ([page 19]). At any rate it is very improbable that he, Mr. von Osten himself, clearly distinguished between the concept: "up" and the sound of the word "up". When we come to consider the horse's selection of the colored cloths, and even more his leaping and rearing, we find that the distinction between "training" and "instruction" vanishes. If we had to deal only with this class of achievements, we might perhaps say, without fear of going very far wrong, that the only difference between this and the ordinary form of training was that Mr. von Osten had intended to train the horse to respond to auditory signs (words), but had unintentionally trained him to respond to visual signs instead. But it is not this type of performance that has become the bone of contention. Just as it would be misleading to maintain that Mr. von Osten's effort was nothing other than a case of training, so it also would be unjustifiable to designate the results of his effort by that name, since the really effective stimuli were not, as has been pointed out just now, given intentionally.
As far as the horse is concerned, it is a matter of indifference whether or not really effective stimuli were given intentionally by the questioner. The animal knows nothing of human purposes and if he were transferred to a circus, he would find nothing new in the method employed there, except the use of the whip. We, however, define our concepts from the human and not from the horse's point of view. We may definitely say, therefore, that the method described cannot be regarded as that of training, neither in its application nor in the effect produced, though in the latter it closely simulates the effects of the training method.
Having thus differentiated between the methods of instruction and training, let us now attempt to decide on the basis of such indications as we may possess, which of the two was actually represented by the development of the horse's attainments. Surveying the facts which we have at hand, we may say that there are hosts of reasons why we cannot assume that it was a case of training. Everything that we know from our own observation and from the well-attested statements of others, with regard to the actual process of instruction, weighs against the assumption. Another evidence of this is the long period of time which Mr. von Osten required (both in the case of Hans, as well as with his predecessor), whereas the same end would have been much more speedily attained if it had been a case of training. A further argument is the fact that a large horse was selected for the purpose, whereas a small mare would have been far more suitable, (c. f., "Clever Rosa", [page 7]). Again, the whip, that sorcerer's rod of all professional trainers, was here absent. And finally, many traits of character of Mr. von Osten, as well as his conduct during the whole course of events, militate against such an assumption. He generously turned the horse over to us, as he had given it over to Count zu Castell, Count Matuschka and Mr. Schillings. He eagerly besought a scientific investigation. He had made several reports to different ministries. All of these acts could only hasten the denouément. What could have been his motive? Some thought they detected an effort at pecuniary speculation, and an advertisement of June, 1902, in the "Militärwochenblatt", in which Hans was offered for sale, seemed to confirm the conjecture. Mr. von Osten says that this occurred at a time when he himself was sick and had become tired of the job. And why should he not be willing to sell even a thinking horse, since he had become convinced that any other could be instructed in the same way? Besides, I have it on good authority that after the publication of the September report he received several exorbitant offers; to mention only one of them: a local vaudeville company was ready to pay him 30,000 to 60,000 marks per month. He refused every one of these offers. Some may say that perhaps he wanted still more. But if he knew that the day of judgment was close at hand, he also knew that before then, if ever, was the sunshiny day on which to make his hay. A more auspicious time he could never hope to see again.—Let us add, once more, that he never charged admission to any of Hans's performances, although there were many who were anxious to see the horse, and many enthusiasts had come from a great distance. And finally, he was an old man, unmarried and entirely alone, a property owner, but a man whose wants were few and very simple—and his Hans was almost his sole companion. Is it possible that such a man, one who had all the pride of gentle birth, would become a trickster in his old age, all for the love of money?
The unreliability of Mr. von Osten's signs is good proof of their involuntary nature. Anyone who had seen him work with the horse could not have helped noticing that he certainly did not have complete control over the animal, and was not able, at a given moment, to make Hans perform a certain feat, as would have been the case if the process had been one of "training". Again and again Hans failed to make the right count. Before a large audience, one time, it took four tests to get him to tap properly up to 20, and in all four I could note clearly that it was Mr. von Osten who, by his involuntary premature movements, was the innocent cause of the failure. On another occasion, after Hans had done some beautiful work in fractions, in the presence of a large number of spectators, the master asked him the simple question: "Where is the numerator in a fraction?"—The answer was first: "to the left", and then, after a severe reprimand: "down" (below), and finally: "up" (above). He often made just such incorrect movements of the head. In the color-selecting tests the average of error was quite unpredictable. With an equal number of tests, on one day, half would be successful, on another, four fifths, on a third, one-tenth. Often Hans appeared to be "indisposed" for days at a time. The color tests would often end in expressions of rage on the part of Mr. von Osten and in consequence Hans would become startled and would then storm about the courtyard so that it was dangerous to try to approach him. Some may object that all this was mere comedy and that possibly Mr. von Osten prevented some of the tests from turning out successfully. But this objection is to be met by the statement that very often failure would occur just when it was particularly desirable to have the tests appear in a favorable light before a large and enthusiastic assemblage of visitors. After such failures he would be downcast on account of Hans's contrariness. It is also significant that Mr. von Osten's percentage of error, corresponds very closely with my percentage of error in the "non-voluntary" tests, ([page 84f.]), whereas he never was able to obtain 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 concerning 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 standing 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 progress. 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 master 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 calling, since he was thereby influencing the horse in the choice of the cloth, he answered: "Why that's just what I wish to do!"—But though the statement that he was aware of the nature of these grosser signs is thus seen to be true, it by no means necessarily implies that he had purposely trained the animal to respond to them. In these observations of his he had builded better than he knew—he evidently had no notion of their scientific significance. But the same thing might happen to those who were