He next asks Mohammed to add up
the two numbers. Mohammed at first gives a few heedless taps with
his hoof. He is called to order and requested to be serious and
to attend. He then gives fifteen distinct taps. The doctor next
replaces the sign + by X and, again without looking at them,
places two cards on the blackboard and asks the horse not to add
up the two figures this time, but to multiply them. Mohammed taps
out, "27," which is right, for the black-board says, "9 X 3." The
same success follows with other multiplication sums: 9 X 2, 8 X
6. Then the doctor takes from an envelope a problem of which he
does not know the solution: fourth root of 7890481. Mohammed
replies, "53." The doctor looks at the back of the paper: once
more, the answer is perfectly correct.
16
Does this mean that every risk of telepathy is done away with? It
would perhaps be rash to make a categorical assertion. The power
and extent of telepathy are as yet, we cannot too often repeat,
indefinite, indiscernible, untraceable and unlimited. We have but
quite lately discovered it, we know only that its existence can
no longer be denied; but, as for all the rest, we are at much the
same stage as that whereat Galvani was when he gave life to the
muscles of his dead frogs with two little plates of metal which
roused the jeers of the scientists of his time, but contained the
germ of all the wonders, of electricity.
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