To make an end of this cumbrous and puerile theory, is it
necessary to emphasize again that experiments in which the animal
does not see the questioner are as regularly successful as the
others? Krall, if you ask him, will stand behind the horse, will
speak from the end of the room, will leave the stable altogether;
and the results are just the same. They are the same again when
the tests are made in the dark or when the animal's head is
covered with a close-fitting hood. They do not vary either in the
case of Berto, who is stone-blind, or when any other person
whatever sets the problem in Krall's absence. Will it be
maintained that this outsider or that stranger is acquainted
beforehand with the imperceptible signs that are to dictate the
solution which he himself often does not know?
But what is the use of prolonging this fight against a cloud of
smoke? None of it can bear examination; and it calls for a
genuine effort of the will to set one's self seriously to refute
such pitiful objections.
18
On the ground thus cleared and at the portal of this unlooked-for
riddle, which comes to disturb our peace in a region which we
thought to be finally explored and conquered, there are only two
ways, if not of explaining, at least of contemplating the
phenomenon: to admit purely and simply the almost human
intelligence of the horse, or to have recourse to an as yet very
vague and indefinite theory which, for lack of a better
designation, we will call the mediumistic or subliminal theory
and of which we will strive presently--and no doubt vainly--to
dispel the grosser darkness.
Pages:
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179