Let us add, to complete the magical
and incredible character of the phenomenon that, according to
Krall's own statement, the horse was not taught beyond the point
of extracting the square root of the number 144 and that he
spontaneously invented the manner of extracting all the others.
27
Must we once more repeat, in connection with these startling
performances, that those who speak of audible or visible signals,
of telegraphy and wireless telegraphy, of expedients, trickery or
deceit, are speaking of what they do not know and of what they
have not seen? There is but one reply to be made to any one who
honestly refuses to believe:
"Go to Elberfeld---the problem is sufficiently important,
sufficiently big with consequences to make the journey worth
while--and, behind closed doors, alone with the horse, in the
absolute solitude and silence of the stable, set Mohammed to
extract half-a dozen roots which, like that which I have
mentioned, require thirty-one operations. You must yourself be
ignorant of the solutions, so as to do away with any transmission
of unconscious thought. If he then gives you, one after the
other, five or six correct solutions, as he did to me and many
others, you will not go away with the conviction that the animal
is able by its intelligence to extract those roots, because that
conviction would upset too thoroughly the greater part of the
certainties on which your life is based; but you will, at any
rate, be persuaded that you have been for a few minutes in the
presence of one of the greatest and strangest riddles that can
disturb the mind of man; and it is always a good and salutary
thing to come into contact with emotions of this order.
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