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Does not all this bring us a little nearer to our calculating
horses? From the moment that it is demonstrated that the solution
of a mathematical problem no longer depends exclusively on the
brain, but on another faculty, another spiritual power whose
presence under various forms has been ascertained beyond a doubt
in certain animals, it ceases to be wholly rash or extravagant to
suggest that perhaps, in the horse, the same phenomenon is
reproduced and developed in the same unknown, wherein moreover
the mysteries of numbers and those of subconsciousness mingle in
a like darkness. I am well aware that an explanation laden to
such an extent with mysteries explains but very little more than
silence does; nevertheless, it is at least a silence traversed by
restless murmurs, and sedulous whispers that are better than the
gloomy and hopeless ignorance to which we would have perforce to
resign ourselves if we did not, in spite of all, to perform the
great duty of man, which is to discover a spark in the darkness.
It goes without saying that objections are raised from every
side. Among men, arithmetical prodigies are looked upon as
monsters, as a sort of extremely rare teratological phenomenon.
We can count, at most, half-a-dozen in a century, whereas, among
horses, the faculty would appear to be almost general, or at
least quite common.
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