eliminated, then the animal would
be unable to respond. Such a theory is not quite as absurd as it might
seem at first blush. For Hansen and Lehmann have shown that an acute
auditory organ is able to respond to such delicate stimulation as is
involved in the softest whisper, or even in the so-called nasal whisper
in which the lips are tightly closed.[3] They have attempted thus to
explain any modes of supposed "thought-transference", (cf. page 7).
Since experts on horses agree that the horse has acute auditory
sensitivity, Mr. von Osten seized upon this fact and tried to establish
his theory in the following manner. No response was successfully made on
the part of the horse, he said, when the sound waves caused by his (Mr.
von Osten's) inner speech were deflected from the ear of the horse. This
was the case when he closed nose and mouth while inwardly putting the
question, or deflected the waves from the horse's ear by means of a
placard held before his mouth while speaking, or finally by applying
lined ear-muffs to the horse's ears. If, on the other hand, he closed
only his nose and not his mouth while thus inwardly putting the
question, or if he held the placard so that there was a possibility of
deflecting the sounds to the horse's ear, or if the ear-muffs were of
too sheer a material, then Hans could hear and answer the questions
which for human ears were inaudible. He demonstrated all this by means
of experiments and of 20 tests of the first kind, in which auditory
sensations were supposedly eliminated, 95% of the responses were
incorrect (Hans would always tap too great a number); whereas of 28
tests of the second kind, not a single answer was wrong, just as had
been predicted. Now I have repeated both kinds of tests, but have always
found some correct responses in those cases in which the horse,
supposedly, was unable to hear, a thing which greatly astonished Mr. von
Osten. In fact, the responses of the horse were quite as correct when I
did not even whisper the question inwardly. It was quite clear that
putting the question in any form whatever was wholly unnecessary. Mr.
von Osten's demonstrations to the contrary, which were based upon
erroneous physical principles, are to be explained as cases of vivid
autosuggestions, (but of this, more in Chapter V). After all this
experimentation, it was manifest that the cue was not given to the horse
while the question was being put; it occurred, therefore, at some time
du