Part 18

This negative result of Neumann's is capable of various possible explanations, and in no way gives any clear indication (just because it is negative) as to how a positive result is at all possible; that is, we cannot conclude from it any better than before, whether the apparently "mechanical" behaviour of the animal was intentional, and therefore whether the animal itself could or could not have behaved otherwise; whether, given the impossibility of the animal behaving differently, we should say that this impossibility was absolute or only happened to occur on this occasion; whether perchance the action of some psychical factor unknown to Neumann between the animal and himself may not have been omitted; and whether such factor was not in operation when the animal was working with its late mistress, etc., etc. In this connexion I feel it incumbent upon me to recall that I myself saw Rolf on two or three occasions behave in this same apparently mechanical way with his mistress (Mrs. Moekel) (II), whose annoyance thereat seemed so real that I felt certain that it was not feigned. From Neumann's point of view this would be incomprehensible--since he makes use of the argument from the supposed absolute automatism under the impression that it had taken place in Rolf with him, Neumann, alone, but not with the Moekels. Here, then, it is clear that the intelligence is, or at least that it is also, "in others."

But whatever value we may attach to Neumann's experiment, it appears to me sufficiently clear that the supposition of an absolutely mechanically passive process in the animal will not hold as a sufficient explanation of the whole of the facts related by Miss Kindermann, nor will it hold with regard to what science certainly seems to me to be compelled to admit in the case of the Elberfeld horses, which (as is known) "worked" magnificently without contact with anyone, tapping their replies on a board, completely isolated on the ground, and even when all alone in their stable with the one door tightly closed and all the spectators outside. The spectators heard and observed the rapped answers of the horses (for example, to written questions) through a little glass window. Neither will it hold with regard to the many experiments made, some also by myself, by means of requests, pictures, questions, presented to the horses in such a way as to be unknown to everyone, including the experimenter. Besides, the animals at times gave spontaneous communications. This Assagioli and I, and many others, have observed even without the presence of Krall and of members of the Moekel family. Miss Kindermann also gives some of Lola's replies tapped on the arm of a friend of the authoress, although the latter held out as usual her own hand to the dog.

Therefore, there must be some "intelligence" in the animal, as everything cannot come from outside it in these experiments. Probably this intelligence is not human in quality, but nevertheless not quite rudimentary, and is such as we may imagine without too much effort to exist in domestic animals which by many signs often give us proof that they understand at least in part what is taking place around and within us. That such an intelligence could very probably be educated, always within prehuman limits or in a lesser degree than in human infancy, does not on the whole seem to me so contradictory to our actual psychological knowledge: since we may very well suppose that the animal under examination may make use of its proper faculties, as far as lies in its power, to profit by the situation for the purpose of accomplishing that which is required of it, under the stimulus of allurements or threats. (It may even be rather assumed that the exercise of its proper faculties, which I regard as "intelligent," may procure for the animal a certain degree of pleasure.) All this is apart from the question of the arithmetical phenomena which, as I have already said, deserve separate consideration.

Upon the facts as now established the knowledge of numbers seems to be the basis of any educability in animals. And this is perhaps the first and most important discovery in the "new zoopsychology."

In their search for others things, Von Osten, Krall, and the Moekels have brought out clearly among various other facts, without exactly accounting for it, the fundamental fact of the existence in the animal of a psychic substratum predisposed in some manner to arithmetic. I say "in some manner," and by that I do not wish to prejudge any particular view of the argument; and above all I do not make of this predisposition or mathematical permeability, a criterion of intelligence. I do not forget either the mentally deficient or the prodigies among child calculators, etc. But likewise I cannot forget another thing: that all organisms are already throughout permeated with mathematics, and that the more we descend the scale, from man down to the most "simple" biological fact, the more nearly we approach to physics, which is nothing but mathematics.

I have not the space here to digress on the intermediate gradations. Besides, I have already done so, in part at least, elsewhere. But I wish to recall the curious coincidence that the mathematical achievements of the Elberfeld horses were much more brilliant and much more prodigious than those of the dogs which have up to now been experimented on. And horses in the phylo-genetic line are more ancient than dogs: they are lower in the zoologic scale. Much lower still, i.e. among the Arthropoda, occur many other mathematical wonders. I only mention in a cursory way the logarithmic spiral of the spider's web, the precise curves realized without instruments of any kind by the Coleoptera and Hymenoptera in cutting leaves, the stereometry of the aphides. Then, as it were, at the bottom of the scale (if one may still speak of a descent and a bottom) the marvellous plancton filters of the Appendiculata; the geometrical spots of the Amoebae; the cases of perfect forms of so many other Protozoa; and, finally, think of the constructive technic of the static organs, or of those of movement either in man or animals or plants; think of the complex mathematics of the mitosi, or of any cell proceeding to its own indirect division.

It seems to me clear that the mathematical faculty--assuming always, let it be understood, that it may give rise to more or less conscious phenomena in the biological subject--may be amongst the most natural of imaginable causes, and that even the smallest amount of consciousness may help this existing capacity in the animal to express itself. That we are concerned with an expression by raps or not, does not seem to me as important as a proper estimation of the importance of the central fact constituted by this mathematical capacity.

From this central fact, proved over and over again without any possible doubt to be true of the "thinking" animals, there have been developed two distinct groups of consequences: (1) the prodigious mathematical performances occurring as by magic among the Elberfeld horses at a certain point of their "education": (2) the apparent manifestations of thought through the typtology or rapping out of words, culminating in the "philosophic" achievements of Rolf and Lola.

For the reasons just mentioned the first group of consequences seems to me to admit largely of biological (i.e. biopsychical) explanation; however, anything which eventually does not fit into the biological explanation may be made to enter without any effort into the second method of explanation which, in view of the facts, it seems to me that we must adopt for the second of the two groups of consequences above referred to.

That mathematics can be "lived" rather than "known"--or, if any one prefers the term, "realized"--by an organism which is without any psychical accompaniment whatever of the human type, is a fact which I find credible. But when Rolf speaks to me of the origin of the soul, or makes up poetry; when Lola complains to me of honour lost, etc., the thing is not credible to me in any way except by paying attention to nothing except the feeling, which is so difficult to avoid, that what is here speaking to me, versifying and complaining, is a psychical "quid," absolutely human and only human; a "quid" which therefore is (after all) not the animal's, although manifested in some way through it. The difficulty naturally consists in deciding precisely how this happens. But it does not seem to me altogether impossible to arrive at a proper hypothesis.

I have already said that we must discard, because of its inability to explain a great part of the facts, the most easy and simple hypothesis--that of some mechanical signal (e.g. by means of a supposed pressure of the hand under the cardboard, or by the hand itself which is held out to the animal, in the case of the dogs which have so far been experimented with). Here we also have to remember the proposition laid down by Miss Kindermann herself that "She did not wish to let herself be carried away by sentiment," and that she would seek all possible proofs which were good logically. Having excluded the hypothesis of deceit, it is a further proof of the sheer impotency of the theory of signals, when regard is had to the available amount of the material observed and recorded in the authoress, if we ask how is it possible to imagine that she (knowing very well, as she says, the suspicion resting on the method) in a year or more of work with Lola should not herself have perceived that she herself had been producing by mechanical means the rapped answers of her pupil?

In my opinion the answer is that the authoress was not only not aware of, but could not in the least have been aware of, the action that may have passed from herself to the dog so as to bring about the rapping of the answers; and that on the other hand it is not a question at all of thinking of a simple mechanical operation of the kind mentioned above, because in the presumed action of the authoress on the dog there is no need to have recourse to such a crude hypothesis (as surely there was no similar action of Krall's on his horses, especially when they were separated from him). I maintain, in fact, that in principle, even without any contact by hand, we may still presume that all the "wonders" obtained by Miss Kindermann are obtainable, taking, of course, into account the peculiar endowments of the animal we are dealing with. For if there be any automatism (and there is surely a good dose of it), it is certainly not a question of a mechanical automatism (of the type of Neumann's), but quite certainly of a true and proper psychic automatism; a very different thing, and without doubt much more complex.

In all probability the first condition for the occurrence of genuine phenomena similar to those attributed to "thinking" animals must be a very particular psychic relationship between the animal and his master. And such a relation, although with reluctance, I am compelled to call of the mediumistic type.

My reluctance is due in part to the very unhappy etymology of the term, derived from the famous word "medium," so unscientific both in its origin and in the meaning which some even now wish to associate with it. But even after having freed it from any "spiritistic" meaning, the term still leaves me reluctant; for I cannot hide from myself the weakness of a hypothesis which, in order to explain (only in part) one enigmatical fact (in this case, that of "thinking animals"), must have recourse to another unsolved enigma (in this case that of the "mediumistic phenomena").

However, it will already be something if the two problems are eventually merged together and so become a single problem; but it is not my object to explain any psychical facts themselves, whatever they may be, under which the phenomena of Lola and others of a similar nature may be eventually classified. It will be sufficient for me at present to group the performances of the animals, if possible, with something better known. And "mediumistic" facts, extrinsically at least, are certainly better known. I refer therefore to them as I find them described in the psychology called supernormal; because, from force of circumstances I am compelled to recognize that it is within this psychology that I must now continue the discussion.

IV. MEDIUMISTIC "RAPPORT" AND TELEPATHY

The hypothesis of a psychic automatism of a mediumistic type, as a concomitant phenomenon, at least, in experiments of the "new zoopsychology," offers us a point of support for a possible interpretation of the strange uncertainty and irregularity of the successes and failures of different observers and different animals.

With Krall two of his horses gave magnificent results; two others negative results. In the same way, with the same dogs some experimenters obtain wonders, others obtain nothing.... We may therefore assume that in order to obtain favourable results there must be a proper accord or reciprocal psychic concordance between the animal and the person making the experiment, precisely as happens with mediumistic phenomena.

Moreover, this hypothesis in the same way helps us to an interpretation of the fact that the same animal, with the same investigator, gives good results in some matters, poor or no result in others. Taking, however, due account of the central mathematical phenomena, on which, as it seems to me, the whole edifice is superposed, there remains a great variety of marked psychical idiosyncrasies in the various cases. One of the animals is decidedly a calculator; another likes to read or to explain figures; another detests reading but willingly taps out "spontaneous communications."

Without possessing much intrinsic probative value of its own, it is certain that all this fits in very badly with the supposition of a purely mechanical automatism operated by the person making the experiments. And on the other hand it bears a close analogy to the mediumistic "specialities"; that is, to the well-known fact that one "medium," for instance, is good for "physical effects" (i.e. gives rise around it to dynamic phenomena), but is not good for "psychography"; or produces "incarnations" but not "apports," etc. In the same way, typtology or rapping, more or less systematic, seems a fundamental gift, common to all the various kinds of "mediums." And the fact is perhaps of a certain value that precisely the same thing is true of "thinking" animals; although we must always remember that an analogous relation may only be apparent or extrinsic. Besides, the tone also of the "communications" in the two fields seems to me very much akin. I allude to the curious, angular, enigmatic, spasmodic, often playful and bantering communications, with frequent "unexpected replies" and philosophic platitudes. I find all these in Lola, and I remember similar stories of Rolf and of the horses, giving me an impression very like that which I get from the accounts of mediumistic seances "with intellectual effects."

Premising all this, we may suppose that a peculiar psychic concordance, which failing a better term might be called mediumistic, exists between Lola and her mistress. The mistress then in some way will have "communicated" through the dog the substance of her psychic self (perhaps with eventual autonomous additions from the canine or other psychic entity); all this happening, we must suppose, in a subliminal way, with partial psychical disassociation on the part of the authoress, if not also probably on the part of Lola, about which I am quite certain (and in this I agree with Neumann) that it absolutely does not understand anything or know anything of almost all the manifestations of thought which it exhibits.

There remain the questions (if the possibility of such duplicate mediumistic phenomena is admitted a priori to be possible) as to the point at which the normal relationship between a human person and an animal passes over into this supernormal one; and, finally, as to what particular known facts in the case of Lola, besides the rather too general analogies already mentioned, speak in favour of this hypothesis.

Into the mediumistic endowment of the investigator it seems to me useless to inquire since a priori many persons, so it seems, are more or less strikingly endowed, and the conditions which determine results are not sufficiently known. At the most there exist some indications--e.g. in Morselli's masterly work (2)--of the existence of some concordances between the phenomenology of mediumism and hysterical, hysteroid, or at least "sensitive" temperaments. And I believe that--with the help of their own publications, properly analysed--it would not be too difficult to attribute one or the other of such physio-psychic varieties to those persons who have up to the present obtained the best results with "thinking animals."

More interesting appears to me the investigation of the question whether animals themselves have already given any clear proof of being able to be "sensitive" in the mediumistic sense. And I must say that such a proof seems to have almost been reached.

I may refer on this subject to the exhaustive monograph published in 1905 by Bozzano (1) and written with the special competency and clearness that distinguish the well-known Genoese psychist.

Bozzano at that time was necessarily ignorant of the "thinking" animals, for it was only afterwards that they came to notice. But there were other authors who introduced the possibility (or the necessity) of a supernormal relationship in order to explain the Elberfeld facts, as soon as they were known. Perhaps the first in chronological order was De Vesme, who published in 1912 an interesting article in that sense (3), showing the many analogies between the phenomena of Elberfeld and mediumistic phenomena generally, e.g. the typtological particularities; the wrong orthography ("Firaz" tapped by the horse to express its own name "Zariff," "Dref" instead of "Ferd," etc.); solutions of difficult problems and invincible resistance to simple inquiries; immediate promptitude of correct replies to complicated mathematical problems, etc.

A similar work was Maeterlinck's, written in 1909 for a German review, and then transformed into a long and interesting chapter of the well-known volume, "L'hote Inconnu" (10).

Then in 1914 was published a book by E. G. Sanford (5) containing some useful comparisons between "thinking" animals and mediumistic psychology.