Part 13 (1/2)
”It is also curious that it should have repeated the performance, seeing that it was only once rewarded for it, and that, because it was agreed that it had done its reading well. I must add that the person who a.s.sisted me told me that generally, even when it was giving correctly the number decided on, it hardly looked to see how I was placing the b.a.l.l.s in the box....
”Once when I was arranging three b.a.l.l.s, because some one standing behind the horse had made me the sign 3, the horse tapped its three beats behind my shoulders while stretching out its neck by my side in order to try to take a salad leaf, thus showing that it was taking very little interest in the sign which I held out to it and in the taps which it was making.
”Certainly, this time at least, the animal seemed to perform an automatic action, and it seemed to me that we had guessed subconsciously what the horse intended to do. This may appear a crooked hypothesis, but it is less difficult for me than to think that the horse had read in my mind the number which I had there. It certainly did nothing on most occasions to upset the fairly clear and precise impression that it was obeying some more or less complex determinism.”
It seems to me difficult to avoid the impression that what has just been stated does not reveal a simple telepathic relations.h.i.+p but something rather more deep. The want of interest by the animal in its behaviour is for me symptomatic, and agrees perfectly well with the sensation of the observer that he also had to obey some obscure determinism. I see here another case of a combined psychical (partial) operation of a ”mediumistic” kind; and this hypothesis makes very plausible the other no less impressive hypothesis of the observer that his mind was reading (in a subconscious way) the mind of the horse. I call this hypothesis of Ferrari impressive, because in this case it was due to a person who is certainly not to be suspected of dilettantism, and still less of any pseudo-scientific mysticism.
For the rest I repeat that ”telepathy” also may co-exist along with ”mediumistic” action. In a general way, telepathy would seem to a.s.sume in the animal a greater amount of ”human” psychic affinity, whilst in mediumistic action I look upon the animal as reacting to the intervention of the other mind in a much more ”automatic” way: almost like a ”speaking table,” but a table provided with live feet rather than inert legs, and above all provided with a nervous system forming part of it, so that very little action on the part of the medium is required, but the subliminal action of the investigator is enough by itself to work it. (Of course, this does not exclude altogether action by others or by the horse itself).
Krall admits the possibility of telepathy (but in a very limited measure): and then, if I remember right, he was looking finally for an explanation which to-day I should perhaps call of the mediumistic type, if I had been better acquainted with it; but in fact I had of him, in his lifetime, only some vague hint on the point.
As to Miss Kindermann, she recognises the possibility of transmission of thought in certain cases (e.g. when Lola is tired or is unwilling to ”work” any more). According to her it would be a question of a line of least resistance, along which the ”work” of the animal becomes more easy. Hence arises the necessity, as she maintains, for the investigator to be very careful of the danger of falsified results and to _abstain with this object from any intentional thought_. But these are the very conditions which ”mediums” impose on investigators, and if these conditions are not observed, mediumistic seances seem only to be successful with difficulty. Therefore, in trying to resist the danger of telepathic falsification, and without indeed being aware of the resulting consequences, Lola's mistress may have contributed to create the very conditions most favourable to the development of mediumistic action.
V. THE HYPOTHESIS OF CONCOMITANT PSYCHICAL AUTOMATISM
In various parts of her book Miss Kindermann emphasizes the fact that after having given for some days ”communications” of a certain kind, a sort of tiredness or annoyance, that gets hold of Lola, completely prevents the repet.i.tion of similar communications; but that repet.i.tion can take place if some weeks of rest are allowed in the subject which has provoked the tiredness.
In another place she mentions that, with the progress of Lola's ”education,” the dog's att.i.tude towards herself, and other persons generally, became harder and more difficult, almost hostile (a fact which I find confirmed by certain answers of Lola's referred to elsewhere); just as if the canine consciousness as it gained illumination began to understand the many wrongs done to it by man, which formerly it knew nothing about.
Other observers have repeatedly stated that a capital fact in the story of ”thinking” animals is the necessity, which they regard as proved, of a _progressive_ ”education” directed at getting from the animal results proportionate to the instruction received.
All these observations and several others of a similar nature would seem to be arguments in favour of a presumed ”intelligence” rather than of an automatism in the animal. But they should be accepted _c.u.m grano_. They may indeed contain a good dose of involuntary suggestion, active or pa.s.sive. And again, it seems to me, for instance, a very doubtful procedure to maintain, after a positive result has been achieved by the animal, that the result should have been on the other hand negative, if the education has not yet reached the corresponding stage of development; and vice versa. As for me, when I read what Miss Kindermann writes about the rapidity of Lola's progress, I cannot help thinking that, if the auth.o.r.ess had believed that she was able to obtain at once from the dog the results which she did obtain after a year's work, she would have obtained them fully and completely.
But this extreme supposition may be exaggerated. I have already repeatedly referred to the hypothesis that the psychic automatism in question may be only concomitant. That is, I am convinced from what I have seen myself and read that a foundation of intelligence, of logical reasoning and of self consciousness, must go to const.i.tute in the animal the substratum on which the wonders of the ”new zoopsychology”
are built up.
At first I was rather inclined to believe (as so many others) that the facts discovered at Elberfeld and at Mannheim could and should be explained simply by the recognition of ”intelligence” in the animal.
The chief results obtained up to then (i.e. up to the date of my last publications on the subject), were the mathematical prodigies performed by Krall's horses, and the first ”philosophic” manifestations of Rolf.
I accordingly thought that I should be able to interpret the new (and, in its complexity, rather modest) canine ”knowledge” by the animal's memory of words which it had heard. But since then the educators have taken pleasure in raising the whole level of these wonders. Rolf's ”philosophy” was developed; and in the end they went so far as to make him compose poetry, as I have already had occasion to mention. Then came the performances of Lola. And at this point I, too, must say: ”Too much, too much!” At least, as far as concerns the hypothesis of intelligence in the animal.
I understand perfectly that just on account of that ”too much,” people may be tempted to throw up the whole thing. But as far as I am concerned, I repeat that I do not consider myself justified in doing so. I do not forget the possible intervention of active or pa.s.sive suggestion: I referred to this a short time ago. But a great abuse is often made of this explanation. In practice ”suggestion” explains but little to any one who wants to get to the bottom of things. Neither does it explain the bulk of the facts of the ”new zoopsychology.”
Neither do I forget that in this field also (as in every field of psychological experiments) there may be an interfering although subconscious misuse of spurious factors, such as signs (not intentional or perceptible) by the experimenter to the subject experimented with; a certain amount of falsification in interpretation of results on the part of the experimenters, etc.... But the irreducible residue of the facts is, in my opinion, still enormous as compared with the little that could perhaps be eliminated by these means from the discussion.
Therefore, in the absence of anything better for the moment, and subject to further information, I hold to the hypothesis of a psychic automatism of the mediumistic type, as a concomitant phenomenon developed from the normal ”rapport” which is _necessary_ and pre-existent.
This ”rapport” is that of a master to a child; but to a very special kind of child, a ”child” moreover who, from the biological point of view, has not been corrupted by the thousands of years of reasoning and society that weigh on the human child. It is, therefore, nearer to the ”fountains of life” if I may be allowed to express myself in that way; and nearer to the mathematical potentiality (which was at first unself-conscious, but which has subsequently been developed). But, of course, it is not enough for mathematics ”to be” in something, for that something to begin at once to tap numbers. The table of the mediumistic seances contains much mathematics (in its physical a.s.semblage), but in order to make it ”tap” there must be somebody to move it: in fact, a ”medium.” In my view, as soon as the animal subject has been able to understand ”numbers”--and this postulate of the new zoopsychology, I repeat, I believe to be indispensable to the whole edifice--the animal finds itself sufficiently in harmony with the master to become capable (in principle) of all the subsequent ”wonders.”
This it is which const.i.tutes the first discovery, as I have called it, of the ”new zoopsychology.” And on that discovery, in my opinion, are based through various gradations its chief results, on the supposition that at a certain moment there takes place a new specific action, the ”declanchement” of the mediumistic relations.h.i.+p between the animal and the experimenter. And it may be that the development of such a very special relations.h.i.+p between man and animals may be comparatively easy.
That is, it may be that the animal is relatively easily _permeable_ by a mind provided with a reasoning intelligence (without, however, being itself aware of the logical content of such an intelligence), exactly because it is rather poor in logical self-conscious content--or, again, it may be, that the animal in a certain sense is nearer than we to the ”fountains of life.” (9).
The possibility of this ”declanchement” would therefore const.i.tute the second and more serious discovery made by the educators of animals; although without their knowing it, as is proved by all their accounts which make no mention of it.