The Catholic bulletin. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1911-1995, 1916-12-23
PoPuLAs APoLoGETIcs.
Adapted from the German of Rev.
Peter Mikes, S. j., by Rev. James
Watcher.
LII. Animal Intelligence.
(Concluded).


N. b. By printing mistake in
article LII it was said that the few
specimens of skulls, etc, found of pre-,
historic man were sufficient to deter
!. mine a race. 1t should read that they
are not sufficient III
Animals do not laugh, man laughs.
l do not speak here of the laughing
dove or of dogs that contract their
facial muscles when something
pleases them, but of laughing in as
Tar as it is a sign of understanding,
Z. g. laughing at wit.
How men fear wit! A student had
q fine mustache. Proud of it, he
came home, and just before entering
his home town, he lighted the last
cigar and, as bad luck would have it,
he burnt off one half of it. To avoid
becoming the laughing-stock of every
body he had to shave off the other half
TOO. "A tomcat that had the same mis-
fortune, did not have to fear to be-
come the laughing-stock of the puS-
sizes. Not trace of wit in any kit.
If a poodle, to judge according to
dog etiquette, would be Shorn in a
most comical way, the other dogs
would not mockingly run after him
E like crowd of boys runs after a
Chinaman. No Spitz will ever point
his paw ut him and giggle with his
fellow Spitz. Why not? Because an
animal has no reason and hence no
wit. Wit means to know relations,
therefore, something super-sensible.
Wit is the talent to discover unex-
pectedly relations between apparently
strange and distant ideas, whereby
the point of similarity is easily
apparent. An animal does not see
such a point, because it can not know
anything immaterial, since it has no
reason, no spiritual soul.
LIV. The "kIuge Hans" in Berlin.
objection: That animals have
reason was proved by the Russian stall
lion of Mr.. Osten in the summer of
1904 in Berlin. This horse of nine
years, the ''kluge Hans" (Smart jack,
would by means of paving express
his thoughts, could spell by knocking
numbers. which represented letters;
he could read, figure, even in fractions
and cube root; he knew the value of
German coins, recognized persons by
their photographs, and understood the
German language, etc. Together
with a number of scientists l am per-
fectly convinced now that the stallion
thin ssind ependently, combines, draws
conclusions and acts accordingly
said Mr.. Schillings at the Sixth Zoo
logical Congress at Berlin. Mr..
Osten has been able ito promote and
certain independent action" (Report
of Major General Won Zobel in the
'Deuts che Notwithstanding
Presse").
Answer: The ''kluge Hans" whose
smartness in the summer of 1904
made many professor of intelligence
very foolish, was unmasked the same
fall as the carrot Hans as the
savant of feed-training.
Hans was placed before a scientific
commission of thirteen members and
then before the Privy Councillor and
university professor, DR.. Stumpf, di-
rector of the Psychological School of
Berlin. After q long investigation in
December he gave his expert opinion,
from which we take the following:
THE result is as follows. The
horse fails if the solution of the
problem is unknown to any one
present; for example, if written num-
Ders or things to be counted are pre-
scented TO him in such manner that
those present, especially the one who
asks the question, can not see them.
He can, therefore, not count, read, or
figure. The horse fails furthermore,
if he is hindered by specially large
blinds to see the person who knows
the solution of the problem, especially
the questioner. He, therefore, needs
optic help. ="
The horse must have learned in
the course of his arithmetical instruc-
tion to watch more and more closely,
whilst paving, the slight changes of
the bodys position, the opening and
closing of the eyes, etc, with which
the teacher, consciously or uncon-
sciously, accompanied the results of
his thinking, and use them as a sign
to stop paving The motive for the
direction and effort of the horses at
tention, as regular reward, was a por-
tion of carrots and bread. This ac-
quired accuracy of observing the
smallest motion is indeed astonishing.
Thus the death sentence was pro-
nounced OH the independent thinking
capacity of,the "kluge Hans.
Among the abortive experiments
the following is rather queer, In
spelling the name of certain Plues-
skow pronounced Pluessko), who was
introduced to the horse, he added
also the, W, showing that his horse
sense extended even to the spelling
of the names of the Prussion nobility!
All of this proves plainly that this
was one of the many humbugs to de-
ceiye the credulous, more frequently
to get their loose coin. 1t is only too
true what Barnum said: "The world
wants to be humbugged, and am the
man to do it, Barnum has many
successors.
ANcTuEp N EcSEp rARISTMAc