Note AC — Chapter V · EXPLANATION OF THE OBSERVATIONS

I can find examples of supposed suggestion in the case of animals given only by Rouhet.[61] He says that by means of suggestion he taught a half-year old half-blooded mare-colt which he had raised himself, to fetch and carry, and this in a very short time. In order to indicate to the colt what was wanted, Rouhet would concentrate with his whole mind upon the object intended (a watch), and at the same time he would bend forward slightly. In the third test, that is at the end of fifteen minutes, he had accomplished his purpose, and in the tenth lesson, no more mistakes occurred. The colt would fail to respond, however, as soon as he refrained from making any gestures, or was in a laissez faire frame of mind, or when he thought of other things. He therefore believes that there must have been some kind of immediate, though inexplicable, connection between the brain of the trainer and that of the horse. I think the explanation is evident: the connection was not as he thought, an immediate one, but arising through the mediation of the man's attitude ("attitude un peu baissée"), and of his movements ("gestes"), both resulting from his intense concentration ("tension de la pensée").

In general we may say that, no matter what content we may wish to put into the term "suggestion," not a single fact has since come to light which would justify, and much less demand, the application of the term to lower forms, unless we would expand the definition of the term to the extent of comprising every kind of command, every arousal of ideas, whatsoever. But it would then be nothing but a new name for old knowledge[62] and would lose all explanatory value. (Hypnotism, so-called, in the case of horses, I shall discuss elsewhere in another connection.)