The Unknown Guest [67]
who, at the age of ten, used to do in his head, without ever making a mistake, multiplication-sums the result of which ran into thirty-six figures. The solution presents itself authoritatively and spontaneously; it is a vision, an impression, an inspiration, an intuition coming one knows not whence, suddenly and indubitably. As a role, they do not even try to calculate. Contrary to the general belief, they have no peculiar methods; or, if method there be, it is more a practical way of subdividing the intuition. One would think that the solution springs suddenly from the very enunciation of the problem, in the same way as a veridical hallucination. It appears to rise, infallible and ready-done, from a sort of eternal and cosmic reservoir wherein the answers to every question lie dormant. It must, therefore, be admitted that we have here a phenomenon that occurs above or below the brain, by the side of the consciousness and the mind, outside all the intellectual methods and habits; and it is precisely for phenomena of this kind that Myers invented the word "subliminal."[1]
[1] I have no need to recall the derivation of the term subliminal: beneath (sub) the threshold (limen) of consciousness. Let us add, as M. de Vesme very rightly remarks, that the subliminal is not exactly what classical psychology calls the subconsciousness, which latter records only notions that are normally perceived and possesses only normal faculties, that is to say, faculties recognized to-day by orthodox science.
32
Does not all this bring us a little nearer to our calculating horses? From the moment that it is demonstrated that the solution of a mathematical problem no longer depends exclusively on the brain, but on another faculty, another spiritual power whose presence under various forms has been ascertained beyond a doubt in certain animals, it ceases to be wholly rash or extravagant to suggest that perhaps, in the horse, the same phenomenon is reproduced and developed in the same unknown, wherein moreover the mysteries of numbers and those of subconsciousness mingle in a like darkness. I am well aware that an explanation laden to such an extent with mysteries explains but very little more than silence does; nevertheless, it is at least a silence traversed by restless murmurs, and sedulous whispers that are better than the gloomy and hopeless ignorance to which we would have perforce to resign ourselves if we did not, in spite of all, to perform the great duty of man, which is to discover a spark in the darkness.
It goes without saying that objections are raised from every side. Among men, arithmetical prodigies are looked upon as monsters, as a sort of extremely rare teratological phenomenon. We can count, at most, half-a-dozen in a century, whereas, among horses, the faculty would appear to be almost general, or at least quite common. In fact, out of six or seven stallions whom Krall tried to initiate into the secrets of mathematics, he found only two that appeared to him too poorly gifted for him to waste time on their education. These were, I believe, two thoroughbreds that were presented to him by the Grand-duke of Mecklenburg and sent back by Krall to their sumptuous stables. In the four or five others, taken at random as circumstances supplied them, he met with aptitudes unequal, it is true, but easily developed and giving the impression that they exist normally, latent and inactive, at the bottom of every equine soul. From the mathematical point of view, is the horse's subliminal consciousness then superior to man's? Why not? His whole subliminal being is probably superior to one, of greater range, younger, fresher, more alive and less heavy, since it is not incessantly attacked, coerced and humiliated by the intelligence which gnaws at it, stifles it, cloaks it and relegates it to a dark corner which neither light nor air can penetrate. His subliminal consciousness is always present, always alert; ours is never there, is asleep at the bottom of a deserted well and needs exceptional operations, results and events before
[1] I have no need to recall the derivation of the term subliminal: beneath (sub) the threshold (limen) of consciousness. Let us add, as M. de Vesme very rightly remarks, that the subliminal is not exactly what classical psychology calls the subconsciousness, which latter records only notions that are normally perceived and possesses only normal faculties, that is to say, faculties recognized to-day by orthodox science.
32
Does not all this bring us a little nearer to our calculating horses? From the moment that it is demonstrated that the solution of a mathematical problem no longer depends exclusively on the brain, but on another faculty, another spiritual power whose presence under various forms has been ascertained beyond a doubt in certain animals, it ceases to be wholly rash or extravagant to suggest that perhaps, in the horse, the same phenomenon is reproduced and developed in the same unknown, wherein moreover the mysteries of numbers and those of subconsciousness mingle in a like darkness. I am well aware that an explanation laden to such an extent with mysteries explains but very little more than silence does; nevertheless, it is at least a silence traversed by restless murmurs, and sedulous whispers that are better than the gloomy and hopeless ignorance to which we would have perforce to resign ourselves if we did not, in spite of all, to perform the great duty of man, which is to discover a spark in the darkness.
It goes without saying that objections are raised from every side. Among men, arithmetical prodigies are looked upon as monsters, as a sort of extremely rare teratological phenomenon. We can count, at most, half-a-dozen in a century, whereas, among horses, the faculty would appear to be almost general, or at least quite common. In fact, out of six or seven stallions whom Krall tried to initiate into the secrets of mathematics, he found only two that appeared to him too poorly gifted for him to waste time on their education. These were, I believe, two thoroughbreds that were presented to him by the Grand-duke of Mecklenburg and sent back by Krall to their sumptuous stables. In the four or five others, taken at random as circumstances supplied them, he met with aptitudes unequal, it is true, but easily developed and giving the impression that they exist normally, latent and inactive, at the bottom of every equine soul. From the mathematical point of view, is the horse's subliminal consciousness then superior to man's? Why not? His whole subliminal being is probably superior to one, of greater range, younger, fresher, more alive and less heavy, since it is not incessantly attacked, coerced and humiliated by the intelligence which gnaws at it, stifles it, cloaks it and relegates it to a dark corner which neither light nor air can penetrate. His subliminal consciousness is always present, always alert; ours is never there, is asleep at the bottom of a deserted well and needs exceptional operations, results and events before