[Footnote AC: 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 baissee"), and of his movements
("gestes"), both resulting from his intense concentration ("tension
de la pensee").
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.)]
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