For example, here Lola could not spell "Guste" in spite of the fact that I was expecting it quite as intently as I had looked for "Frieda" in the first instance; and what is more--I cannot get the dog to "take up" a new thought should she have already "made up her mind" about a matter, as on the occasion when she had been "naughty." It has constantly happened that Lola has held out against me in the matter of some figure in her sums and that--later on--I have found myself to have been at fault, this showing that the numerals "pictured" in my mind can have made no impression on hers; yet, on the other hand, it has also happened that she has accepted my inaccuracies--simply because she was tired, and did not want the trouble of "thinking for herself." Indeed, I could see as much in her eyes--there would be a sense of inertia about her, which indicated that she was only waiting to "guess" by means of _feeling_--a willing receptacle, as it were, ready to receive my thoughts. I have often made the attempt at "thinking" _new_ things into her head--but have found this quite impossible. Shortly after what has here been related, Lola became a "slacker" in the matter of thinking, and kept this up for days. As this pose made it impossible for me to put a serious test, I had recourse for some time to questions only, and--moreover--to questions as to which I could not be sure of the answer, without some trouble or calculation on my own part, for I felt that I might otherwise have really lost my patience with her--unless I had kept on strenuously suggesting the answer--as, for instance: "the stove is green!" Nor did I feel that I could have entirely relied on the inactivity of my subconsciousness, while thus intently thinking. So I kept to such questions as--"What will be the day of the week on such and such a date?" (Naming a date about three weeks ahead.) This precluded any possibility of thought-transference, for I simply ignored reckoning out the days myself. By the way, it is astounding that dogs should be receptive to thought-transference, though there are, of course, many proofs of a dog's acute and delicate susceptibility in relation to the thoughts of human beings, as well as a certain comprehension for a particular situation in which these may be placed. Yet such comprehension can only evince its true force when animals shall have learnt how to give expression to that of which they are aware. With reference to the incident which I have just cited, the thought that presented itself to me first, was that the entire process might possibly be no more than a matter of "suggestion." Yet, on probing further into the question, as well as by drawing comparisons, the conclusions arrived at only further confirmed what I have above stated. That this is so, will, I think, seem absolutely certain to anyone who reads through the whole of this book carefully--indeed, they will arrive at that conclusion without my labouring the question.