1 18 SMELLING. 



Some of them convey to us the most delightful and refreshing 

 sensations, and others are painful, noxious, and disgusting. 

 The effluvia of odoriferous bodies float in the atmosphere, and 

 act upon the olfactory nerves of different animals, and some- 

 times of different individuals of the same species, in stich a 

 manner as to produce very different sensations. What is 

 pleasant to the nostrils of one animal is highly offensive to 

 those of another. Brute animals select their food chiefly by 

 employing the sense of smelling, and it seldom deceives them. 

 They easily distinguish noxious from salutary food ; and they 

 carefully avoid the one, and use the other for nourishment. 

 The same thing happens with regard to the drink of animals. 

 A cow, when it can be obtained, always repairs to the clear- 

 est and freshest stream ; but a horse, from some instinctive 

 impulse, uniformly raises the mud with his feet, and renders 

 the water impure, before he drinks. 



In the selection of food, men are greatly assisted, even in 

 the most luxurious state of society, by the sense of smelling 

 By smelling we often reject food as noxious, and will not risk 

 the other test of tasting. Victuals which have a putrid smell, 

 as equally offensive to our nostrils as hurtful to our constitu- 

 tions, we avoid with abhorrence ; but we are allured to eat 

 substances which have a grateful and savory odor. The more 

 frequent and more acute discernment of brutes in the exercise 

 of this sense, is entirely owing to their freedom, and to their 

 using natural productions alone. But men in society, by the 

 arts of cookery, by the unnatural assemblage of twenty in- 

 gredients in one dish, blunt, corrupt, and deceive both their 

 senses of smelling and tasting. Were we in the same natural 

 condition as the brutes, our sense of smelling would enable 

 us to distinguish, with equal certainty, noxious from salutary 

 food. Brutes, as well as men, prefer particular foods to 

 others. This may be considered as a species of luxury ; but 

 it should likewise be considered, that all the articles they use 

 are either animal or vegetable substances in a natural state, 

 neither converted into a thousand forms and qualities by the 

 operation of fire and water, nor having their savor exalted by 

 stimulating condiments. Domestic animals are nearly in the 

 same condition with luxurious men. A pampered dog snuffs 

 and rejects many kinds of food, which, in a natural state, he 

 would devour with eagerness. 



It is not unworthy of remark, that, in all animals, the organs 

 of smelling and of tasting are uniformly situated very near 

 each other. Hence the intention of nature is evident. The 



