UNCONSCIOUS GUIDANCE BY SMELL 203 



operating in ourselves unknown to us and unobserved. 

 The consciousness of smell-sensations is what we value and 

 talk of. It does not extend to the more primal smell- 

 excitations, except in extraordinary individuals. Thus, it 

 seems to be not improbable that we are attracted or 

 repelled by other human individuals by the unconscious 

 operation upon us of attractive or repulsive odours, and 

 that the unaccountable liking or disliking which we some- 

 times experience in regard to other individuals is due 

 to perfumes and odours emanating from such persons, 

 which act upon us through our olfactory organs without 

 our being conscious of the fact. It seems that we can thus 

 arrive at a probable explanation of the universality of the 

 habit of kissing, and of " what is that thing we call a kiss." 

 It is not consciously used among civilised populations as a 

 deliberate attempt to smell the person kissed, but it 

 nevertheless serves to allow the unconscious exercise of 

 smell-preference, testing, and selection, with which are 

 mingled, more or less frequently, moments of conscious 

 appreciation of the complex of odours appertaining as an 

 individual quality to the person kissed. 



