An Unknown Sense 



touch? Physics and chemistry, young 

 though they be, already declare to us that 

 the dark unknown contains an enormous 

 harvest, in comparison with which our 

 scientific sheaf is the 'merest penury. 

 A new sense, perhaps that which dwells 

 in the grotesquely exaggerated nose of 

 the Rhinolophus, 1 perhaps that which dwells 

 in the antennae of the Ammophila, would 

 open to our search a world which our 

 physical structure no doubt condemns us to 

 leave for ever unexplored. Cannot certain 

 properties of matter, which have no percept- 

 ible action upon us, find a receptive echo in 

 animals, which are differently equipped? 



When Spallanzani, 2 after blinding some 

 Bats, released them in a room converted into 

 a maze by means of cords stretched in every 

 direction and of heaped-up brambles, how 

 were those animals able to find their way 

 about, to fly quickly, to move to and fro, from 

 end to end of the room, without hitting the 

 interposed articles? What sense analogous 

 to any of ours guided them? Would some 

 one tell me and, above all, make me under- 



J The Horseshoe Bat. Translator's Note. 

 2 Lazaro Spallanzani (1729-1799), the great Italian 

 naturalist. Translator's Note. 

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