256 BIOLOGICAL ASPECTS OF HUMAN PROBLEMS 



first or olfactory, the nerve of smell, is atrophic in 

 man and can subserve no creative art, although in 

 dogs it is the basis of wonderful feats of scent, and 

 even in man may subserve purposes compounded 

 of useful and aesthetic qualities. The fifth and 

 ninth nerves also supplying the sensations of taste, 

 although susceptible of a training which permits 

 a high degree of sensory discrimination, e. g. it is 

 shown in the tea-taster's art, hardly rise to the dig- 

 nity of subserving a productive art. 



The sensory cranial nerves and their central 

 connections, however, are not the sole basis of the 

 expression of the beautiful, for in the muscular sense 

 and the joint sensations, based on nerves of general 

 rather than special sense, we see the basis of a primi- 

 tive and exquisite art, the art of dancing. This 

 art, perhaps the simplest and most generally intelli- 

 gible, owes its general character in part to the wide 

 distribution and nonspecific nature of the nervous 

 mechanisms on which it depends, and in part to the 

 noteworthy fact that both time and space relations 

 are equally prominent in its expression. But as the 

 muscular and joint nerves have no distance receptors, 

 i.e. no mechanism for establishing contacts with phe- 

 nomena at a distance from the body, the dancing 

 art is greatly limited in content and meaning, as 

 compared with painting and music. 



The nerves of smell, of taste, and of sexual sensation 

 need here only be mentioned as the instruments of 

 sensory experiences capable of becoming organized 



