284 MEMORIES OF MY LIFE 



instantly through long habit say "five." Or if we 

 see those figures, we have a mental image, and 

 write 5. Surely, Sound and Sight-symbols are not 

 the only Sense-symbols by which arithmetic could 

 be performed. 



Leaving aside Colour, Touch, and Taste, I 

 determined to try Smells. The scents chiefly used 

 were peppermint, camphor, carbolic acid, ammonia, 

 and aniseed. Each scent was poured profusely on 

 cotton wool loosely packed in a brass tube, with a 

 nozzle at one end. The other end was pushed tightly 

 into a caoutchouc tube, whose free end was stopped 

 with a cork. A squeeze of the tube caused a whiff 

 of scented air to pass through the nozzle. When 

 the squeeze was relaxed, fresh air was sucked in 

 and became scented by the way. I taught myself 

 to associate two whiffs of peppermint with one of 

 camphor, three of peppermint with one of carbolic 

 acicl, and so on. Next, I practised small sums in 

 addition with the scents themselves, afterwards with 

 the mere imagination of them. I banished without 

 difficulty all visual and auditory associations, and 

 finally succeeded perfectly. Thus I fully convinced 

 myself of the possibility of doing sums in simple 

 addition with considerable speed and accuracy, solely 

 by imagined scents. I did not care to give further 

 time to this, as I only wanted to prove a possibility, 

 but did make a few experiments with Taste, that 

 promised equally well, using salt, sugar, quinine, and 

 citric acid. 



I have once in my life experienced the influence 

 of Personal Ascendancy in that high degree which 



