COSMIC PHILOSOPHY 



frequent, but also to diminish the average range 

 of vision in persons who are not myopic. There 

 may very likely have been a similar, though less 

 conspicuous and less carefully observed, decrease 

 in the range of hearing. And the sense of smell, 

 which is so marvellously efficient in the majority 

 of mammals and in many savages, is to us of 

 little use as an aid in effecting correspondences 

 in space. 



In the case also of those simpler indirect 

 adjustments which would seem, perhaps, to in- 

 volve the use of the cerebellum chiefly, we have 

 partially lost certain powers possessed by sav- 

 ages and lower animals. There are few things 

 in which civilized men diflPer among themselves 

 more conspicuously than in the recollection of 

 places, the identification of landmarks, and the 

 ability to reach a distant point through crooked 

 streets without losing the way. But in these re- 

 spects the most sagacious of us are but bunglers 

 compared with primitive men or with dogs and 

 foxes. Few things are more striking than the 

 unerring instinct with which the Indian makes 

 his way through utterly trackless forests, sel- 

 dom stopping to make up his mind, and tak- 

 ing in at a single glance whole groups of signs 

 which to his civilized companion are inappre- 

 ciable. The loss of this power of coordination, 

 like the decrease in the range of the senses, is 

 undoubtedly due to disuse, the circumstances 



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