VI 



The idea of unconscious smelling and the light it lends — Effect 

 of rest on nerves of smell : in caverns ; at sea ; on mountains 

 — Character of a dog's smell — A friend's surprising experi- 

 ence — Racial smell — Smell a low subject — Physiology — 

 Man-smelling by savages — Atavism and a man whose nose 

 never deceived him — Cheek-smelling by Mosquito Indians — 

 Case from Dugald Stewart — Estimating character by scent 

 — The dog's nose in judging character — Effect of human 

 odour on animals — Wolves in the Zoological Gardens — 

 Wolf-children — The jaguar's beneficent impulses — Bear and 

 puma — The mystery explained. 



YEARS ago — fifteen or twenty, I believe — 

 in reading an article in a periodical on the 

 progress of Science, or some such matter, 

 I came upon a brief account of a notion put 

 forward by a German scientist about the sense 

 of smell in man. This was that the odours of 

 which we are unconscious do yet serve to inform 

 the mind. Thus, when we conceive a dislike or 

 repulsion to any person, a stranger to us, it is because 

 he has a bad character or disposition or is for some 

 reason antipathetic to us, and this is revealed to us 

 by his smell. 



This notion appeared to me unbelievable and even 

 somewhat fantastic, as I was then quite convinced 

 that it is solely the expression of a new face which 

 reveals the character of the person. Consequently 

 I thought no more about this theory, which does not 



83 



