90 A LOW SUBJECT 



mental faculties have, like the sense of smell, ceased 

 to be of any use to us. 



It is not literally true that the books say nothing 

 on the subject; they do say, or those I have con- 

 sulted say, that it is an obscure subject, that the 

 sense of smell is a low sense compared with sight 

 and hearing, that it may be classed with taste, that 

 smell is, in fact, " taste at a distance," that when you 

 look into it you find you have got hold of a rather 

 low subject which had better be dropped. That's 

 the sum and essence of the wisdom on the subject 

 contained in the books. 



As to the physiology of the subject, you can have 

 as much as you want so long as you are satisfied 

 to study the organ and to know nothing about the 

 function. Perhaps not quite as much as you want, 

 since we are told that it is not yet known if the sense 

 of smell depends upon physical or chemical processes. 

 But what they do tell us is wonderful enough; for it 

 is the fact that these " nimble emanations," these 

 infinitesimal scent particles, do not, as in the case 

 of the sense of taste, come directly in contact with 

 the nerves of smell, but indirectly, through a medium. 

 The nerves exist, or live in, or under, a liquid, and 

 when the scent particle falls into this liquid, it dis- 

 solves, thus making an infusion, as it were, which 

 the nerve tastes. One might compare the bed of 

 nerves forming the olfactories to plants — watercresses, 

 for example, growing in their water-bed, as we are 

 accustomed to see them in cultivation — and the scent 

 particles to snowflakes falling upon and dissolving 



