260 SENSATION AND THE SENSIFEROUS ORGANS. 



another, because we feel pain when a thorn pricks the 

 finger. 



Even the common- sense philosopher, par excellence, 

 says of smell : " It appears to be a simple and original 

 affection or feeling of the mind, altogether inexplicable 

 and unaccountable. It is indeed impossible that it can 

 be in any body : it is a sensation, and a sensation can 

 only be in a sentient thing." * 



That which is true of muskiness is true of every 

 other odour. Lavender-smell, clove-smell, garlic-smell, 

 are, like " muskiness," names of states of consciousness, 

 and have no existence except as such. But, in ordinary 

 language, we speak of all these odours as if they were 

 independent entities residing in lavender, cloves, and 

 garlic ; and it is not without a certain struggle that the 

 false metaphysic of so-called common sense, thus in- 

 grained in us, is expelled. 



For the present purpose, it is unnecessary to inquire 

 into the origin of our belief in external bodies, or into 

 that of the notion of causation. Assuming the existence 

 of an external world, there is no difficulty in obtaining 

 experimental proof that, as a general rule, olfactory sen- 



* " An Inquiry into the Human Mind on the Principles of Common 

 Sense," chap. ii. 2. Reid affirms that " it is genius, and not the want of 

 it, that adulterates philosophy, and fills it with error and false theory ; " 

 and no doubt his own lucubrations are free from the smallest taint of the 

 impurity to which he objects. But, for want of something more than that 

 sort of " common sense," which is very common and a little dull, the con- 

 temner of genius did not notice that the admission here made knocks so big 

 a hole in the bottom of " common sense philosophy," that nothing can save 

 it from foundering in the dreaded abyss of Idealism. 



