FRAGRANT LEAVES V. SWEET-SCENTED FLOWERS. 143 



physics and physiology must be studied together, since the end 

 is greater in importance than are the means.* 



4. Sight. — It is a sad thing to lose one's sight, and yet the 

 blind have many compensations ; and it is a well-known fact 

 that, other things being equal, the senses of touch and of hearing 

 and of smelling, and consequently _ of tasting, are very much 

 improved. 



One object I had more especially in view in preparing this 

 paper was to advocate the growth of sweet-scented flowers, and 

 especially sweet-scented hardy flowers and foliage, in or around 

 all of our institutions for the blind. This is no new gospel, 

 since the late Miss Frances J. Hope, of Edinburgh, inaugurated 

 the giving of sweet-smelling leaves and flowers to the blind of 

 her native city long before even ordinary Flower Missions were 

 begun and carried out elsewhere. She used to say, " Give what 

 flowers and leaves you like to your sharp-eyed friends, or the 

 poor who can see ; but it is almost an insult to offer a blind 

 pauper a gaudy flower without a perfume." Miss Hope was one 

 of the first to observe and record the fact that blind people 

 almost invariably touch or feel the flowers before they sniff at 

 them. Miss Hope was a woman of intellect and mettle, and one 

 can fancy or imagine her indignation when some candid friend 

 suggested that " a bottle of perfume would go farther, and last 

 longer among her blind friends, and so save her from ' wasting 

 flowers on the blind,' " and thus enable her to keep the flowers 

 for the seeing sick and poor ! 



5. Hearing or Sound. — On our power of hearing depends 

 all enjoyment of music, bird song, and other sweet sounds. 

 Even speech itself, that master key of the human race, depends 

 to a great extent on our power of hearing, though speech may 

 be seen by the deaf just as writing is felt by the blind. Of 

 hearing, however, we need say no more, since it has practically 

 nothing to do with our present subject. 



Close Interconnection of the Senses. 



But we may just glance at the connection that exists between 



the so-called five senses, our instincts as opposed to our reason. 



* The great Swedish naturalist Carl Linne, indeed, did pay some 

 attention to plant odours, which he roughly divided into seven groups, or 

 classes, three only of which wore pleasant, viz. the aromatic, the fragrant, 

 and the ambrosial. Linne also called the night-scented flowers flores 

 tristes, because generally of a dull green or brownish hue. 



