Grôm

“ Knowing the temper of the rhinoceros, Grôm expected it to fly into a fury and charge upon the fire at once. His mouth opened, indeed, for the yell of warning which should wake the sleepers and send them leaping into the tree. But he checked himself in time. The monster, for once in its life, seemed to be abashed. The curling red flames were too elusive a foe for it. With a grunt of uneasiness, it drew back into the leafage; and in a moment or two Grôm heard the giant bulk crashing off through the jungle at a gallop. ”

“ The sides of the valley were high sheer cliffs, and a steep broad ridge at either end cut it off from the surrounding country. It was towards the lower or southwestern end that the valley floor was dotted thickly with ruined columns, some towering high among the trees, some fallen into heaps of lichen-clad stones. What race reared them none knew. But Grom had hinted fearsomely of a hairy, apish monstrosity dancing loathsomely under the moon to a demoniac piping that induced horror and madness. ”

“ He saw deer of every kind––good swimmers all of them––with immense, rolling herds of buffalo and aurochs, and scattered companies of the terrible siva moose, and some bands of the giant elk, their antlers topping the mimosa thickets. Here and there, lumbering along sullenly as if reluctant to retreat before any peril, journeyed a huge rhinoceros, stopping from time to time for a few hurried mouthfuls of the rich plains grass. But as yet there was not a mammoth in sight––whereat Grôm wondered, as he thought they would have been among the first to dare the crossing of the river. ”

“ When a body which we do not see, is pressed on any part of our tactual organ, do we immediately discover its form,—as immediately, as we are sensible of fragrance, when our organ of smell is in a healthy state, and an odoriferous body is presented to it, or of sound, when a cannon is fired beside us? This we certainly should do, if figure were as direct an object of the sense of touch, as fragrance and sound are of the senses of smell and hearing. ”

“ Thus odour is a kind of invisible vapour or mist from bodies; vapour being a transition from water to air, mist the transition from air to water. Sound, he holds, is a shock produced by the air—a shock through the ears to the brain and blood and penetrating to the soul. Tones are high and low, respectively, when swift and slow; they are in concord when the beginning of the slow tone is like the end of the swift.
Colour, for Plato, is a flame from bodies, a flame whose parts correspond to the organ of vision. ”

“ The color of our skin, for example, is different seen in 125 warm air from what it is in cold, and we could not say what our color really is, only what it is when viewed under each of these conditions. The same sound appears different in rare air from what it is in dense, and aromas are more overpowering in the warm bath and in the sun than they are in the cold air, and a body surrounded by water is light, but by air heavy. ”

“ Each sensation of taste, smell, light, or sound, is a phenomenon of psychological reaction which occurs in the soul when it is teased with a certain degree of energy by nerve-action, which in its turn depends on an outward action; but there is no relation of resemblance between the latter and the sensation it provokes. The ether, which, by its vibrations in unison with the elements of our retina, produces sensations of light in us, has in itself no luminosity. ”

“ But light, heat, whiteness, or coldness, are no more really in them than sickness or pain is in manna. Take away the sensation of them ; let not the eyes see light or colours, nor the ears hear sounds ; let the palate not taste, nor the nose smell, and all colours, tastes, odours, and sounds, as they are such particular ideas, vanish and cease, and are reduced to their causes, i.e. bulk, figure, and motion of parts.
18. The secondary exist in things only as modes of the primary. A piece of manna of a sensible bulk is able to produce in us the idea of a round or square figure ”

“ When the fragrance of a rose, therefore, has been frequently accompanied with the sensations of vision, that arise, when a rose is before us, with the muscular and tactual sensations, that arise on handling it, the mere fragrance, of itself, will afterwards suggest these sensations, and this suggestion is all, which, in the case of smell, instanced by Dr Reid, is termed the perception, as distinguished from the mere sensation. ”

“ We can distinguish this feeling, this consciousness, the sensation of smell, from every other sensation. Smell and Sound are two very different things; so are smell and sight. The smell of a rose is different from the colour of the rose; it is also different from the smoothness of the rose, or the sensation we have by touching the rose.
We not only distinguish the sensations of smell from those of the other senses, but we distinguish the sensations of smell from one another. The smell of a rose is one sensation; the smell of a violet is another. ”

“ Light by which your eyes see—sound by which your ears hear—are different forms of motion by which you are impressed; odours, flavours, &c., are emanations which strike upon your olfactory nerve or touch your palate; these are solely vibratory motions which are transmitted to your brain. You can only appreciate a few of these movements through the senses you possess, principally those of sight and hearing. You, in your simplicity, believe that you see and hear nature? ”

“ You put a rose up to your nose, and the fragrance is pleasant to you. Now what is this fragrance? Is it something that goes up into your nose? You can not see any thing come from the rose. But in reality very fine particles come from it. They are finer than the finest powder. They float every where about in the air, and, as you breathe, they go with the air into your nostrils. Every perfume that you smell is made of such particles. ”

“ We say the sound rolled on, the odor was wafted, the color was printed, our language and our thoughts implying that the sound, the odor, the color, are things, when in reality they are all mere sensations, answering to the touch of physical agents. All sensation is nerve-motion. Outer stimulus, applied to the nerves, causes contractions which, communicating with the brain, give the idea of color or taste or sound. ”

“ There are then found to be five senses of this body. In the eyes is the sight, the hearing in the ears, the smell in the nose, the taste in the mouth, the touch in all the members. We have perception of white and black, and things coloured in whatever way, light and dark, by the sight. Harsh and musical sounds, we have perception of by the hearing. Of sweet and offensive smells, we have perception by the smell. ”

“ There may be a physical reason for the strange connection between the sense of smell and the mind. The olfactory nerve—so my friend, the Professor, tells me—is the only one directly connected with the hemispheres of the brain, the parts in which, as we have every reason to believe, the intellectual processes are performed. To speak more truly, the olfactory "nerve" is not a nerve at all, he says, but a part of the brain, in intimate connection with its anterior lobes. ”

“ If we assume the undulatory theory in the sense of smell, and that particles from all odorous substances, each through their own peculiar vibration or motion, impinge upon the nerves of the nasal cavity, and thus from the peculiarity of movement rather than of substance produce the sense of smell, may we not assume that the nerve is thrown into a peculiar condition, by the motion of the odorous particle, and this condition, repeated through the nerve to the brain, produces the idea of that peculiar smell? ”

“ Shall it then be said that those other qualities also act upon bodies? But all bodies are not impressionable by odour and sound, and those which are so are indefinite and mobile, such as is the air; for the air gives out odour, as if it had been subject to impression. What then is smell but impression of some kind? But smelling is a sentient perception; and the air having been impressed by odour, becomes quickly sensible to us. ”

“ Groome, the brain has two lobes—that is, divisions. These lobes sometimes, without their possessor knowing anything at all about it, work separately. While one works the other, so to speak, sleeps, and vice versâ. This is how the two lobes of your brain have treated you. Ordinarily you are—as you are—the gentleman whose acquaintance I have the honour of making, Mr. Groome. But while one lobe has been sleeping, the other lobe has insisted upon your being that very talented musician whose acquaintance I have also had the honour of making—Mr. Isaac Goad. ”

“ Sound, taste, and smell represent nothing resembling the objects causing them, but extension does; we attribute extension to objects, and without it we cannot conceive them. Sound outside of me is not sound, but only a simple vibration of the air, produced by the vibration of a body. Taste outside of me is not taste, but only a body applied to an organ of which it causes a mechanical or chemical modification. ”

“ And fresh cuttings from kindred substances, whether the fruits of the earth or herb of the field, which God planted to be our daily food, acquire all sorts of colours by their inter-mixture; but red is the most pervading of them, being created by the cutting action of fire and by the impression which it makes on a moist substance; and hence the liquid which circulates in the body has a colour such as we have described. The liquid itself we call blood, which nourishes the flesh and the whole body, whence all parts are watered and empty places filled. ”

“ The knowledge of an objective or material cause of the sensation, on the other hand, is mediate; it is a belief as contradistinguished from an intuition; and it is a belief which, in any given instance of sensation, may, by possibility, be devoid of foundation. For odours, like other sensations, may arise from the occurrence of the appropriate molecular changes in the nerve or in the sensorium, by the operation of a cause distinct from the affection of the sense organ by an odorous body. ”

“ In the superficial expansion of the nerves of hearing, smell, taste, for example, it is not a point merely that is affected, but a number of continuous points, precisely, as in the superficial organ of touch; and if, therefore, the notion of extension in general, or of figure, which is limited extension, arose whenever a part of the nervous expansion was affected in any way, we should derive these notions as much from a taste, or a smell, or a sound, as from any of the configurations or affections of our organ of touch. ”

“ The plants treated by us in these ways are fitly called flowers, presenting as they do a mass of blossoms and exhaling delicious perfumes. They act, mediately or immediately, on the concentrated light of the organization through the nerves of smell, as beautiful sounds through the medium of the ear, or as beautifully harmonised colours through the eye. You will recollect that a modification of concentrated light is supposed to be the link through which the soul communicates its impressions to the brain, on whose divisions it is made to act in electric forms. ”

“ Their oily atoms awaken different sensations in the delicate nerves they touch. The sensation awakened may be due to chemical action induced by them in the system. But whether chemical or physical, the result of their touch is a motion of matter, an impulse communicated to the brain, the sensation of the organ being—the reception of this initiative force being—what we designate as odor. The fragrance of the rose lies, then, in the contractions of special nerves, which thus respond to the touch of the oily particles that are blown against them. ”

“ In the sense organs, the nerve-ends are so modified or changed as to be affected by some particular kind of force or substance. Vibrations of ether affect the eye. Vibrations of air affect the ear. Liquids and solutions affect the sense of taste. Certain substances affect the sense of smell. Certain organs in the skin are affected by low temperatures; others, by high temperatures; others, by mechanical pressure. Similarly, each sense organ in the body is affected by a definite kind of force or substance. ”

“ On the part of the object we find natural immutation, as to place, in sound which is the object of hearing; for sound is caused by percussion and commotion of air: and we find natural immutation by alteration, in odor which is the object of smelling; for in order to exhale an odor, a body must be in a measure affected by heat. On the part of an organ, natural immutation takes place in touch and taste; for the hand that touches something hot becomes hot, while the tongue is moistened by the humidity of the flavored morsel. ”

“ There exists no colour, nor sound, nor odour in the objective world, but there are the vibrations of ether, or the undulations of the air, or the stimuli of the sensory nerves of smell. Colour is nothing but the translation of the stimuli into sensation by the optical nerves, so also sounds by the auditory, and odours by the smelling. ”

“ And next,
Thou mayest see that odour is create
Of larger primal germs than voice, because
It enters not through stony walls, wherethrough
Unfailingly the voice and sound are borne;
Wherefore, besides, thou wilt observe 'tis not
So easy to trace out in whatso place
The smelling object is. For, dallying on
Along the winds, the particles cool off,
And then the scurrying messengers of things
Arrive our senses, when no longer hot.
So dogs oft wander astray, and hunt the scent. ”