Now since bloodless
animals do not breathe, they must, it might be argued, have some novel
sense not reckoned among the usual five. Our reply must be that this
is impossible, since it is scent that is perceived; a sense that
apprehends what is odorous and what has a good or bad odour cannot
be anything but smell. Further, they are observed to be
deleteriously effected by the same strong odours as man is, e.g.
bitumen, sulphur, and the like. These animals must be able to smell
without being able to breathe. The probable explanation is that in man
the organ of smell has a certain superiority over that in all other
animals just as his eyes have over those of hard-eyed animals. Man's
eyes have in the eyelids a kind of shelter or envelope, which must
be shifted or drawn back in order that we may see, while hardeyed
animals have nothing of the kind, but at once see whatever presents
itself in the transparent medium. Similarly in certain species of
animals the organ of smell is like the eye of hard-eyed animals,
uncurtained, while in others which take in air it probably has a
curtain over it, which is drawn back in inhalation, owing to the
dilating of the veins or pores. That explains also why such animals
cannot smell under water; to smell they must first inhale, and that
they cannot do under water.
Smells come from what is dry as flavours from what is moist.
Consequently the organ of smell is potentially dry.
10
What can be tasted is always something that can be touched, and just
for that reason it cannot be perceived through an interposed foreign
body, for touch means the absence of any intervening body.
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