THE ANCIENT GREEK PSYCHOLOGY

OF SMELLING

Alcmacon.

§ 1. WE have little direct information respectin maeon's psychological theory of the sense of that remains is the following, contained in tw which I extract, the one from Theophrastus the c the late compilation of Aëtius.

'He taught that a person smells by mean: c drawing the inhaled air upwards to the ratory process1.' Not the nostrils alone, there in connexion with the brain form the olfacto 'He held that the authoritative princip -has its seat in the brain; that, therein means of this organ which draws in the itself in the process of respiration e direct references to Alcmaeon, there to him bearing on the same s Phaedo, reviewing the history of m ment, tells his friends that in interested in psychological quer one which presented itself wa that furnishes us with the sense smelling. The various face this passage are sufficient mentioning each he is fir The sopher. The

th persons ch the introocess in which the skin operate o that part of the are agents.

359, p. 1388.

, p. 177; Karsten, Emped., η· διὸ καὶ μάλιστα ὀσφραίνεσθαι

the filling and emptying of the clepsydra. 275-99, and Burnet's version, Early Greek

o in principle adopts Empedocles' theory of

respiration.

What is the

apparatus

the breath

for the

olfactory

sensation?

in the

Modern

over this

sensory

tion of the brain was characteristic of Alcmaeon. The expression rò nyeμоviкóv in Aëtius betrays the lateness of the writer; for it only came into vogue with the Stoic school. We have, however, the authority of Theophrastus for the statement that Alcmaeon regarded the brain as the great organizing centre of sensation. All the senses he regarded as somehow connected with the brain'.'

§ 2. In these meagre statements is contained all that we internal know of Alcmaeon's psychology of smelling. They amount with which only to an expression of what ordinary observation might is brought suggest respecting it. Yet even in this short flight of in contact speculation there was room for divergence of opinion. purpose of Every one felt convinced that the process of respiration is largely instrumental to the olfactory sense, and also that The object it is so in virtue of its connexion with some internal of smell, odour, not apparatus. Thinkers disagreed as to what the latter was. discussed Alcmaeon, for what reasons we are not informed, supposed remains of it to be the brain. Aristotle, as we shall see, firmly held Alcmaeon. the contrary opinion, that the internal seat of the olfactory physiology sense (as well as the other senses) was not the brain, but helpless the heart—or the region of the heart. We have no information as to Alcmaeon's views respecting the object of this sense, odour, or the manner of its generation as a physical fact. But before we express our disappointment with Alcmaeon's shortcomings on this subject, let us reflect that even now very little more, of any essential import, is known than the brief statements he has given us contain. Anatomy has, of course, enabled modern psychologists to speak with a fullness impossible to the Greeks of the structure of the olfactory apparatus, but as regards the olfactory function itself, and the exact manner of its performance, it has little to teach. Experiments have shown that sensations of smell, like other sensations, may be excited in us without the presence of odorous objects in the ordinary way, by means of other stimuli. But for the explanation of this sense itself, we are still left with such

function:

modern physics, over its object.

1 Theophr. de Sens. 26 ἁπάσας δὲ τὰς αἰσθήσεις συνηρτῆσθαί πως πρὸς τὸν ἐγκέφαλον.

statements, as that 'particles of odoriferous matters present in the inspired air, passing through the lower nasal chambers, diffuse into the upper nasal chambers, and falling on the olfactory epithelium produce sensory impulses, which ascending to the brain, give rise to sensations of smell.' In this sentence, from the pen of Sir Michael Foster, introducing the subject, it is curious to observe how much might pass for a mere expansion of the brief description of the same facts left us by Alcmaeon1. Modern physics is as helpless to explain odour as physiology to explain olfactory function.

Empedocles.

his Organ and of function of smelling. Who have keenest

of olfactory

'Colds'

§ 3. The remains of Empedocles, except as regards theory of anoрpoaí, show us little more than those Alcmaeon to elucidate the psychology of smelling. The act of smelling (he said) takes place by means the respiration; hence those persons have the keenest sense sense of smell in whom the movement of inhalation is most interfere with the energetic 2.' 'Empedocles holds that the sense of odour is keenness introduced with and by the respiration actuated from the of it, as it is depenlungs; that accordingly, when the respiratory process is dent on laboured, at such times, owing to its roughness, we do not respiraperceive smells when we inhale, as happens with persons suffering from catarrhs3. Respiration, on which the introduction of odour and smelling depends, is a process in which the mouth and lungs and also the pores of the skin operate alternately; smelling being incidental to that part of the process in which the mouth and lungs are agents.

1 Cf. Foster, Text Book of Physiology, § 859, p. 1388.

2 Theophr. de Sens. § 9; Diels, Vors., p. 177; Karsten, Emped., pp. 480–3 ὄσφρησιν δὲ γίνεσθαι τῇ ἀναπνοῇ· διὸ καὶ μάλιστα ὀσφραίνεσθαι τούτους οἷς σφοδροτάτη τοῦ ἄσθματος ἡ κίνησις.

3 Aëtius, iv. 17. 2, Diels, Dox., p. 407, Vors., p. 181 'ЕμжεdокλĤs tais ἀναπνοαῖς ταῖς ἀπὸ τοῦ πνεύμονος συνεισκρίνεσθαι τὴν ὀσμήν· ὅταν γοῦν ἡ ἀναπνοὴ βαρεῖα γένηται, κατὰ τραχύτητα (sc. τῆς ἀναπνοῆς) μὴ συναισθάνεσθαι, ὡς ἐπὶ τῶν ῥευματιζομένων.

• Empedocles illustrated by the filling and emptying of the clepsydra. Cf. the verses in Karsten, 275-99, and Burnet's version, Early Greek Philosophy, p. 230. Plato in principle adopts Empedocles' theory of respiration, Tim. 79 A-E.

tion.

tus criti

cles

does not

creatures

smell

not respire.

Some absurdities would

follow if

Theophras- § 4. 'As regards the other senses, how are we to apply the cizes Em. principle “ that like is discerned by like”? . . . For it is not pedocles' by sound that we discern sound, nor by odour that we disprinciple of similia cern odour, and so on.... When sound is ringing in the similibus ears, when savours are already affecting the taste, when an as applied to olfactory odour is already occupying the olfactory sense-at such sense. times the senses each and all are dulled, and the more Empedoso the greater the quantity of the cognate objects which explain the happen to be in their organs. His (sc. Empedocles') exfact that planation of the sense of smelling is absurd. For, in the first place, the cause he has assigned for it is not sufficiently which do general (où koɩýv), since there are some creatures which possess the sense of smell, but do not respire at all. Again, it is childish to say, as he does, that persons smell most acutely who inhale the breath in greatest amount (roùs #λelotov èñɩomwμérovs); for respiring is of no avail for this purpose if the sense is not in a healthy condition (un vylaivoúσns), or is not, so to speak, (àvewyμévns пws) open. There are many persons who (no matter how much they inhale) are incause capitated (Tεηpŵσbai) for smelling, and have no perception of smelling whatever of odour. Moreover, those whose (oi dúonvooɩ) directly, breathing is distressed, or who are ill (ovoÛvтes), or sleeppedocles ing (κaßeúdovtes), should, on Empedocles' theory, perceive thought. odours more keenly than others, as they inhale most air. The contrary, however, is the case. That the act of respiration is not directly (κað' avró) the cause of smelling, but only indirectly (karà ovμßeßŋkós), is both evident from the case of the other animals (i.e. those which do not respire yet have this sense), and is further proved by the pathological states just referred to 2.'

the theory

of Empedocles

were true. Respiration only

indirectly

-not

as Em

Odour, according

§ 5. Most odour emanates,' says Empedocles, 'from

...

1 Theophr. de Sens. § 19; Diels, Vors., p. 179 тà dè TepÌ TÀS ἄλλας αἰσθήσεις πῶς κρίνωμεν τῷ ὁμοίῳ ; οὔτε γὰρ ψόφῳ τὸν ψόφον, οὔτ ̓ ὀσμῇ τὴν ὀσμὴν οὔτε τοῖς ἄλλοις τοῖς ὁμογενέσιν . . . ἦχον δὲ ἐνόντος ἐν ὠσὶν ἢ χυλῶν ἐν γεύσει καὶ ὀσμῆς ἐν ὀσφρήσει κωφότεραι πᾶσαι γίνονται καὶ μᾶλλον ὅσῳ ἂν πλήρεις ὦσι τῶν ὁμοίων.

2 The above, as also the following, criticism is determined by the Aristotelean theory of smelling. Theophr. de Sens. §§ 21-2; Diels, Vors., p. 179.

bodies that are fine in texture and of light weight' to Empedocles, (Theophr. de Sens. § 9). In reply to this Theophrastus comes by denies that light bodies are especially odorous. 'It is (áπóppocaι) not true, either, that the bodies which most affect the tions.

emana

Theo

sense of smell are the light bodies; the truth is that phrastus if we are to smell them, there must be odour in them to criticizes his theory begin with; for air and fire are the lightest of all, but yet of odour. do not excite the sense of odour1.' The objective odour comes, according to Empedocles, in the form of anоpрoaí from the odoriferous bodies. Such is the scent which dogs follow. The hound 'searches with his nostrils for the particles from the limbs and bodies of the beasts, and for such whiffs of scent from their feet as they leave on the tender grass. But,' replies Theophrastus, if wasting is a consequence of emanation from a substance (and Empedocles uses this very fact of the wasting of things

1 Theophr. de Sens. § 22; Diels, Vors., p. 179.

2 Plut. de Curios. 11, Quaest. Nat. 23 Diels, Vors., p. 211; Karsten, Emped. p. 253:

κέρματα θηρείων μελέων μυκτηρσιν ἐρευνῶν

(πνεύματά θ' ὅσσ ̓ ἀπέλειπε ποδῶν ἁπαλῇ περὶ ποίᾳ.

This is Diels' reading. He adopts Buttmann's képμara for the réppara of Plut. de Curios., the kéμpara of Quaest. Nat.-the inconsistency and obscurity of which show the text to be corrupt. By képμaтa Empedocles denotes not 'fissa ferarum ungula as Lucretius (vide infra) seems to render, but the ȧrópрocal—the material particles which are the proximate object of, and which stimulate, the sense of smell. This seems better than (a) to read with Karsten répμara λexéwv=‘cubilia extrema, ultimi. ferarum recessus'; or (b), with Sturz, to interpret TÉPμATA μeλéwv As='extremitates membrorum,' i. e. ‘pedes,' i. e. 'pedum vestigia'; or (c) to accept, with Schneider, κéμμaтa as a derivative of Keiμaι (which would be impossible)='cubilia '; or finally (d) to follow Stein (Emped., p. 70) in adopting réλuara (Duebn.)='the soles of the feet,' or 'vestigia.' Plutarch, Quaest. Nat., explains the meaning to be that the dogs τὰς ἀπορροὰς ἀναλαμβάνουσιν, ἃς ἐναπολείπει τὰ θηρία τῇ ὕλῃ. Lucretius had the lines before him when he wrote: tum fissa ferarum ungula quo tulerit gressum promissa canum vis ducit,' de Rer. Nat. iv. 680: which reads as if he translated képμara (keipw) by ‘fissa ungula.' (πVEÚμаTá e') is Diels' supplement of the words quoted from Empedocles by Alexander, who denies Empedocles' theory of odours being dropponi, asserting that neither odour nor colour can be dispersed (diaσñâσdaı) in material particles, as Empedocles' line of reasoning would imply.