Page:Dan McKenzie - Aromatics and the Soul.pdf/71

 SMELL AND SPEECH

the effect of odour upon the mind is largely concealed is further illustrated by the curious fact that our native language does not possess a terminology descriptive of smells. We never name an odour ; we only say it has a “smell like” something or another. As a matter of fact, the same remark was made regarding French by P. P. Poncelet as long ago as 1755.

In this defect smell is unique among the senses. Even the sense that governs equilibration, of which the consciousness in normal conditions is never aware, has furnished us with “giddy” and “dizzy.”

Vision is represented by hundreds of words. We have, for instance, names not only for the primary colours red, yellow, and blue, but also for many of their combinations. (In these remarks we are not including the modern names given to the many shades of the synthetic colours.)

If we take red as an example, we find scarlet, crimson, vermilion, and pink. This colour, indeed, is ranked above all others in the vulgar Rh