Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 15.djvu/102

92 arched chambers certain delicate plates of bone project, and these, as well as a considerable part of the partition between the two chambers, are covered by a fine, soft, moist membrane. It is to this Schneiderian, or olfactory, membrane that odorous bodies must obtain direct access if they are to give rise to their appropriate sensations; and it is upon the relatively large surface which the olfactory membrane offers that we must seek for the seat of the organ of the olfactory sense. The only essential part of that organ consists of a multitude of minute, rod-like bodies, set perpendicularly to the surface of the membrane, and forming a part of the cellular coat, or epithelium, which covers the olfactory membrane, as the epidermis covers the skin. In the case of the olfactory sense, there can be no doubt that the Democritic hypothesis, at any rate for such odorous substances as musk, has a good foundation. Infinitesimal particles of musk fly off from the surface of the odorous body, and, becoming diffused through the air, are carried into the nasal passages, and thence into the olfactory chambers, where they come into contact with the filamentous extremities of the delicate olfactory epithelium.

But this is not all. The "mind" is not, so to speak, upon the other side of the epithelium. On the contrary, the inner ends of the olfactory cells are connected with nerve-fibers, and these nerve-fibers, passing into the cavity of the skull, at length end in a part of the brain, the olfactory sensorium. It is certain that the integrity of each, and the physical interconnection of all these three structures, the epithelium of the sensory organ, the nerve-fibers, and the sensorium, are essential conditions of ordinary sensation. That is to say, the air in the olfactory chambers may be charged with particles of musk; but, if either the epithelium, or the nerve-fibers, or the sensorium is injured, or physically disconnected from one another, sensation will not arise. Moreover, the epithelium may be said to be receptive, the nerve-fibers transmissive, and the sensorium sensifacient. For, in the act of smelling, the particles of the odorous substance produce a molecular change (which Hartley was in all probability right in terming a vibration) in the epithelium, and this change, being transmitted to the nerve-fibers, passes along them with a measurable velocity, and-finally reaching the sensorium, is immediately followed by the sensation.

Thus, modern investigation supplies a representative of the Epicurean simulacra in the volatile particles of the musk; but it also gives us the stamp of the particles on the olfactory epithelium, without any transmission of matter, as the equivalent of the Aristotelian "form"; while, finally, the modes of motion of the molecules of the olfactory cell, of the nerve, and of the cerebral sensorium, which are Hartley's vibrations, may stand very well for a double of the "intentional species" of the schoolmen. And this last remark is not intended merely to suggest a fanciful parallel; for. if the cause of the sensation is, as analogy suggests, to be sought in the mode of motion of the object of sense,