Page:The Quimby Manuscripts.djvu/258

254 It is the mystery or power that has troubled the wisdom of this world to solve. Solve this problem and you give a knowledge to man that the world has always admitted but not understood. To understand the phenomenon is to go back to the First Cause and see what man was. We must go back of language to find the cause that prompted man. So let us pass back of language and we see living beings going round like beasts, not seeming to have any way of communicating with each other. Then each acted on his own responsibility, eating and drinking, as it pleased himself. Now, the desire for food prompted the mind, and as food has a sort of odor that arises from it, man, like the beast, was drawn to the odor from a desire to have this sensation gratified, so that the odor attracted the man like the beast, not by sight but by smell. Here is one sensation, but with no name. It is the same in man and beast, each eats and is satisfied. As they eat taste comes. This opens the mind to see what the thing is; this brings sight, or knowledge. So they go on until all the faculties are developed. As the faculty of smell was of more importance than sight it was the one most desired. For it not only attracted the animal to the thing smelt but also warned him of the danger of being destroyed, so that all animals cultivate this sense for their safety. So by experience all animals learned to keep clear of each other by the peculiar faculty of smell. As they associated sight with the odor, then when the odor came in contact with their other senses they would create the thing contained in the odor. If it was an odor from some living thing that they were afraid of they would fly or run until they were free from their enemy. So little by little the wild beast settled down to a basis that gave each a faculty to counteract some other faculty in another. The lion depended on his smell and so did all animals who were inferior to their enemies, so that if the lion imitated some other animal, for instance if quick in his motions he would not be so acute in his smell, so the victim could keep out of the lion's way and still be in his sight. The atmosphere of the lion was certain death to the other animals, so that their fright threw off an odor that did not attract the lion until the object of his prey came in contact with his sight. So all things went on in this way and man was at the mercy of the wild beast, his sense of smell was as acute as that of the animal.