| Show natures nature s wise move m in dulling mans senses we often hear bear it said that our I 1 senses of touch smell sight and hearing are inferior to those ot of animals we are told that our remote ancestors had senses infinitely more acute than our own and that in course of time they have become gradually dulled this Is true and it Is a good thin thing that it Is so C civilization irli iza if on has dulled our hearing reduced our powers of vision it limited batted our sense of smell and withdrawn to a great extent our ability to perceive by touch if these things had not happened civilization would not exist it if we were suddenly to receive back tho the keen senses possessed tens of thousands of years ago by those ancestors of ours who were neither quite brute beasts nor yet quite human a state of chaos would follow our life today entails an enormous amount of noise trains thunder along our railways steam hisses from the boilers of factories tram cars buses motors and horse drawn vehicles rumble and rattle through our streets we cannot even move silently like the animals when we walk we place hard bard soled shoes upon our feet and instead of moving over a silent carpet of turf moss or leaves we clatter as we walk upon stone pavements or macadamized roads we have grown so used to all these things that we scarcely notice them but it if we could really hear the noise of a or even of a small village would be so appalling to our nerves that we could not endure them we should have to desert our towns and return to the wilds suppose for a moment that we were given microscopic eyes our eyes now see nothing but fairly large objects to them a glass of water from a tap or a well looks clear fresh and inviting could they see it properly quenching ones thirst would be a process too horrible to contemplate for they would perceive millions of living organisms in the glass tome some moving about rapidly others remaining at rest but all repulsive puls lve what would happen it our sense of touch were perfect as that of some borne of the lower louver animals such as the tiny hydra which lives in ponds or the sea anemone of rocky pools on the shore we could not bear our clothes for an instant we should feel that our bodies were covered with garments made not from soft wool but from the spines of the hedgehog or the quills of the porcupine we could not endure our clothes nor could we endure without them until perhaps twenty or thirty thousand years had made us used to these things the biting winds the snowstorms snow storms or the rain that nature sends picture the consequences if the powers of smell which once belonged to the human race were restored there can be no civilization without swells smells to warn warm ourselves we burn coal and other fuel producing smells which we do not notice though it if our noses aises were perfect they would be loathsome in our houses there must always be tiny escapes of gas which luckily our modern modem noses do not detect nor are they offended by smell of the wool or cotton of which clothes are made or the leather of our footwear and the thousand and one other odors which would become intolerable london tit bits |
