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CHAPTER 13 444B7–445B2 444b7 It is clear that the ones that do not breathe have sensation of the odorous . For both fish and the whole class of insects keenly sense from a distance because of the nutritive species of odor, although they are very far from their proper food. So do bees in relation to honey; and the genus of small ants some call “hexapods ”; and, among marine animals, the purple-fish. And many other such animals acutely sense their food because of odor. 444b15 But what they sense it with is not so clear. Therefore someone might raise the difficulty what it is they sense odor with, since smelling takes place in all animals that do breathe in one and the same way: for this is what seems to happen in all animals that do breathe, but none of these animals breathe, and yet they do sense. Unless there is some other sense besides the five? But this is impossible : for the odorous is the object of the sense of smell, and the odorous is what they sense. 444b21 But perhaps not in the same way. In the ones that breathe, the breath removes something that lies over as a covering, which is why they do not sense when they are not breathing. But in the ones that do not breathe this is absent . It is similar with the eyes. Some animals have eyelids, and when these are not opened they cannot see at all. But animals that have hard eyes do not have these, and so they do not need anything to open them; rather, they see immediately by the faculty in them. 444b28 Likewise, none of the other animals disdains what is of itself foul with respect to odor, unless something happens to be injurious, and they are injured by such things in the same way. Just as human beings suffer cold in the head from coal-smoke, and are often injured by it, and are injured by the power of sulfur, so other animals also avoid these because of the affection. But they do not care about the foulness itself in itself—although many growing things have foul odors—but only whether it affects the taste or the food. 445a4 The senses exist in an odd number, and an odd number has a middle. The sense for smelling seems to be a middle between the tactile senses, touch and taste, and those that sense through something else, sight and hearing. Thus the 109 odorous is an affection of nourishment; the objects of the former senses are in the same genus. But it is also in the genus of the visible and the audible; thus things are smelled both in air and in water. So the odorous is something common to both; it is both in the genus of the tangible, and in that of the transparent and the audible. Therefore odorous enchymous dryness in moistness and fluidity is reasonably compared to a tincture and a wash. Let this much be said, then, about how we should speak of species of the odorous, and how we should not. 445a16 What some Pythagoreans say is not reasonable: they say that some animals are nourished by odors. 445a17 For, first, we see that food must be composite, for what is nourished is also non-simple. This is also why a superfluity of food is produced, whether inside , or, in the case of plants, outside. Moreover, water alone is not going to nourish by itself, for what is going to build up has to be something bodily. Moreover, it is much less reasonable that air should become bodily. 445a23 In addition to this, we see that all animals have a place that is able to receive food, from which, after the food enters, the body receives it. But the part for the odorous is in the head, and odor enters with the breath, and so goes to the place for breathing. It is clear, then, that the odorous as such does not contribute to nourishment. 445a29 But it is clear that it does contribute to health, both from observation and from what has been said. Thus the odorous is to health what flavor, in the nourishing part, is to nourishment. 445b1 Let this be the determination, then, with respect to each sensitive part. Commentary 444b7 After the Philosopher has shown that men and certain other animals smell by breathing, here he inquires into the way non-breathing animals smell...

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