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110
ARISTOTLE ON THE
[BK. II.

distinguished from them all by the accuracy of his Touch; and to this he is indebted for being of all the most intelligent. As proof of which, individuals of the human race are according to the constitution of this sense and nothing else, clever or dull for those with hard flesh are slow, and those, on the contrary, with soft flesh are quick of understanding.

As one savour is sweet and another bitter, so it is with odours; but some bodies impart an analogous savour and odour, impart, I mean, a sweet odour and a sweet savour, while other bodies give out their contraries. Some odours equally with savours are termed pungent, sour, and oily, but, as we have already explained, owing to their not being so distinguishable by us as savours, odours have derived their appellations from these, on account of the similarity of the objects from which they both proceed. Thus, the odour from saffron and honey is called sweet, that from thyme and other herbs of the kind pungent, and so for other bodies and odours.

There is a close analogy between the other senses and the hearing: for as it is sensible of the audible and the inaudible, so is vision of the visible and invisible, and smell of the odorous and the inodorous, and by inodorous is meant whatever is either altogether without odour, or has but a very faint odour; and a sense analogous to this is attached to the term insapid.