The sense of smell also varies according to differences in 51
animals, since even our sense of smell is affected when we have
taken cold and the phlegm is too abundant, and also when parts
around our head are flooded with too much blood, for we then
avoid odors that seem agreeable to others, and feel as if we
were injured by them. Since also some of the animals are moist
by nature and full of secretions, and others are very full of
blood, and still others have either yellow or black bile
prevalent and abundant, it is reasonable because of this to
think that odorous things appear different to each one of them.
And it is the same in regard to things of taste, as some 52
animals have the tongue rough and dry and others very moist. We
too, when we have a dry tongue in fever, think that whatever we
take is gritty, bad tasting, or bitter; and this we experience
because of the varying degrees of the humors that are said to be
in us. Since, then, different animals have different organs for
taste, and a greater or less amount of the various humors, it
can well be that they form different ideas of the same objects
as regards their taste. For just as the same food on being 53
absorbed becomes in some places veins, in other places arteries,
and in other places bones, nerves, or other tissues, showing
different power according to the difference of the parts
receiving it; just as the same water absorbed by the trees
becomes in some places bark, in other places branches, and in
other places fruit, perhaps a fig or a pomegranate, or something
else; just as the breath of the musician, one and the same 54
when blown into the flute, becomes sometimes a high tone and
sometimes a low one, and the same pressure of the hand upon the
lyre sometimes causes a deep tone and sometimes a high tone, so
it is natural to suppose that external objects are regarded
differently according to the different constitution of the
animals which perceive them.
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