Now we must here discriminate. Etymologists, delving down among the roots of our spoken language, come, so they say, to a point at which even the simplest epithet, even the plainest description of a sensation, is seen to derive from some object. Obviously this must be so in the beginning, whether or not etymologists are always correct in their particular ascriptions. An adjective describing, and later denoting, a quality, is generalised from some object bearing that quality. A “stony” countenance is a countenance rigid as stone. So in like manner, we are told, even the names of colours, deeply embedded in the language though they be, are ultimately referable to objects bearing that colour. “Brown,” to take the least dubitable instance, is the colour of burnt—“brunt”—things, while “blue,” according to authority, like the Scots “blae,” means “livid” really, and is connected with “blow,” being the colour left after a blow. (But we say “a black eye”!) Thus the descriptive epithets not only of smell, but also of sight, are ultimately derived from objects. But there is this great difference between them: the names of colours take us back to near the original trunk from which the Aryan languages branch off, whereas the names of odours, to this day still vague and indeterminate (at least in popular phraseology), are derived from the spoken tongue of to-day, or, in some cases, from foreign languages, and are, therefore, but recent additions. This delay in the naming of classes of odours justifies the statement made at the outset of this section that smell is speechless. It shows, in other words, that although, as we have seen, its influence upon the mind may be profound, yet that influence does not extend as far as the speech-centres. It remains largely in the subconsciousness. We should be guilty of error, however, were we to conclude that the scantiness of olfactory names is due to the lack of recognition by the consciousness of early man of smell in general, or to a failure to distinguish between different odours, because savages, in general less discriminating and analytical than cultured races, have, there is every reason to believe, a more acute and highly perfected olfactory sense. It has been reported that the North American Indian was able to track his enemy or his game by the scent alone, and Humboldt has recorded a similar acuteness on the part of the Indians of Peru. While admitting the marvellous skill of the American Indians in following up their quarry, most of us will, I imagine, be inclined to doubt whether its dependence upon smell is a true inference from the facts observed. Skill in woodcraft can be brought to such marvellous perfection that it may seem like magic to the onlooker—like magic, or like scent!