Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 4: Sexual Selection In ManEllis, Havelock
Science
Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 4: Sexual Selection In Man
Ellis, Havelock
Sex; Sex (Psychology)
"In the early mammals the olfactory areas form by far the greater
part of the cerebral hemisphere, which is not surprising when it
is recalled that the forebrain is, in the primitive brain,
essentially an appendage, so to speak, of the smell apparatus.
When the cerebral hemisphere comes to occupy such a dominant
position in the brain it is perhaps not unnatural to find that
the sense of smell is the most influential and the chief source
of information to the animal; or, perhaps, it would be more
accurate to say that the olfactory sense, which conveys general
information to the animal such as no other sense can bring
concerning its prey (whether near or far, hidden or exposed), is
much the most serviceable of all the avenues of information to
the lowly mammal leading a terrestrial life, and therefore
becomes predominant; and its particular domain--the
forebrain--becomes the ruling portion of the nervous system.
"This early predominance of the sense of smell persists in most
mammals (unless an aquatic mode of life interferes and deposes
it: compare the _Cetacea, Sirenia_, and _Pinnipedia_, for
example) even though a large neopallium develops to receive
visual, auditory, tactile, and other impressions pouring into the
forebrain. In the _Anthropoidea_ alone of nonaquatic mammals the
olfactory regions undergo an absolute (and not only relative, as
in the _Carnivora_ and _Ungulata_) dwindling, which is equally
shared by the human brain, in common with those of the other
_Simiidæ_, the _Cercopithecidæ_, and the _Cebidæ_. But all the
parts of the rhinencephalon, which are so distinct in macrosmatic
mammals, can also be recognized in the human brain. The small
ellipsoidal olfactory bulb is moored, so to speak, on the
cribriform plate of the ethmoid bone by the olfactory nerves; so
that, as the place of attachment of the olfactory peduncle to the
expanding cerebral hemisphere becomes removed (as a result of the
forward extension of the hemisphere) progressively farther and
farther backward, the peduncle becomes greatly stretched and
elongated. And, as this stretching involves the gray matter
without lessening the number of nerve-fibres in the olfactory
tract, the peduncle becomes practically what it is usually
called--i.e., the olfactory 'tract.' The tuberculum olfactorium
becomes greatly reduced and at the same time flattened; so that
it is not easy to draw a line of demarcation between it and the
anterior perforated space. The anterior rhinal fissure, which is
present in the early human foetus, vanishes (almost, if not
altogether) in the adult. Part of the posterior rhinal fissure is
always present in the 'incisura temporalis,' and sometimes,
especially in some of the non-European races, the whole of the
posterior rhinal fissure is retained in that typical form which
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