The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume 09 / Tangential Views

THE COLLECTED WORKS OF AMBROSE BIERCE
VOLUME IX
The publishers certify that this edition of
THE COLLECTED WORKS OF AMBROSE BIERCE
consists of two hundred and fifty numbered sets, autographed by the author, and that the number of this set is ......
VOLUME IX
TANGENTIAL VIEWS
NEW YORK & WASHINGTON THE NEALE PUBLISHING COMPANY 1911
FREDERICK POLLEY
Copyright, 1911, by THE NEALE PUBLISHING COMPANY
A GERMAN physician of some note once gave it out as his solemn conviction that civilized man is gradually but surely losing the sense of smell through disuse. It is a fact that we have noses less keen than the savages; which is well for us, for we have a dozen “well-defined and several” bad odors to their one. It is possible, indeed, that it is to the alarming prevalence of bad odors that our olfactory inferiority is in some degree due: civilized man’s habit of holding his nose has begotten in that organ an obedient habit of holding itself. This by the way, leaves both his hands free to hold his tongue, though as a rule he prefers to make another and less pleasing use of them. With a nose dowered with primitive activity civilized man would find it difficult to retain his supremacy over the forces of Nature; her assassinating odors would engage him in a new struggle for existence, incomparably more arduous than any of which he has present experience. And herein we get an intimation of a hitherto unsuspected cause of the rapid decadence of savage peoples when brought into contact with civilization. Various causes doubtless are concerned, but the slaughter-house, the glue factory, the gas main, the sewer and the other sources of exhalations that “rise like the steam of rich-distilled perfumes” (which in no other quality they resemble) are the actual culprits. Unprepared with a means of defense at the point where he is most accessible to assault, the reclaimed savage falls into a decline and accepting the Christian religion for what he conceives it to be worth, turns his nose to the wall and dies in the secret hope of an inodorous eternity.