nvolving one of the two most intimate and
emotional senses. The kiss may be said to be a development proceeding both
from the olfactory and the tactile bases, with perhaps some other elements
as well, and is too complex to be regarded as a phenomenon of either
purely tactile or purely olfactory origin.[39]

As the sole factor in sexual selection olfaction must be rare. It is said
that Asiatic princes have sometimes caused a number of the ladies to race
in the seraglio garden until they were heated; their garments have then
been brought to the prince, who has selected one of them solely by the
odor.[40] There was here a sexual selection mainly by odor. Any exclusive
efficacy of the olfactory sense is rare, not so much because the
impressions of this sense are inoperative, but because agreeable personal
odors are not sufficiently powerful, and the olfactory organ is too
obtuse, to enable smell to take precedence of sight. Nevertheless, in many
people, it is probable that certain odors, especially those that are
correlated with a healthy and sexually desirable person, tend to be
agreeable; they are fortified by their association with the loved person,
sometimes to an irresistible degree; and their potency is doubtless
increased by the fact, to which reference has already been made, that many
odors, including some bodily odors, are nervous stimulants.

It is possible that the sexual associations of odors have been still
further fortified by a tendency to correlation between a high development
of the olfactory organ and a high development of the sexual apparatus. An
association between a large nose and a large male organ is a very ancient
observation and has been verified occasionally in recent times. There is
normally at puberty a great increase in the septum of the nose, and it is
quite conceivable, in view of the sympathy, which, as we shall see,
certainly exists between the olfactory and sexual region, that the two
regions may develop together under a common influence.

The Romans firmly believed in the connection between a large nose
and a large penis. "Noscitur e naso quanta sit hasta viro,"
stated Ovid. This belief continued to prevail, especially in
Italy, through the middle ages; the physiognomists made much of
it, and licentious women (like Joanna of Naples) were, it
appears, accustomed to bear it in mind, although disappointment
is recorded often to have followed. (See e.g., the quotat