This is a distinct
advance. The sense of smell has come to the front and pushed aside the
lower sense of touch. You will observe, too, that with the growth of the
brain the brain-pan has elevated itself above the level of the nose.
Through the cat to the monkeys the process proceeds, the forehead
advancing, the jaws retreating, and the nostrils leaving the lips, until
they finally settle in a detached villa midway between the eyes and the
mouth. This is the nose. I do not know the use of it. I cannot fathom
the meaning of it. It is a solemn mystery. See the face of an
orang-outang. It is a _countenance_, a signboard with three distinct
lines of writing on it, the eyes, the nose and the mouth. You may not
think much of this particular nose. Neither do I. I think it is
situated rather too near the eyes and too far from the mouth. It is a
little too small also, and wants style. But you must not judge a first
attempt too critically. I have seen human noses of a pattern not unlike
this, but they are not considered aristocratic: perhaps they indicate a
reversion to the ancestral type.

[Illustration: I HAVE SEEN HUMAN NOSES OF A PATTERN NOT UNLIKE THIS, BUT
THEY ARE NOT CONSIDERED ARISTOCRATIC.]

But the noses even of monkeys are not all like this. In fact, there is a
good deal of variety, and two in particular have struck me as quite
remarkable. One is that of the long-nosed monkey (_Semnopithecus
nasalis_). I think it must have suggested Sterne's stranger on a mule,
who had travelled to the promontory of noses and threw all Strassburg
into a ferment. I have often contemplated this nose in mute wonderment,
and longed to see that monkey in life, if so be I might arrive at some
understanding of it; for the taxidermist cannot rise above his own
level, and the man who would mount _S. nasalis_ would need to be a Henry
Irving. Then there is the sub-nosed monkey, labelled _rhinopithecus_, of
which there is an expressive specimen at the South Kensington Museum.
Who can consider that nose seriously and continue to believe in a
recipe made up of struggle for existence, adaptation to environment, and
natural selection _quantum suf_.? If I could dine with that monkey, ask
it to drink a glass of wine with me, offer it a pinch of snuff and so
on, I might come in time to feel, if not to comprehend, the import of
its nose.

[Illustration: THE LONG-NOSED MONKEY.]

[Illustration: WHO CAN CONSIDER THAT NOSE SERIOUSLY?]

But one step fur