"The sense of smell explores; deleterious substances almost always have an unpleasant smell"
About this Quote
Smell, in Brillat-Savarin's hands, isn’t a quaint bodily sense; it’s a scouting party. The verb "explores" turns the nose into an agent of reconnaissance, pushing ahead of reason and even taste. Before you can justify, rationalize, or politely endure, your body has already filed a report. That’s the intent: to elevate appetite from mere indulgence to a system of knowledge - sensory intelligence with survival stakes.
The second clause is where the period’s confidence shows. "Deleterious substances almost always have an unpleasant smell" carries a lawyer’s hedging ("almost always") while still wanting the force of a rule. It’s Enlightenment-era common sense packaged as practical wisdom: nature, if read correctly, warns you. The subtext is moral as much as biological. Bad things advertise themselves; the discerning person learns to trust revulsion as a form of judgment. In a culture fascinated by classification - of plants, bodies, manners - odor becomes another taxonomy, separating the wholesome from the corrupt.
Context matters: Brillat-Savarin wrote in a France reshaped by revolution, urban crowding, and anxieties about contamination long before germ theory clarified what "bad air" really meant. Miasma thinking hovered in the background; smells were treated as both evidence and cause of illness. His line flatters the gourmand while defending him: attention to scent isn’t decadence, it’s prudence. The nose, he suggests, is where pleasure and self-preservation shake hands.
The second clause is where the period’s confidence shows. "Deleterious substances almost always have an unpleasant smell" carries a lawyer’s hedging ("almost always") while still wanting the force of a rule. It’s Enlightenment-era common sense packaged as practical wisdom: nature, if read correctly, warns you. The subtext is moral as much as biological. Bad things advertise themselves; the discerning person learns to trust revulsion as a form of judgment. In a culture fascinated by classification - of plants, bodies, manners - odor becomes another taxonomy, separating the wholesome from the corrupt.
Context matters: Brillat-Savarin wrote in a France reshaped by revolution, urban crowding, and anxieties about contamination long before germ theory clarified what "bad air" really meant. Miasma thinking hovered in the background; smells were treated as both evidence and cause of illness. His line flatters the gourmand while defending him: attention to scent isn’t decadence, it’s prudence. The nose, he suggests, is where pleasure and self-preservation shake hands.
Quote Details
| Topic | Wisdom |
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