254 Observations and Experiments on the Sense of Taste. 



with the odour to the same degree, i. e. in the same propor- 

 tion to the volume, as the air inhaled had been impregnated 

 with it ; as I find, in inhaling with the mouth from the mouth 

 of a lavender watei'-bottle, and immediately stopping my 

 mouth and breathing through the nose, that I have much less 

 sense of the smell, than when I inhale through the nose : but 

 yet, when I have drawn the scented air in through the mouth, 

 and breathed it out through the nose with stopped mouth, I 

 say, when I have done this successively several times, I find 

 the sense of smell, which is perceived in the breathing out, 

 get much stronger. 6. We acquire a faculty, when we want 

 to perceive an external smell strongly, of drawing in breath 

 quick through the nose some times, sniffing, as it is called, 

 which presents more of the air, and olfactory particles, in a 

 given time, to the organ, than would otherwise reach it. No- 

 thing of this kind is ever done with regard to the internal 

 smell or taste ; I do not know whether we could have acquir- 

 ed the power in the latter case, as well as in the former, but, 

 in fact, we have not. It would have to be exerted in the con- 

 trary direction, as appeai-s from what I have said already ; 

 and would, even it were performed, produce less effect, from 

 what I have just observed in (5.) 



7. Lastly, we must bear in mind the effect of association. 

 We are used to receive some sorts of smells more from with- 

 out, and others more from within, i. e. by what we call taste ; 

 and in liking, or disliking, each or both, we are guided in part 

 by the system of associations, belonging to that way of per- 

 ceiving, through which we are at the time perceiving the sen- 

 sation in question. We exercise the internal smell, or the 

 taste, principally while we are feeding on what is our needful 

 food ; always (except in the case of physic, or of betel and 

 tobacco) in the feeding on what is not absolutely hostile or 

 repulsive to our digestive organs. Our scale of likings and 

 dislikings, then, as to their sense or mode of perception, is 

 tinned throughout with this sort of association, derived from 

 what is agreeable to the digestive organs. It is tinged with 

 another, perhaps even more important, viz. touch, the feel to 

 the mouth ; neither of which have any thing to do with per- 

 fumes ; on the contrary, the sense of external smell, applied 



