142 ASSIMILATION AND ITS ORGANS. 



table itself; the saliva is the commissioned master of the ordinances, 

 who busies himself to instruct the food in the laws of the place, and 

 in the conditions of its hospitality. 



The saliva, like everything else in this system, exhibits a play of 

 varieties. In the mouth this is manifest to all. Do we not feel 

 that in the front of the mouth the saliva is thin and trickling; in 

 the back part, as it approaches the throat, more and more viscid and 

 tenacious? How this difference in thickening is produced, we need 

 not now inquire, but may simply note the fact of an orderly series 

 existing even in this small compass. 



The food already upon the tongue, carved by the front teeth, pierced 

 by the middle teeth, and ground by the back teeth ; also saturated by 

 the saliva; affords the sense of taste to the sensorial papillae of the 

 tongue, which tongue-like themselves, protrude and exert themselves 

 to enjoy it ; and this nimble member seeks and suffers the pleasures of 

 the time with infinite agitation and emotion. What is the sense of 

 taste ? Is it merely that abstract thing, an influence, made of nothing 

 but metaphysical motions? Do tasty substances knock at the door of 

 the organ, and leave their names, without going in themselves ? It 

 may be difficult to demonstrate by anatomy the absorption of juices 

 by the tongue, yet facts show that such absorption takes place. 

 The sudden recruiting of bodily and nervous power by matters 

 taken into the system ; the effect produced by wine and other fluids 

 when only held in the mouth; the fact that the tongue is the be- 

 ginning of the great absorbent organs, and must, therefore, in con- 

 sistency begin the absorption; also the variously-formed promi- 

 nences or papilla) upon the tongue, which are poorly accounted for 

 by physiologists, because they overlook the right of the tongue to 

 taste in that real sense which tasting implies; moreover, the cer- 

 tainty that there are in creation no abstract influences or impres- 

 sions unaccompanied by streams of tangible stuff: all these reasons 

 establish, that the tongue enjoys an antepast of the food; drafts its 

 best essences, recruit after recruit, into the system, in union with 

 the finest saliva; and only sends down into the stomach the por- 

 tions which are exhausted for the mouth. 



But current science tells us, that there is no tasting in the tongue, 

 and no feeding in the stomach, but that the man is nourished en- 



