THE EMOTIONS OF THE SALIVA. 153 



upon its salts, and smites them with the reigning love beam. They 

 become as different at different times and in different persons, as the 

 billing of the dove from the bite of the rattlesnake, or the sweetest 

 milk from the deadliest poison. There is saliva full of care and 

 sourness, which eats, not the food, but the stomach itself. There is 

 saliva charged with contempt, which is spit upon meanness, and 

 carries the badge from soul to soul where it lights. There is the 

 saliva of disgust, which is vomited from the loathing blood, and 

 avenges our disgust upon the ground. There is the spittle of self- 

 complacency, elicited by the happy tongue, and too good not to be 

 swallowed. There is the saliva of luxury, which runs greedily after 

 the meats, and loses its life of immoderateness. There is the saliva 

 of rage, which foams violently forth upon the beard, and that of 

 haste and hurry, which froths and sputters. There is the saliva of 

 grief, hard to get down, and full of choking. There is the mouth 

 of fear, from which the saliva is frightened, and the dry tongue 

 cleaves to the palate. There are lovers' kisses, in which soul is fluid 

 unto soul. In the lower animals the saliva becomes actively poison- 

 ous, sometimes by nature, sometimes by vehemence and passion. 

 We might extend the instances to every well-marked affection, and 

 point out the sympathy of the saliva with each. It is, however, 

 sufficient to observe, that this medium between the food and the 

 blood is the abode of an ever-varying life, according to which it sum- 

 mons from the food the pabulum of that very life, making the new 

 elements of the body into vehicles and implements of the inclina- 

 tions. Were it not for this, every meal would disarrange the har- 

 mony between the body and the soul, by furnishing materials that 

 could not become incorporated.* 



Recurring for a moment to the act of spitting, it teaches us that 

 the casting out of evil spirits is a branch of bodily truths. The 

 excretions are emotional, i. e., they are excretions of the emotions 

 themselves, and as they pass off, they help to rid the body of dis- 

 turbances. Speech is an excretion from an overburdened heart; 



* We postpone speaking of the psychology of the abdominal organs until we 

 treat of the heart, when we shall offer some general remarks on the life and 

 feelings of the viscera. In anticipation we assure the reader, that these parts 

 belong to the soul as much as the brain itself. 



