XIV. THE FRUIT GIFT. 257 



just as far as ever from understanding why these 

 particular interstices should be aromatic, and 

 these special parallelopipeds exhilarating, as we 

 were in the savagely unscientific days when we 

 could only see with our eyes, and smell with 

 our noses. But to call each of these separate 

 substances by a name rightly belonging to it 

 through all the past variations of the language 

 of educated man, will probably enable us often 

 to discern powers in the thing itself, of affecting 

 the human body and mind, which are indeed 

 qualities infinitely more its own, than any which 

 can possibly be extracted by the point of a knife, 

 or brayed out with a mortar and pestle. 



7. Thus, to take merely instance in the three 

 main elements of which we have just determined 

 the names, — flour, oil, and ambrosia; — the differ- 

 ences in the kinds of pleasure which the tongue 

 received from the powderiness of oat-cake, or a 

 well-boiled potato — (in the days when oat-cake 

 and potatoes were !) — from the glossily-softened 

 crispness of a well-made salad, and from the 

 cool and fragrant amber of an apricot, are indeed 

 distinctions between the essential virtues of things 

 which were made to be tasted, much more than 

 to be eaten; and in their various methods of 

 ministry to, and temptation of, human appetites, 



