POSITION OF TASTE AMONG THE SENSES. 215 



good humour, and nothing except labour produces a more 

 powerful diversion for the mind of a person a prey to chagrin 

 or melancholy. Stationed at the entrance to the digestive 

 passages, it guides us in the choice of food, and controls its 

 nature and quality; it warns us against repletion by its indif- 

 ference to the flavours the most appreciated at the beginning 

 of the repast, and compensates by agreeable sensations for 

 hunger the hard necessity of our organization. 



Taste is therefore a useful servant, but on the whole we 

 see that of all our senses, it is not the farthest removed from 

 matter, and what is worse still, it has much to be pardoned 

 for. The stomach reproaches it with not being so virtuous 

 as physiologists seem to believe, and accuses it of being 

 dangerously seductive, and the worst enemy of those who 

 should regulate their diet; and though it sometimes gives 

 timely warning by disgust, it is often in the wrong in reject- 

 ing wholesome food under the pretext that it is new or that 

 its prejudices condemn it. The taste retorts by throwing the 

 blame on those who have taught it to be fastidious; it pro- 

 fesses, and with truth, to be docile to training, and that the 

 prejudices come from the master of the house; and it adds 

 that, though perfectly competent to judge of the merits of a 

 cook, it is very little acquainted with questions of hygiene, 

 and that the enemy of the stomach is gluttony and not 

 taste. 



Some persons affect a contempt for this sense, explicable, 

 no doubt to a certain extent, but which tempts us to be- 

 lieve that they speak of it only from hearsay. "The mind 

 should take precedence of the body," as Belisus emphatically 

 declares; but the good Chrysalus, was he wrong in saying, 

 "Yes! my body is myself, and I will take care of it?" May 

 we not remember in proper time and place that "man lives 

 on good soup, and not on fine words :" besides, one does no 

 harm to the other, and to want even the most modest sense 

 is to be imperfect after all. Thenard, speaking of cooking 

 before a crowded audience at the Sorbonne, called it " that 

 important part of chemistry." 



We may think what we please of the taste, but it has 

 always in all ages been the endowment of men of genius. 



