170 



A HISTORY OF 



The sense most nearly allied to smelling is 

 that of tasting. This, some have been willing 

 to consider merely as a nicer kind of touch, 

 and have undertaken to account, in a very 

 mechanical manner, for the difference of sa- 

 vours. " Such bodies," said they, " as are 

 pointed, happening to be applied to the papillte 

 of the tongue, excite a very powerful sensation, 

 and give us the idea of saltness. Such, on the 

 contrary, as are of a rounder figure, slide 

 smoothly along the papillae, and are perceived 

 to be sweet." In this manner they have with 

 minute labour, gone through the variety of 

 imagined forms in bodies, and have given them 

 as imaginary effects. All we can precisely 

 determine upon the nature of tastes is, that the 

 bodies to be tasted must be either somewhat 

 moistened, or, in some measure, dissolved by 

 the saliva, before they can produce a proper 

 sensation : when both the tongue itself and the 

 body to be tasted are extremely dry, no taste 

 whatever ensues. The sensation is then chang- 

 ed ; and the tongue instead of tasting, can only 

 be said, like any other part of the body, to feel 

 the object. 



It is for this reason that children have a 

 stronger relish of tastes than those who are 

 more advanced in life. This organ with them, 

 from the greater moisture of their bodies, is 

 kept in greater perfection ; and is, consequent- 

 ly, better adapted to perform its functions. 

 Every person remembers how great a pleasure 

 he found in sweets, while a child ; but his taste 

 growing more obtuse with age, he is obliged to 

 use artificial means to excite it. It is then that 

 he is found to call in the assistance of poignant 

 sauces, and strong relishes of salts and aroma- 

 tics ; all which the delicacy of his tender organ 

 in childhood was unable to endure. His taste 

 grows callous to the natural relishes, and is 

 artificially formed t others more unnatural ; 

 so that the highest epicure may be said to have 

 the most depraved taste ; as it is owing to the 

 bluntness of his organ, that he is obliged to have 

 recourse to such a variety of expedients to 

 gratify his appetite. 



As smells are often rendered agreeable by 

 habit, so also tastes may be. Tobacco and 

 coffee, so pleasing to many, are yet, atfirst,very 

 disagreeable to all. It is not without perseve- 

 rance that we begin to have a relish for them ; we 

 force nature so long, that what was constraint 

 in the beginning, at last becomes inclination. 



The grossest, and yet the most useful of all 

 the senses, is that of feeling. We are often 

 seen to survive under the loss of the rest ; but 

 of this we can never be totally deprived, but 

 with life. Although this sense is diffused over 

 all parts of the body, yet it most frequently 

 happens that those parts which are most exer- 

 cised in touching, acquire the greatest degree 

 of accuracy. Thus the fingers, by long habit, 

 become greater masters in the art than any 

 other, even where the sensation is more delicate 

 and fine." It is from this habit, therefore, and 

 their peculiar formation, and not as is suppos- 

 ed, from their being furnished with a greater 

 quantity of nerves, that the fingers are thus 

 perfectly qualified to judge of forms. Blind 

 men, who are obliged to use them much oftener, 

 have this sense much finer; so that the delicacy 

 of the touch arises rather from the habit of 

 constantly employing the fingers, than from 

 any fancied nervousness in their conformation. 



All animals that are furnished with hands" 

 seem to have more understanding than others. 

 Monkeys have so many actions like those of 

 men, that they appear to have similar ideas of 

 the form of bodies. All other creatures, 

 deprived of hands, can have no distinct ideas 

 of the shape of the objects by which they are 

 surrounded, as they want this organ, which 

 serves to examine and measure their forms, 

 their risings, and depressions. A quadruped, 

 probably, conceives as erroneous an idea of 

 any thing near him, as a child would of a rock 

 or a mountain that it beheld at a distance. 



It may be for this reason, that we often see 

 them frighted at things with which they ought 

 to be better acquainted. Fishes, whose bodies 

 are covered with scales, and who have no 

 organs for feeling, must be the most stupid of 

 all animals. Serpents, that are likewise desti- 

 tute, are yet, by winding round several bodies, 

 better capable of judging of their form. All 

 these, however, can have but very imperfect 

 ideas from feeling; and we have already seen, 

 when deprived of this sense, how little the rest 

 of the senses are to be relied on. 



The feeling, therefore, is the guardian, the 

 judge, and the examiner of all the rest of the 

 senses. It establishes their information, and 

 detects their errors. All the other senses are 

 altered by time, and contradict their former 



Buffon, vol. vi. p. 80. 



b Ibid. vol. vi. p. 82. 



