FOOD AND FEEDING 199 



ticated humanity is constantly putting everything it sees 

 up to its mouth in a frank spirit of experimental inquiry as 

 to its gustatory properties. In civihscd life we find every- 

 thing ready labelled and assorted for us ; we comparatively 

 seldom require to roll the contents of a suspicious bottle 

 (in very small quantities) doubtfully upon the tongue in 

 order to discover whether it is pale sherry or Chili vinegar, 

 Dublin stout or mushroom ketchup. But in the savage 

 state, from which, geologically and biologically speaking, 

 we have only just emerged, bottles and labels do not exist. 

 Primitive man, therefore, in his sweet simplicity, has only 

 two modes open before him for deciding whether the 

 things he finds are or are not strictly edible. The first 

 thing he does is to sniff at them ; and smell, being, as Mr. 

 Herbert Spencer has well put it, an anticipatory taste, 

 generally gives him some idea of what the thing is likely 

 to prove. The second thing he does is to pop it into his 

 mouth, and proceed practically to examine its further 

 characteristics. 



Strictly speaking, with the tip of the tongue one can't 

 really taste at all. If you put a small drop of honey or of 

 oil of bitter almonds on that part of the mouth, you will find 

 (no doubt to your great surprise) that it produces no effect of 

 any sort ; you only taste it when it begins slowly to diffuse 

 itself, and reaches the true tasting region in the middle 

 distance. But if you put a little cayenne or mustard on 

 the same part, you will find that it bites you immediately 

 — the experiment should be tried sparingly — while if you 

 put it lower down in the mouth you will swallow it almost 

 without noticing the pungency of the stimulant. The 

 reason is, that the tip of the tongue is supplied only with 

 nerves which are really nerves of touch, not nerves of 

 taste proper ; they belong to a totally different main branch, 

 and they go to a different centre in the brain, together 



