210 FOOD AND FEEDING 



to the palate ? ' The answer is (you see, we knock him 

 down again, as usual) because these poisons are themselves 

 for the most part artificial products ; they do not occur in 

 a state of nature, at least in man's ordinary surroundings. 

 Almost every poisonous thing that we are really liable to 

 meet with in the wild state we are warned against at once 

 by the sense of taste ; but of course it would be absurd to 

 suppose that natural selection could have produced a mode 

 of warning us against poisons which have never before 

 occurred in human experience. One might just as well 

 expect that it should have rendered us dynamite-proof, or 

 have given us a skin like the hide of a rhinoceros to pro- 

 tect us against the future contingency of the invention of 

 rifles. 



Sweets and bitters are really almost the only tastes 

 proper, almost the only ones discriminated by this central 

 and truly gustatory region of the tongue and palate. Most 

 so-called flavourings will be found on strict examination 

 to be nothing more than mixtures with these of certain 

 smells, or else of pungent, salty, or alkaline matters, dis- 

 tinguished as such by the tip of the tongue. For instance, 

 paradoxical as it sounds to say so, cinnamon has really no 

 taste at all, but only a smell. Nobody will ever believe 

 this on first hearing, but nothing on earth is easier than to 

 put it to the test. Take a small piece of cinnamon, hold 

 your nose tigh tly, rather high up, between the thumb and 

 finger, and begin chewing it. You will find that it is 

 absolutely tasteless ; you are merely chewing a perfectly 

 insipid bit of bark. Then let go your nose, and you will 

 find immediately that it * tastes ' strongly, though in 

 reality it is only the perfume from it that you now permit 

 to rise into the smelling-chamber in the nose. So, again, 

 cloves have only a pungent taste and a peculiar smell, and 

 the same is the case more or less with almost all distinctive 



