tongue, Tasting excessive latter is in its tendency destructive. The drinkable,' too, as an object is perceptible by touch as well as taste. The 13. Since the object of taste is moist1, the tongue, 'qua qua organ, organ of taste, must be neither actually moist nor incapable must not of becoming moist. The sense of taste is passively affected be actually moist: only by the object. Hence the part of the body which is to be the potentially so, Le organ of this sense should be something capable of being capable moistened, while yet preserving its distinctive nature, not of being moistened. something actually and always moist 3.A proof that the organ should be thus capable of being moistened, yet not impeded by excessive actually moist, is found in the fact that tasting is imposdryness or sible, or difficult, when the tongue is either quite dry, or moisture excessively moist. In the latter case, when we attempt to of tongue. taste something, what ensues is merely a tactual perception of the moisture of the tongue, in which the sense of taste proper is merged and disappears. With this tactual perception the organ is preoccupied, as it might be with a previous taste, if a person after tasting something of very strong savour were immediately to try to taste some other savour. So it is that sick persons find sweet things bitter, because the tongue is full of bitter moisture. The tongue is an organ of touch as well as of taste. With this same part wherewith we taste, we can perceive any given object of touch 5. Tongue, an organ of touch also. The elements all § 14. None of the elements-not even water-has a taste All tastes arise from some sort of mixture in the per se taste- per se. • Sc the tongue (533* 26 τὸ τῶν χυμῶν αἰσθητήριον τὴν γλῶτταν), popularly regarded as the organ of taste: all this has to be considered in the fuller light of Aristotle's discussion of the organs of touch and taste. 8 σjóμevov: preserving its distinctive nature as an organ of taste. The moistening which the organ has to undergo is only subsidiary to its gustatory function, which primarily depends on something else than the moisture, viz. upon the sapid stimulus of which the moisture is but the solvent or vehicle. The moisture is a means-something secondaryemployed by the organ for its proper purpose; thus were the organ to become actually moist, it would forsake its distinctive and proper character. 4 Aristotle, notwithstanding what he says 423b 17, often speaks of the tongue as organ-instead of intra-organic medium-of taste. Cf. § 12 supra. 423a 17-18. volve a in moist and this is always a final composi tion of sweet moist and moist medium. Wine and all sapid substances, which, from less. All a state of vapour, are condensed into moisture, become tastes inwater. Others are affections of water itself caused by some-mixture thing mixed with it. The taste ensuing corresponds to that vehicle. which is thus mixed with the water. Moreover no simple Taste (objectively) is element-only a mixture of elements can effect the pur-nutriment; pose of nutrition. Hence there is a fundamental con- and nexion between taste and nutrition 2. The object or cause of this sense is nutrition. Yet only the actually nourishes: all other varieties of taste are, like the dry. Only the sweet, saline and the acid, merely ways in which nature seasons however, the sweet to make it the more suitable for its purpose. nourishes. actually In the case of objective tastes, as of colours, the contraries Between are relatively simple, i. e. the sweet and the bitter. These the two are the elements of the other tastes". Next to the sweet, of sweet and bitter and perhaps as a variety of this, comes the succulent fall saline, (Amapós); the saline and the bitter are closely akin; while harsh, pungent, between the sweet and bitter come the harsh (avornpós), astringent, the pungent (dpiμús), the astringent (σrpvøvós), and the acid There are (ogós). If the succulent is a kind of sweet, there appear seven to be seven leading varieties of tastes, as there are of taste, as of colours. The faculty of taste is that which is potentially colour and such as each of these objective tastes is; while the object of taste is that which in each case makes the faculty actually such. extremes acid. species of odour. fication taste ne § 15. Taste is a sort of touch, if only because it has to With do with nutrition. Nutriment must be something tangible. touch and faculty of Sound, colour, and odour do not nourish, nor do they cause its modieither growth or decay. Hence tasting must be (as we have said) a mode of touching, as it is that which perceives cessarily the nutrient tangible. All animals with the sense of touch desire possess ἐπιθυμία, or the impulse towards what is pleasant. (ἐπιθυμία). Moreover they have a discriminating perception of their 1 358b 18, 443a 26 seqq. 2 441b 24 seqq., 442 I seqq. 7 4368 15 ἡ δὲ γεύσις διὰ τὴν τροφήν, 435 22, 434 18 ἡ γεῦσις ὥσπερ ἀφή τις τροφῆς γάρ ἐστιν. ? For the original of §§ 12-14 cf. Arist. 422a 8-b 16, 414o 1−16. arises Hunger and thirst. Touch and taste essen animal. drink. The food; for touch gives them this (viz. through its modification, taste). All are nourished by things dry and moist, hot and cold, i. e. by the objects of touch. The objects of other senses nourish only incidentally; just as sound, colour, smell may put an animal on the track of food, but they cannot in themselves feel it. xvuós is a variety then of the ȧTтóν or tangible. Hunger and thirst constitute ἐπιθυμία in relation to food and drink. Hunger is (ἐπιθυμία) for the dry and hot; thirst for the cold and moist, and xvμós is a sort of seasoning (ñdvoμa) of these objects. § 16. Touching and tasting, then, are essential to the tial to the very being of an animal. The others are subservient rather being of an to its well-being, and do not belong to all species of Use of taste animals, but only to some; especially to those which to distin- have the power of locomotion1. Animals have the sense guish the pleasant of sight in order that they may be able to see objects and unwhile yet distant through the medium of the diapavés. pleasant in food and They have hearing in order that they may be able to heart is the apprehend significant sounds conveyed through the air to true organ their ears; and they possess in the tongue an organ wherewith to convey such sounds to others. But they manifestly possess taste on account of the difference between the agreeconnect able and the disagreeable in food and drink; in order that they may be able to apprehend this difference, and accordheart. ing to such apprehension, may direct their movements cellence in to the seizure or avoidance of certain things as food. touch and Serpents and saurians have a peculiarly delicate and keen of touch and taste; these themselves with the Man's ex taste. sense of taste, nature having endowed them with tongues long and forked, with a fine extremity furnished with hairs. This formation of the tongue doubles the pleasure which such creatures feel in agreeable tastes, since the sense itself is thus possessed of twofold power 2. The organ of taste like that of touch is connected with the vital organs. The region of the heart is the foundation of the senses, of which two-those of touch and taste-are manifestly connected with the heart 3. Of all animals man is the most finely sensi 1 Arist. de An. iii. 12. 434b 18-26. - 469a 12-16, 656 27-31. tive as regards touch. Man's tongue, too, is soft1, which makes it particularly sensitive in touching; and tasting, the tongue's proper function, is a kind of touching. Man's sense of touching is the most perfect, and in it he excels all other animals. Next comes his sense of tasting. In the other senses he has no superiority to the lower animals, many of which, on the contrary, have better sight and hearing, and a keener olfactory sense. As to the way in which the organ of taste discharges its function, Aristotle has made no real advance beyond the positions taken up by Alcmaeon or Diogenes. 1 660a 20-22 reading ǹ yλŵrra μaλaký, instead of Bekker's ǹ μ. yd. 2 494b 16-18, 421a 17–26. funda sense, most scantily treated. THE ANCIENT GREEK PSYCHOLOGY OF TOUCHING Alcmaeon-Empedocles. Touching, I. THE pre-Aristotelean psychologists have left comthough the paratively little on record respecting this sense, although mental it was, according to the opinion of several of them, the fundamental sense-that from which the others are developed, or at least in some way derived. Not indeed until we come to Aristotle himself do we find a real or business-like attempt to treat of touching. True, Plato gives a detailed account of the objects of the sense, as he conceived them; but of the organ, or its operation, we read little in his remains or those of his predecessors. That little has, however, in accordance with the plan hitherto followed, to be here set forth in its entirety. Alcmaeon. Empedocles. Theo Empe According to Theophrastus1 Alcmaeon altogether omitted to treat, at least in his writings, of the sense of touchingits organ or mode of operation. Theophrastus makes a similar statement of Empedocles, with this difference that while, according to him, the former seems to have omitted phrastus' all reference to touching, the latter, though not indeed criticism of treating it with complete neglect, failed to give a distinct docles' and detailed theory of touch. He merely threw out the the func- general suggestion that this, like the other senses, is to be explained by the operation of 'emanations' entering into and fitting the 'pores' of the organ2. Theophrastus is of opinion that the Empedoclean theory of perception by ' emanations' is even less plausible with regard to touching (and tasting) than in reference to the other senses. 'How,' he asks, ‘are we to conceive sensible distinctions of taste or touch as made by means of emanation (àπoppo)? how account of tion of touching. 1 Theophr. de Sens. § 26. περὶ δὲ γεύσεως καὶ ἁφῆς οὐ διορίζεται καθ' ἑκατέραν οὔτε πῶς οὔτε δι ̓ ἃ γίγνονται, πλὴν τὸ κοινὸν ὅτι τῷ ἐναρμόττειν τοῖς πόροις αἴσθησίς ἐστιν, Theophr. de Sens. §§ 7, 9. Also Arist. de Gen. et Corr. A. 8. 324b 26 seqq. |