The Physiology of Taste by Brillat Savarin (bearly read books txt) 📖

either to understand or

translate me. Such is my fate.

 

I could have acted otherwise, but was prevented by a kind of

system to which I was invincibly attached.

 

I am satisfied that the French language which I use is

comparatively poor. What could I do? Either borrow or steal.

 

I did neither, for such borrowings, cannot be restored, though to

steal words is not punishable by the penal code.

 

Any one may form an idea of my audacity when I say I applied the

Spanish word volante to any one I had sent on an errand, and that

I had determined to GALLICISE the English word TO SIP, which means

to drink in small quantities. I however dug out the French word

siroter, which expresses nearly the same thing.

 

I am aware the purists will appeal to Bosseux, to Fenelon, Raceri,

Boilleau, Pascal, and others of the reign of Louis XIV. I fancy I

hear their clamor.

 

To all this I reply distinctly, that I do not depreciate the merit

of those authors; but what follows? Nothing, except that if they

played well on an inferior instrument, how much better would they

have done on a superior one. Therefore, we may believe that

Tartini would have played on the violin far better than he did, if

his bow had been long as that of Baillot.

 

I do not belong to the neologues or even to the romanticists; the

last are discoverers of hidden treasures, the former are like

sailors who go about to search for provisions they need.

 

The people of the North, and especially the English, have in this

respect an immense advantage over us. Genius is never restricted

by the want of expression, which is either made or created. Thus

it is that of all subjects which demand depth and energy, our

translations make but pale and dull infusions.

 

Once I heard at the institute a pleasant discourse on the danger

of neologism, and on the necessity of maintaining our language as

it was when the authors of the great century wrote.

 

“Like a chemist, I sifted the argument and ascertained that it

meant:

 

“We have done so well, that we neither need nor can do better.”

 

Now; I have lived long enough to know that each generation has

done as much, and that each one laughs at his grandfather.

 

Besides, words must change, when manners and ideas undergo

perpetual modifications. If we do things as the ancients did, we

do not do them in the same manner. There are whole pages in many

French books, which cannot be translated into Latin or Greek.

 

All languages had their birth, their apogee and decline. None of

those which have been famous from the days of Sesostris to that of

Philip Augustus, exist except as monuments. The French will have

the same fate, and in the year 2825 if read, will be read with a

dictionary.

 

I once had a terrible argument on this matter with the famous M.

Andrieux, at the Academie Francaise.

 

I made my assault in good array, I attacked him vigorously, and

would have beaten him had he not made a prompt retreat, to which I

opposed no obstacle, fortunately for him, as he was making one

letter of the new lexicon.

 

I end by one important observation, for that reason I have kept it

till the last.

 

When I write of ME in the singular, I gossip with my reader, he

may examine, discuss, doubt or laugh; but when I say WE I am a

professor, and all must bow to me.

 

“I am, Sir Oracle,

 

And when I ope my lips, let no dog bark.”

 

Merchant of Venice.

 

PHYSIOLOGY OF TASTE.

 

MEDITATION FIRST.

 

THE SENSES.

 

The senses are the organs by which man places himself in connexion

with exterior objects.

 

NUMBER OF THE SENSES.

 

1. They are at least six—

 

Sight, which embraces space, and tells us by means of light, of

the existence and of the colors of the bodies around us.

 

Hearing, which, by the motion of the air, informs us of the motion

of sounding or vibrating bodies.

 

Scent, by means of which we are made aware of the odors bodies

possess.

 

Taste, which enables us to distinguish all that has a flavor from

that which is insipid.

 

Touch informs us of the consistency and resistance of bodies.

 

The last is genesiac or physical love, which attracts the sexes to

each other, and the object of which is the reproduction of the

species.

 

It is astonishing that, almost to the days of Buffon, so important

a sense was misunderstood, and was confounded with the touch.

 

Yet the sensation of which it is the seat, has nothing in common

with touch; it resides in an apparatus as complete as the mouth or

the eyes, and what is singular is that each sex has all that is

needed to experience the sensation; it is necessary that the two

should be united to reach nature’s object. If the TASTE, the

object of which is the preservation of the individual, be

incontestibly a sense, the same title must indubitably be

preserved on the organs destined to the preservation of the

species.

 

Let us then assign to the genesiac the sensual place which cannot

be refused to it, and let us leave to posterity the assignment of

its peculiar rank.

 

ACTION OF THE SENSES.

 

If we were permitted, even in imagination, to refer to the first

moments of the existence of the human race, we would believe that

the first sensations were direct; that is to say that all saw

confusedly and indirectly, smelled without care, ate without

tasting, etc.

 

The centre of all these sensations, however, being the soul, the

sensual attribute of humanity and active cause of perfectibility,

they are reflected, compared, and judged by it; the other senses

then come to the assistance of each other, for the utility and

well-being of the sensitive; one or individual.

 

Thus touch rectifies the errors of sight; sound, by means of

articulate speech, becomes the interpreter of every sentiment;

taste is aided by sight and smell; hearing compares sounds,

appreciates distance; and the genesiac sense takes possession of

the organs of all the senses.

 

The torrent of centuries rolling over the human race, has

continually brought new perfections, the cause of which, ever

active though unseen, is found in the demands made by our senses,

which always in their turns demand to be occupied.

 

Sight thus gave birth to painting, to sculpture, and to spectacles

of every kind.

 

Sound, to melody, harmony, to the dance, and to music in all its

branches, and means of execution.

 

Smell, to the discovery, manufacture and use of perfumes.

 

Taste, to the production, choice and preparation of all that is

used for food.

 

Touch, to all art, trades and occupations.

 

The genesiac sense, to all which prepares or embellishes the

reunion of senses, and, subsequently to the days of Francois I.,

to romantic love, to coquetry, which originated in France and

obtained its name there, and from which the elite of the world,

collected in the capital of the universe, take their lessons every

day.

 

This proposition, strange as it seems, is very susceptible of

demonstration; we cannot express with clearness in any ancient

language, ideas about these three great motives of actual society.

 

I had written a dialogue on this subject, but suppressed it for

the purpose of permitting the reader, each in his own way, to

think of the matter for himself. There is enough to occupy the

mind and display intelligence and erudition during a whole

evening.

 

We said above, that the genesiac sense took possession of the

organs of all the others; the influence it has exerted over all

sciences is not less. When we look closer, we will find that all

that is most delicate and ingenious is due to the desire, to hope,

or to gratitude, in connexion with the union of the sexes.

 

Such is, indeed, the genealogy of the senses, even the most

abstract ones, all being the immediate result of continuous

efforts made to gratify our senses.

 

PERFECTNESS OF THE SENSES.

 

These senses, our favorites, are far from being perfect, and I

will not pause to prove it. I will only observe, that that

ethereal sense—sight, and touch, which is at the other extremity

of the scale, have from time acquired a very remarkable additional

power.

 

By means of spectacles the eye, so to say, escapes from the decay

of age, which troubles almost all the other organs.

 

The telescope has discovered stars hitherto unknown and

inaccessible to all our means of mensuration; it has penetrated

distances so great, that luminous and necessarily immense bodies

present themselves to us only like nebulous and almost

imperceptible spots.

 

The microscope has made us acquainted with the interior

configuration of bodies; or has shown the existence of a

vegetation and of plants, the existence of which we were ignorant

of.

 

Animals a hundred thousand times smaller than any visible with the

naked eye have been discovered; these animalculae, however, move,

feed and multiply, establishing the existence of organs of

inconceivable tenuity.

 

Mechanics have multiplied our power; man has executed all that he

could conceive of, and has moved weights nature made inaccessible

to his weakness.

 

By means of arms and of the lever, man has conquered all nature;

he has subjected it to his pleasure, wants and caprices. He has

overturned its surfaces, and a feeble biped has become king of

creation.

 

Sight and touch, being thus increased in capacity, might belong to

some species far superior to man; or rather the human species

would be far different had all the senses been thus improved.

 

We must in the meantime remark, that if touch has acquired a great

development as a muscular power, civilization has done almost

nothing for it as an organ of sensation. We must, however, despair

of nothing, but remember that the human race is yet young, and

that only after a long series of years can the senses aggrandise

their domain.

 

For instance. Harmony was only discovered about four centuries

ago, and that celestial science is to sound what painting is to

colors.

 

Certainly, the ancients used to sing and accompany themselves in

unison. Their knowledge, however, ended there. They knew neither

how to decompose sounds, nor to appreciate their relations.

[Footnote: We are aware that the contrary has been maintained; the

idea though cannot be supported. Had the ancients been acquainted

with harmony, their writings would have preserved some precise

notion on the matter, instead of a few obscure phrases, which may

be tortured to mean anything. Besides, we cannot follow the birth

and progress of harmony in the monuments left to us; this

obligation we owe to the Arabs, who made us a present of the

organ, which produces at one time many continuous sounds, and thus

created harmony.]

 

Tone was only reduced to system, and accords measured in the

fifteenth century. Only then it was used to sustain the voice and

to reinforce the expression of sentiments.

 

This discovery, made at so late a day, yet so natural, doubled the

hearing, and has shown the existence of two somewhat independent

faculties, one of which receives sound and the other appreciates

resonance.

 

The German Doctors say that persons sensible of harmony have one

sense more than others.

 

Of those persons to whom music is but a confused mass of sounds,

we may remark that almost all sing false. We are forced to think

that they have the auditory apparatus