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CHAP. I.

necessary to health, is certainly requisite to plea- PART I. sure; at least to that of sense; as none can last long without it; there being scarcely any sensations but Of Taste. such as are too violent to be pleasant, that will not, by being very frequently repeated, or very long continued, become so familiar, as to be no longer sensations but mere habits of existence. The organs, by being continually subjected to the same impression, become assimilated and adapted to it, so that the action of the nerves excited by it becomes a sort of spontaneous motion; the irritation being little more perceived or noticed, than that caused by the acrimony of the blood, or the natural operation of any other internal stimulus. Hence we naturally seek for some new impression, that may restore that pleasure, which we originally felt from this sensation, which has thus become stale and vapid.

7. If this desire of change be indulged to excess, men soon begin to require an increase in the degree, as well as variation in the mode, of irritation; whence arises that vicious appetite for strong odours, relishing food, and stimulant liquors, which, if once suffered to prevail, always increases in a constant, and regularly accelerated progression; till at length things, naturally the most nauseous, become most grateful; and things, naturally most grateful, most insipid.

PART I. 8. This extreme effect, however, only takes CHAP. 1. place where the palate has become morbid and Of Taste. vitiated by continued, and even forced, gratifica

tion; and even then the metaphors taken from this sense, and employed to express intellectual qualities, shew that it is always felt and considered as a corruption, even by those who are most corrupted for though there are many, who prefer port wine to malmsey, and tobacco to sugar, yet no one ever spoke of a sour or bitter temper, as pleasant, or of a sweet one, as unpleasant.

9. Yet the pleasures derived from these vitiated tastes seem to be more exquisite, than any de-, rived from nature: for, when men have once acquired them, they are more constant in the indulgence of them, and find greater difficulty in dispensing with the gratification, after they have been used to it. No one, past the age of childhood, has ever found any permanent pleasure in sucking sugar-candy; but how many do we see, to whom the chewing or smoaking of tobacco has become an habitual, and even an indispensable gratification. Ottar of roses and other sweet scents are only occasionally applied to the nose; and, if used too frequently, cloy and satiate: but the use of snuff becomes a permanent and constant habit.

10. The case is, that all those tastes, which are natural, lose, and all those, which are unna

tural, acquire strength by indulgence: for no PART I. strained or unnatural action of the nerves can ever

CHAP. I.

be so assimilated to their constitutional modes of Of Taste. existence, as not to produce, on every re-application of its cause, a change sufficient to excite a pleasing irritation; which, those that are natural and gentle cease by degrees to do; since, by uninterrupted continuance for any long time, they become blended and confounded with those, which belong to the vital motion and constitutional existence of the organ. A man may inhale air impregnated with ottar of roses, or other sweet scents, till he no longer perceives that it is impregnated; as we often find to be the case with those who live in perfumers' shops: but no one can inhale air mixt with effluvia of assafetida or tobacco without perceiving it, unless his olfactory nerves have totally lost their sensibility.

11. It is to be observed, however, that a great part of the pleasure, arising from the use of bitter and nauseous drugs, and fermented liquors, arises from their exhilarating and intoxicating qualities: but these belong to another branch of our inquiry, and shall be examined in the proper place.

CHAP. II.

CHAPTER II.

OF SMELL.

PART I. 1. WHAT has been said of tastes may, in almost every instance, be applied with equal Of Smell. propriety to smells; which are caused by the finer particles of bodies being dissolved in the air, which we inhale, and borne by it through the nostrils to the olfactory nerves; as tastes are caused by the same finer particles being diluted in the saliva, and conveyed with it to the palate and other organs of the mouth. The pleasures and pains of each seem to depend on similar modes and degrees of irritation: but, in mankind, to be more limited in their extent, in the sense of smelling, than in that of tasting.

2. In some kinds of animals, however, the sense of smell seems to be connected with certain mental sympathies; as those of hearing and sight are in all that possess them in any high degree: for not only their sexual desires. appear to be excited by means of it; but other instinctive passions, which, according to the usual system of nature, should be still more

CHAP. II.

remote from its influence. It has been observed PART I. that dogs, though wholly unacquainted with lions, will tremble and shudder at their roar; Of Smell. and an elephant, that has never seen a tiger, will, in the same manner, show the strongest symptoms of horror and affright at the smell of it. The late Lord Clive exhibited a combat between two of these animals at Calcutta: but the scent of the tiger had such an effect upon the elephant, that nothing could either force or allure him to go along the road, where the cage, in which it was enclosed, had passed; till a gallón of arrack was given him; when, his horror suddenly turning to fury, he broke down the paling to get at his enemy, and killed him without difficulty.

3. The excessive eagerness, which dogs express on smelling their game, seems to be but little connected with the appetite for food, and wholly independent of any preconceived ideas of the objects of their pursuit being fit for it. Hence several kinds of them will not eat the game, which they pursue with such wild impetuosity; and of which the scent seems to animate them to a degree of ecstasy, far beyond what the mere desire of food can produce.

4. Where blood has been shed, particularly that of their own species, oxen will assemble; and, upon smelling it, roar and bellow, and show

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