The Physiology of Taste - Brillat Savarin (black female authors TXT) 📗
- Author: Brillat Savarin
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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
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