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0 f the Sense of Taste . — Another sense which the all-wise Creator has friv £ n to assist us in the proper choice of food , and also for combining pleasure with the necessity of taking in fresh nourishment , is the sense of taste * ' which resides in the nervous
extremity and sides of the tongue , and is excited by the contact of those bodies whose properties are calculated to act upon these nerves . And it is by making different kinds of impressions , owing to their various qualities , some substances being mild ,
others acrid and pungent , that the different tastes of sour , sweet , bitter , &c , are produced : but it is well ascertained that the particular state of thesenervous papillae of the tongue , with respect to their moisture , their figure ari 4 Aheir covering , will excite a cotisi&ertble difference in the
exercise of fhis sense ; hence it varies in different people , and admits of great changes even in the same person , in sickness and in health . The capacity of the tongue to feel
a difference of tastes , has been wisely and kindly implanted , that we may distinguish such kinds of food as are most salutary , for , in general , those which are so , are found to be pleasant , and those which are ill-tasted
« e rarely fit for nourishment . In this manner nature invites us to take necessary food , as vyell by the pain called hunger , as by the pleasure arisipg from the sense of taste . But brute animals who have not , like ourselves , the advantage of learning from
each other by instruction , have the faculty of distinguishing flavours more accurately , by which they are admonished to abstain cautiously from food that would be found mischievous to
their well-being : hence herbiverous aniaiaJs , to which a great diversity of noxious plants is offered among their food , are furnished with long and krge papillae in the tongue , which are not necessary to man .
Of the Sense of Feeling .- —The sense of touch is that faculty by which we disti nguish certain properties of bodlcs by the feel , and it may be said to e * ist in all parts of the body possessed of sensibility . It is by this » ense that w obtain the ideas of solid , hard , soft , [ gh , hot , cold , wet , dry and other £ * gible qualities . This sense is said *? be the coarsest , but , at the same *** it is the surest of all others , and
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the most universal . We see and hear with small portions of our body , but we feel with all . Nature has bestowed that general sensation wherever there are nerves , and they are in every part in which there is life . Were it otherwise , the parts divested of
feeling might be destroyed without our knowledge . The parts of the skin which possess this sense more perfectly for the examination of sub * stances , is that covering the points of the fingers , which , from the peculiar disposition of its nervous papillae , and
also the convex shape of the part on which they lie , is admirably calculated for inquiring into the nature of bodies by the feel . It has been ascertained , from the most careful observations , that there are the same sort , of papillae on the tongue , by which the sense of
taste is excited , as there are in the nervous and cuticular substance , where they are covered with a reticular or netted substance , and these have their termination in the outward cuticle . Any person , says an able anatomist , may , with the help of a microscope ,
perceive upon the back of the hands certain orifices for giving vent to the perspiration , distributed in the most wonderful order , around which there arise many small heads or points . These are the extremities of the papillae rising from the cutis above the reticular substance arid the outward
cuticle , whence it is inferred , that as the sense of feeling arises from the papillae in the tongue , so the sense of feeling is produced from the same papillae in those organs where the touch is most acute and sensible . So very acute has the sense of touch been
found in some blind persons , that we have heard of those in that state who could , by the feel , distinguish the different colours in an uniformlywoven silk veil . The senses of taste and smell are
nearly allied to the sense of feeling . They are , however , as we have seen , distinguished from it , because they have each a peculiar organ , and are each affected by peculiar properties of bodies . The chief organ of taste
is the tongue , and it is fitted for its office by the numerous extremities of nerves which are lodged along it » surface , and particularly at the top and sides . Dr . Hartley contends that this sense extend 3 to the other parts of the mouth , down the throat , the stomach »
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yatural Theology * JVo . VI <—The Senses of Taste and Feeling . 36 S
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), June 2, 1815, page 363, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1761/page/35/
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