Dr. William T. Harris, in his latest contribution to the "International
Education Series," _Psychologic Foundations of Education_, defines
the presently appreciated value of the sense of taste, as follows:
"The lowest form of special sense is taste, which is closely allied to
nutrition. Taste perceives the phase of assimilation of the object,
which is commencing with the mouth. The individuality of the object is
attacked and it gives way, its organic product or inorganic aggregate
suffering dissolution--taste perceives the dissolution. Substances that
do not yield to the attack of the juices of the mouth have no taste.
Glass and gold have little taste as compared with salt or sugar. The
sense of taste differs from the process of nutrition in the fact that
it does not assimilate the body tasted, but reproduces ideally the
energy that makes the impression on the sense organ of taste. Even
taste, therefore, is an ideal activity, although it is present only
when the nutritive energy is assimilating--it perceives the object in a
process of dissolution.
"Smell is another specialisation which perceives dissolution of objects
in a more general form than taste. Both smell and taste perceive
chemical changes that involve dissolution of the object."
If this is the recognised estimate of taste, which is true as widely as
I have been able to inquire, both among physicians and among the latest
books on health, it is certainly a case of neglected appreciation such
as the world has not witnessed up to the present time.
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