CHAPTER XIV_The Sense of Taste

THE ÆSTHETIC VALUE OF TASTE

_The Higher and Lower Senses_

WHEN people are asked to state which are the higher and which the lower

senses they feel no hesitation in deciding. When asked to arrange the

various senses in an order of merit on this basis they are able to do so

promptly. Moreover, their various arrangements agree very closely with

each other. Vision commonly stands at the top of the series; then

hearing; touch and smell are given third and fourth places about equally

often; taste is likely to be next; and finally temperature, sensations

of movement, and the more general organic sensations. When asked to

state what meaning they give to the term “higher” in making this

arrangement there is more disagreement in the nature of the replies.

Occasionally an individual asserts that by “higher” he means more

elaborate, complicated,—“highly” differentiated. A few individuals mean

by “higher” more useful, indispensable,—“higher” in value. But by far

the larger number of individuals mean neither the one nor the other of

these two notions, but have in mind some characteristic which is not

immediately related either to structural complexity, genetic antiquity,

nor practical utility,—a characteristic which can only be described as

ethical or æsthetic.

Evidence of a cleavage of the senses on an ethical basis is abundant.

Quotations from Burton’s “Anatomy of Melancholy” may serve as

representative of statements that can easily be found in the writings of

all centuries, from the Socratic period, through the reflections of the

schoolmen, down to the modern textbooks of psychology. Says Burton:

“Of these five senses sight is held to be most precious and the best....

Hearing is a most excellent outward sense.... Taste is a necessary

sense.... Touch, the last and most ignoble of the senses, yet of as

great necessity as the others, and of as much pleasure.”

Contemporary phraseology and convention are just as eloquent in the

matter. There is common agreement that some of the senses, in their

exercise or consequences, are ennobling, dignified, pure, and worthy;

others, either in their exercise or consequences, are felt to be

degrading, debasing, vile, and iniquitous. An individual who revels in

impressions of sight and sound, and indulges to the utmost the raptures

afforded by the tones, melodies, concords, the colors and their

harmonies, and the elements of form, design, and arrangement, we are

likely to find classified by his associates as “sensitive,”

“temperamental,” “artistic.” But one who revels to the same or even much

less degree in the unholy impressions of contact, temperature, smell,

and taste is held to be “sensuous” rather than “sensitive,” “gluttonous”

rather than “temperamental,” and “vicious” rather than “artistic.” The

former pleasures minister to a “divine fire,” the latter only to “lust”

and “appetite.”

Similarly, we esteem in quite distinctive manner the workman whose craft

consists in the preparation and arrangement of sights and sounds in

pleasing elements, orders, and compositions. He is held to have

“acquired merit,” however unsuccessful his labors, and receives warm

social approbation. He is an “artist.” But the workman whose craft

consists in the preparation and presentation of acceptable sensations of

taste, smell, touch, and temperature, what of him? He is neither held to

have “acquired merit” nor to deserve any enviable amount of social

recognition. He is only a “cook,” a “chef,” or, at the most, a “chemist”

or a “dietitian.” Only in the comic supplements is he ever an “artist.”

Painting, for instance, is held to be an “art”; but cooking is only a

“service.” The one is rewarded by distinction and eminence, the other,

when rewarded at all, by wages.

In the field of æsthetics the distinction between the “higher” and the

“lower” senses is no less clear. Museums and galleries we have in

abundance in which are preserved and displayed the treasures of light

and shade, color and form, line and arrangement. Private and public

funds are appropriated in order that these impressions may have the

widest possible circulation. Visitors and classes throng the corridors

of these storehouses; teachers and schools flourish on the profits

derived from the communication and publication of the principles

concerned in their manufacture; statues are erected to the most

deserving craftsmen; and earnest apprentices starve in foreign garrets

in order that their handicraft may in time adorn these walls. Much the

same thing is true of pleasing arrangements of sound impressions. All

possible pains are taken to record the scheme and plan of their

production, and the heartiest welcome is accorded any device,

instrument, or organization which will facilitate their being stored up

and poured out again for the delectation of remote or future audiences.

But to what museum or gallery shall one go who longs to experience the

glorious array of pleasing contacts, textures and pressures, odors,

tastes, and temperatures? Where shall one find stored up representatives

of the most satisfying and thrilling touch impressions that experience

has ever yielded, the whole gamut of delectable odors, with all the

offensive ones left out; all the aromas and savors and flavors in which

the gustatory and olfactory world is so rich? And all the organic

thrills, the kinæsthetic whirls and starts, and the delicious

dizzinesses of static experiences? Coney Island and its brood are the

only institutions that even pretend to minister to those whose nature

yearns for these satisfactions, and Coney Island is supported neither by

philanthropic endowment nor by public appropriations. It is even said

that its joys are thought to be “vulgar” among certain classes of

people, whose passions run mainly toward sights and sounds.

There can be no doubt about it. Certain of the senses are more æsthetic

than others, if by this we mean that special arts have been built up

which busy themselves with the materials afforded by them. Certain of

the senses, again, are unæsthetic, in the sense that the materials

afforded by them have not yielded to that sort of structural

manipulation which constitutes the procedure of one of the “fine arts.”

And, furthermore, such manipulation as they do submit to is not only not

considered “fine,” but is designated by the negative term “unæsthetic”;

the materials themselves, as well as those who busy themselves with

them, are quite likely to be esteemed “coarse” and “nasty.”

_Bounty of Nature and Ecclesiastical Censorship_

One may well inquire into the reasons for such a curious state of

affairs. Does it merely signify that agreeable sights and sounds are so

rare in nature that special social encouragement has come to be given

for their production, while pleasing contacts, pressures, tastes,

smells, etc., are so abundantly provided in the natural course of

experience that no such sanction is called for? Even if this were true,

does it follow that the sanction of the one group need necessarily

involve the taboo of the other? Does it perhaps merely indicate that

early in the history of art the Church and its leaders learned that the

original tendency of men and women to indulge themselves in the

voluptuous impressions of certain of the senses was so strong that the

immediate joys of earth promised to outweigh the promised blessings of

heaven? Such a discovery might well have resulted in an authoritative

denunciation of these types of experience and in an artificial

exaltation of the tamer and milder senses, whose objects could be

perceived at a remote distance and by many observers, and could be,

therefore, more minutely scrutinized by the ecclesiastic censors. Or

does it perhaps mean that some of these sense impressions from their

very nature are either unsuitable as materials for that sort of

manipulation and craftsmanship which we call artistic, or, from their

very nature or consequences, are inimical to and destructive of those

endeavors which we have come, on other grounds, to conceive to be the

most worthy and valuable tendencies of men and women? The bounty of

nature and the ecclesiastical censorship we may dismiss from the present

consideration, however worthy they may be of reflection, and confine our

present inquiry to the question of whether or not the impressions

afforded by some of the senses, such as taste, for example, are, by

their very nature, inadequate as raw materials of æsthetic manipulation

and artistic creation.

_The Psychophysical Attributes_

It may be well to begin our inquiry with a consideration of certain of

the technical psychological characteristics and properties of the

different senses, properties which can be measured and expressed in

quantitative terms. We may then observe whether their order, when

arranged on these bases, shows any correspondence to their order in the

scale of æsthetic value, and where, in such a scale, the sense of taste

belongs. The following table brings together the facts concerning four

of these characteristics. In the first column the senses are arranged in

the commonly accepted order of æsthetic value, and the degree of

correspondence can be easily made out by comparing this column with

those in which the various other properties are indicated.

+——————+————————+———————+—————+——————+

+——————+————————+———————+—————+——————+

| | | of 1% | | .030 sec. |

+——————+————————+———————+—————+——————+

| | | of 33% | | .002 sec. |

+——————+————————+———————+—————+——————+

+——————+————————+———————+—————+——————+

| Touch | qualities not | of 33% | .149 sec. | .002 sec. |

+——————+————————+———————+—————+——————+

| | with number | |.300 sec. | and |

| | not | |1.000 sec. | to |

+——————+————————+———————+—————+——————+

|(Movement, | classes with | of 5% | to | |

| | not | | | |

+——————+————————+———————+—————+——————+

|Temperature | difficult | to | to | to |

+——————+————————+———————+—————+——————+

+——————+————————+———————+—————+——————+

It requires only a glance at this table to reveal the fact that we

possess much more definite knowledge about sight and hearing in these

respects than we do about the other modes of sensation. In the case of

these two senses, the four characteristics indicated in the table can be

stated with considerable precision and certainty. But in the case of the

other senses, and of taste in particular, only broad and vague

statements can be made, for the most part. Even the number of

discriminable qualities which these senses afford is unknown, and

statements concerning the other properties are mainly confessions of

difficulty or ignorance. It is difficult to judge to what degree this

state of affairs is due simply to the greater attention that has been

given to sight and hearing in precise psychological investigation, and

to what degree it is due to difficulties inherent in the nature of the

sense impressions afforded by the other modes. Nevertheless, it is

apparent that no one of the special characteristics indicated in the

table can be held responsible for the sharp cleavage commonly made

between the worthy and the ignoble senses. Consideration of the

characteristics in detail shows that we must look elsewhere for the

reasons why the lower senses are unæsthetic, and even, perhaps, for the

reasons why they are lower.

With respect to number of discriminable qualities, for instance, sight

and hearing, with their many thousand distinguishable degrees of

impression, might seem to afford such an abundance of raw material that

this alone would explain why the principal fine arts have come to be

based on these senses. But it must be pointed out that this enumeration

of qualities has reference only to the definitely identifiable,

classifiable, and controllable degrees of impression. The mere fact that

odors can be classified under only nine headings, to which general terms

can be given, does not at all mean that there are but nine

distinguishable smells. Almost every different object in the world has

its own characteristic odor. We have not developed abstract names for

these odors, to be sure. We are usually content to designate the odor by

the name of the object with which it is associated. And when one bears

in mind the multitudinous variations of these odors, their different

intensities, mixtures, and modifications, one is inclined to believe

that it is only the infinite variety of smell experiences that prevents

our enumerating, classifying, and designating them. And what has just

been said of smell is equally true of touch, taste, and organic

sensations. It is also true that the separate lower senses are seldom

stimulated independently,—thus taste is always accompanied by smell,

touch, temperature, etc. May it perhaps be true that the very fact that

these impressions cannot be estimated, isolated, and reproduced at will

has something to do with their inferior æsthetic value? However this may

be, it is clear that the mere variety of impressions afforded is not the

criterion of which we are in search.

One might be tempted to suppose that the sharpness of discrimination of

the various senses, the keenness with which differences in the strength

and intensity of impressions can be detected, might be an important

factor in determining their availability for æsthetic manipulation. The

figures given in the table under this heading indicate the proportion

that must be added to a stimulus in order to make it just perceptibly

more intense. The temptation is removed at once by a mere inspection of

the values. Sight is, to be sure, the most delicate of the senses in

this respect, as it is also in number of isolable qualities. But

kinæsthetic sensation follows close upon it, while smell stands third in

the list, and hearing is no more sensitive than pressure. In the case of

taste and the other senses the values are unknown or difficult to

determine, but it is clear that the æsthetic values of the different

senses do not depend merely on their various psychophysical constants.

The quickness with which one can react to or perceive impressions from

the various senses discloses much the same state of affairs. Basing our

comparison on the average reaction times to the most commonly available

impressions and intensities in each case, hearing, touch, and

temperature are seen to be about equally prompt, while sight stands

fourth on the list. With respect to the period of time through which a

sensation continues to persist, the so-called “life span” of an

impression, only three of the values, those for sight, hearing, and

touch, have been determined, and these bear no significant relations to

each other. But these times are all very short, and the corresponding

modes of sensation stand high in the æsthetic scale. The other values,

although not determined, are known to be much longer than these. Is it

possible that the sluggishness of these senses and the persistence of

impressions once set up through them is so great that the impressions do

not submit to the forms, patterns, and structures which constitute

artistic treatment? Or may it not be equally true that the fugitive

character of impressions from the higher senses is what has made

necessary the development of treatment by means of pattern and

structure?

_The Tendency to Adaptation_

Suggested by this question of “life span” of sensations is another

characteristic which one might expect to find important,—viz., what we

have in an early chapter referred to as the “tendency to adaptation” of

the different senses. In the case of odors, temperatures, and contacts,

we easily and speedily become adapted to continuous presence of

impressions and cease to be aware of their existence. Thus, we soon

become adapted to the presence of hats on our heads, the clothes on our

backs, the smell of smoke, and even to such extreme temperatures as that

of the stoking room. Continuous stimulation of one of these senses so

raises the threshold of the sense organ that the original stimulus

ceases to be effective. So far as practical and æsthetic purposes are

concerned, we are then fatigued to the particular impression. We may be

gratified to find that this tendency to adaptation is not nearly so

conspicuous in the case of sight. But we will be equally dismayed to

learn that the tendency is as prominent in the case of hearing as it is

in the so-called lower senses. Moreover, this tendency refers to

continued stimulation of the same degree or quality, whereas in æsthetic

manipulation the qualities presented are varied from moment to moment

and from point to point.

_Spatial Attributes of Taste Qualities_

On the whole, then, these strictly psychological or psychophysical

comparisons are so unsatisfactory that we are compelled to look

elsewhere for the criteria of the raw material of æsthetics. Some

writers have suggested that the absence of definite and formal spatial

attributes and systems is what makes certain of the senses unsuitable

for æsthetic treatment. But there are two important objections to this

suggestion. One is our earlier question as to the reasons why æsthetic

treatment should necessarily consist of arrangement in spatial and

temporal series and patterns. Unless some excellent reason to the

contrary is given, we are free to assume that this is not a necessity,

but merely an incidental result, following from the character of the

materials, which, for other reasons, for which we seek, are chosen as

the raw materials for æsthetic treatment. The other objection, which is,

perhaps, more convincing, is the fact that, whereas touch and

kinæsthetic impressions both possess immediate voluminousness and take

their place readily in a spatial manifold of position, direction,

distance, and form, they do not yield to æsthetic treatment; while sound

and taste, one of which easily ranks second and the other of which

belongs low down in our æsthetic scale, possess extent in only a very

doubtful and probably analogical manner, and are almost, if not wholly,

lacking in those qualities which would enable them to participate in a

manifold of position, direction, distance, and form. As for temporal

attributes, such as duration and sequence, all impressions possess them,

from whatever sense they originate. The idea that the difficulty or

impossibility of giving spatial and temporal form to the lower

sensations prevents the representation of nature by means of them, and

that this is a sufficient reason for regarding them as inferior is

anything but adequate.

_Immediate Affective Value of Taste_

Perhaps the greatest surprise comes when we consider the immediate

affective value of impressions from the different senses. Impressions of

taste, smell, and contact bear with them or immediately provoke very

definite and powerful feelings,—feelings of pleasantness and

disagreeableness, excitement and calm, tension and relief. Still more

complex emotions than these simple feelings are called up more easily

and universally by impressions from these senses than in any other way.

Their immediate pleasure tone and their associated emotions may be, and

usually are, exceedingly rich and intense. The smell of new-mown hay,

coffee, flowers, whiffs of the salt sea breeze, the odors of animals,

foods, spices, and herbs move us to strong emotions. The stroking of

fur, the cool of evening, the delicious languor of a sun bath—all these

have high and immediate affective value that can hardly be exceeded by

any emotions provoked by colors, forms, noises, and tones. In general,

those senses that are closely connected with our personal and bodily

welfare, as is the case with taste, provoke strong affective reactions

and convey to us a strong sense of reality. Those senses which are much

less intimately related to our immediate bodily welfare possess much

weaker feeling tone and provoke much less emphatic emotional reactions.

Disagreeable odors, tastes, and contacts are quite beyond our endurance,

but few are the sights and sounds to which we cannot easily reconcile

ourselves. Here, then, we have the interesting and perhaps unexpected

fact that the sense impressions possess æsthetic value just to the

degree that they fail to arouse in us definite and powerful feelings.

The inverted arrangement on the basis of æsthetic value gives us

precisely the order on the basis of immediate affective value.

Santayana’s assertion that the small range and variety of pleasure-toned

qualities among the lower senses explains their non-æsthetic character,

in part, is seen to be not only inadequate, but even a perversion of the

facts. Just in that degree to which sense impressions fail to produce in

us immediate pleasures and aversions, fail to provoke us to instinctive

emotions of joy and disgust, fail to stir in us moods of irritation and

acquiescence,—in just that degree do they declare themselves to be

adequate raw materials for the fine arts. If, as we are often told, the

primary purpose of art is to please, this must be an entirely unexpected

state of affairs, and the low position of taste in the æsthetic scale

becomes quite unintelligible.

_Development in the Individual and the Race_

Perhaps this is as appropriate a place as any in which to point out that

the order of the senses, on the basis of their æsthetic value, is

approximately that of their philogenetic and ontogenetic development.

The simplest and most undifferentiated forms of animal life possess, in

more or less rudimentary form, sensitivity to impressions which must

resemble closely what we know as contact, pressure, movement, and

temperature. Touch, as Aristotle tells us, is the “mother sense.”

Starting from this form of sensibility as a basis, the other senses

develop as we ascend the animal series, by processes of increasing

complexity and refinement. Taste and smell, as we know those

experiences, were probably the next to differentiate themselves from the

vague mass of tactual and organic sensation, then hearing, and last of

all sight. And there is evidence of sequence within a single sense; thus

it would appear that brightness vision, sensibility to mere light and

shadow, antedated color vision by a considerable interval, and even that

sensibilities to the various color impressions developed in some sort of

serial order. It is also true that the sense organs upon which fall the

stimulations of the physical world are, at the birth of the individual,

in very diverse conditions of functional perfection. The nerves which

underlie sensations of taste, touch, temperature, and pain operate

perfectly at birth. Hearing is defective for one to two weeks after

birth, and the mechanism of vision is still more imperfect and commonly

remains so for several weeks. From the point of view of the three

meanings of the word “higher,” the ethical, the æsthetic, and the

genetic, the order of the senses is the same. Such close agreement

cannot be entirely without significance.

_The Imaginative Value of Taste_

A further characteristic which correlates closely with the æsthetic

arrangement is to be found in the relative ease with which images can be

called up and contemplated in the various modes of sensation, in the

absence of any physical stimulation,—what we may call the imaginative

possibilities of the different senses. With most people visual and

auditory imagery is both more vivid and intense, and more facile and

prompt, than is imagery within any of the other sensory modes. We have

in another section referred to one observer who recorded his mental

images as they occurred or were noticed until 2,500 had been enumerated,

and who reports that 57 per cent of them were visual, 29 per cent

auditory, leaving only a total of 14 per cent for images from all the

other senses. Dreams, which consist mainly of imagery experiences, are

commonly visual in character, with hearing a close second, and the other

modes hardly represented at all. Hallucinations reported by supposedly

normal people are in 90 per cent of the cases either visual or auditory,

and the visual are about twice as frequently reported as the auditory.

Records of hallucinations among the insane show vision and hearing

clearly most prominent, with hearing somewhat more prominent than sight.

Can it be that the possibility of recall in the form of imagery,

contemplation in the absence of the original stimulus or object, is one

of the prime qualifications of sensory impressions that are to serve as

æsthetic material? There will probably be no exception taken to such a

generalization on the part of anybody. The order on the basis of

imaginative value is identical with that on the basis of æsthetic value,

ethical value, and genetic development.

_The Non-Social Character of the Lower Senses_

It is interesting to note that the higher senses are also the so-called

distance receptors; they do not require immediate contact with the

stimulus-producing object, whereas the lower senses inform us mainly

concerning objects that are in direct or approximate contact with our

own body. By virtue of this fact, as has often been remarked, it is

possible for many of us to _see_ the same object, such as a rainbow,

however far apart we may be from each other. And we can all hear the

same melody-producing instrument if we place ourselves within a certain

fairly large area. But social experience is scarcely possible in the

case of contact, taste, smell, temperature. Here the most we can do is

to get the experiences in succession, and even this is often impossible.

Even when it is possible to get the experiences in this way, by taking

turns, we find it difficult to confer over them, since all conference is

now on the basis of memory images, and, as we have already seen, we find

it difficult, if, indeed, not quite impossible, to call up clear and

persistent images of the impressions afforded by these senses.

It is true of some of these senses that in their enjoyment the stimulus

itself is consumed. Whenever this is the case the sense concerned will

be found to be one of the so-called lower, unæsthetic senses. Not only

is social experience of the enjoyable object impossible, but even the

single individual cannot himself get the experience again. Can it be,

perhaps, that, as Thorndike remarks, “the pleasures of taste are not

called æsthetic because one cannot eat his cake and have it, too”? It

begins now to look as though only those sense impressions can become

æsthetic vehicles which somehow lead beyond themselves, and beyond the

immediate gratification of the individual, and facilitate some sort of

social operation, or conference, or participation. In saying this we do

not have reference to the doctrine that one often hears

emphasized,—viz., that the lower senses, such as taste, are low and

unæsthetic because they minister mainly to our personal and

physiological needs. Nothing could be farther from the truth. It is not

because taste, smell, and touch are mainly concerned in telling us of

facts that are of fundamental vital importance to us as individuals that

they are low or unæsthetic, but only because they do nothing more than

this,—because they cannot become the vehicle of our individual and

social conference and communication.

In this connection let me quote an illuminating comment from Miss

Calkins’ chapter on “Perception” in her “Introduction to Psychology.” As

she there writes:

“It thus appears that even perception, the consciousness, as we

call it, of outer things, is a consciousness of other selves as

sharing our experience, a relatively altruistic, not an

exclusively egoistic mode of consciousness. This is the reason

why we usually speak of sight and hearing and smell as higher

senses—and in the order named—than taste and the dermal sense

experiences. Vision is the sense most readily shared by any

number of selves: for example, everybody within a very wide area

may see the mountain on the horizon or the Milky Way in the

evening sky. Next to vision, sounds are the most frequently

shared experiences; millions of people hear the same thunder and

thousands may share the same concert. Even odors, though shared

by fewer people, may be common to very many, whereas tastes and

pressures and pains, which require actual bodily contact, and

warmth and cold, whose physiological stimulation depends on

conditions of the individual body, are far less invariably

shared experiences. But the shared experiences are those that

are described, discussed, repeated, measured—in other words,

those that are creatively reëmbodied in works of art and in

scientific investigations. Vision, therefore, is a higher sense

than the others, only in so far as it is more often shared, and

hence more often discussed and described, measured and verified.

This is the reason why it is a more significant social material

of intercourse, art, and science. Pressure and warmth, on the

other hand, are less valued, because they are less often

actually shared and, therefore, less easily verified and less

frequently described.”

This, we have said, is an illuminating paragraph. But it is satisfactory

only when amplified in certain ways to which we seem to have been led in

our preceding discussion. Thus, it cannot be said that the socially

shared sense impressions are chosen as the raw material of the fine arts

merely because they enable a multiplication of individual pleasures. The

dominant passion of the artist is not merely to afford pleasure to the

greatest possible number of observers. But so long as art is defined as

an attempt to please, that is about all that follows from the social

character of the higher senses. As a matter of fact, artists do not seek

to please the greatest possible number of observers. They are often

contented if a single observer is satisfied. And by satisfied, in this

connection, one does not mean pleased. We have already seen that the

most pleasing of all sense impressions are those afforded by the lower

senses. If the mere production of pleasure is the chief aim of the

artist, he would surely have resorted to those materials which in

themselves and by their own direct effects facilitated his purpose.

_The Unsystematic Relations of Taste Qualities_

Another characteristic of those sense materials which enter into art

products,—especially vision and hearing,—is the fact that the various

experiences constituting the sense manifold exhibit structural and

systematic relationships. We do not here refer to the possibility of

spatial arrangement and form. This we have already discussed and

dismissed as an inadequate criterion. We mean, rather, those facts

represented, in the case of vision, by the color pyramid and similar

schemes for representing the qualitative relations of visual sensations;

and, in the case of sound, by the tonal scale and such graded intensity

scales as may be devised. Definite and formulable relations with respect

to such facts as fusion, harmony, tonality, and melody; saturation,

contrast, complementariness, mixture, etc., may be made out in the cases

of vision and hearing. Æsthetic manipulation takes the form of playing

upon these relationships. The visual and auditory qualities constitute

not merely a manifold, but yield systematic structures. But the sense of

taste and the other lower sensation modes tend to constitute a mere

unorganized manifold.

Now, it may be at once suggested that we here have the adequate

criterion of the æsthetic for which we are searching, and that this is

at bottom the reason why it is the visual and auditory experiences that

are “described, discussed, repeated, and measured (and) creatively

reëmbodied in works of art.”

But even this account is, as a matter of fact, very one-sided and in

part, at least, fallacious. We do not know what structural systems would

be exhibited by the lower sense experiences if we had only discussed

them, measured them, and creatively embodied them to the degree to which

we have gone in the case of the higher senses. We cannot be sure, in the

present state of our knowledge, to what degree the appearance of

superior organization on the part of the higher senses is due to the

amount of effort and inquiry we have bestowed upon their examination.

All that we really know is that innumerable studies have been made of

sight and sound, and that we are able to represent their results in the

form of schemes and systems; whereas, comparatively few studies of the

intensive type have been made of the various “lower senses,” and we are

proportionately unable to construct the corresponding schemes and

structures. Which is cause and which is effect? Do the lower senses fail

to provide the raw materials of æsthetic construction because of their

lack of elaborate and systematic organization, or do they owe this very

deficiency to the relative neglect they have suffered at the hands of

the artist?

_The Motive of Æsthetic Products_

There is some further reason why the æsthetic sense impressions are

those which are genetically most recent, in imagination the most capable

of clear and persistent revival, pertaining mainly to the distance

receptors, informing us of objects which may be socially shared, and

capable of systematic and organized description. It seems that this

reason is simply that the main thing about an æsthetic presentation,

arrangement, or composition is, after all, its intellectual content, its

“message.” The artist desires, above all, to eliminate our own immediate

and instinctive reactions to his materials. In so far as he is an

artist, he is not satisfied with presenting to us a pleasing array of

sense materials. His main concern is in communicating to his observers

some situation, some theme, some state of affairs, some meaning, some

purely relational fact. Such emotions as are stirred in us he does not

wish to come from his mere materials, but from his own manipulation of

them, from the form or pattern which he gives them, from the meaning

which he thereby conveys to us. The true artist, in other words, is

neither a chemist, nor an athlete, nor a technician of any sort

whatsoever, but a philosopher.

Stout makes a similar comment when he says: “The distinction between

what we call the higher and lower senses rests on this contrast between

the intrinsic impressiveness of sensations and their value for

perceptual consciousness.... The relatively higher senses deserve this

title in proportion as they are more delicately discriminative and more

capable of being combined in successive and simultaneous groups and

series, while preserving their distinctive differences. On the other

hand, each several sensation is proportionately less important through

its own intensity and pleasant or painful character. Any direct effect

produced by its own intrinsic intensity and affective tone would

interfere with its value as a vehicle of meaning—as an indication of

something beyond its own existence. Thus, as perceptual consciousness

becomes relatively more prominent and important, sensation is more

delicately differentiated, more definitely restricted, less intense, and

less strongly toned in the way of pleasure and pain.”

The comments one is offered in the books on “art,”—eulogies of Raphael’s

rich color tones, Rembrandt’s lights and shadows, Rubens’ flesh tints,

Meissonier’s minute details, Turner’s accurate reproduction of ferns and

mosses, smoke and fog, and so on, represent a deliberate degradation of

the work of the artist to the level of cookery, the manufacture of

perfumery, dye-stuffs, and the operation of merry-go-rounds. It is

crediting the artist with just that result which æsthetic manipulation

has always sought not to produce,—the presentation of sense materials,

which of their own right awaken strong feeling tone in the observer.

When George Frederick Watts attempted, beyond those before him, to

convey meaning through his arrangements of sense impressions he refused

to attend minutely to the details of technique, and critics subsequently

said of him, “His technique is faulty.” Perhaps it was, but that is the

sort of comment one passes on an athlete, a ventriloquist, or a juggler.

One might just as significantly criticize the literary style of a

mathematician or a logician as the technique of an artist. Such

criticisms, to be sure, have a legitimate place in life. But the critic

of the mathematician’s literary style should not delude himself into the

belief that he is discussing mathematics, nor the critic of the artist’s

technique fancy that he is dealing with his art. For the real artist is

a philosopher, and that is the reason why the lower senses are

unæsthetic.

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INDEX

Abnormalities, of taste, 97, 123 ff., 151 ff.

Acetate of lead, 4

Acid, 5

Adaptation, phenomena of, 48

tendency to, 180

_Addams_, 159

Æsthetics, motive of products, 192

Æsthetic value, of the senses, 168 ff.

Affective value, of sensory qualities, 182 ff.

After images, nature of, 37

of taste, 39

Ageusia, 152

Alkaline, taste, 20

Alkaloids, taste of, 5

Allotriophagia, 157

Annelids, sense organs of, 133

Antagonism, of colors, 30

of tastes, 31

Appetite, 164 ff.

Apple, taste of, 13

Areas, of taste, 23, 75

Art, and philosophy, 194

Auræ of taste, 151

_Bailey_, 45

_Bain_, 8

_Bell_, 134

Birds, senses of, 140

Bitter, 5, 7, 20, 21, 22, 31, 36, 40, 45, 47

Blends, of taste, 18, 29

_Boyle_, 110

Brain center, for taste, 89 ff.

_Brown_, 150

_Burton_, 169

_Calkins_, 189

Camphor, taste of, 12

Cane sugar, taste of, 4

_Cannon_, 161

_Carlson_, 163

Cells, supporting and gustatory, 80, 108

Censorship, 173

_Chatin_, 7, 18

Chemical sense, 131, 135 ff.

Chemistry, 1, 4, 78, 96, 99

_Chevreul_, 4, 12

_Chinaglea_, 58

Chloroform, taste of, 4, 13, 76

Chorda tympani, 87, 98

Classification, of tastes, 3 ff.

of papillæ, 70

of taste stimuli, 96

Cocaine, 21

Coffee, taste of, 13

Colloids, 5, 94, 110

Colors, primary, 2

names of, 24

organization of, 27

Compensation, in colors, 30

in tastes, 31

Contrast, experience of, 34

laws of, 37

Crustacea, sense organs of, 134

Crystalloids, 5, 94, 110

_Cushing_, 88

Development, of taste, 51 ff., 116 ff., 143, 184

Digestion, and taste, 160

Discrimination, of tastes, 47

sharpness of, 175

Dreams, and taste, 124, 149, 186

Drugs, effect of, 20, 150

Duration, of sensations, 175

Electric stimulation, 100

Evolution, of senses, 52

of taste, 53, 116, 128 ff., 184

Eye, as sense organ, 9, 60

stimulus for, 111

Fatigue, 48

Fishes, senses of, 136

Flat worms, sense organs of, 132

Flavors, 18, 158 ff.

Foods, taste of, 16, 31

and flavors, 158

_Forel_, 135

Fusion, of colors, 2

of tastes, 9, 18

Ganglion, nature of, 85

Gasserian, 86

Gastric juice, 161 ff.

_Gley_, 111

_Graham_, 94, 110

_Guezer_, 53

Gymnema, 21

_Haller_, 8

Hallucinations, of taste, 124, 149, 151

Heat, sensation of, 2

_Hering_, 113

_Herrick_, 137

_Hornborg_, 163

_Humboldt_, 101

Imagination, and taste, 144 ff., 185

Individual differences, 46, 122 ff.

Inertia, of sense organ, 55

Insects, senses of, 135

_Kiesow_, 23, 30, 40, 41, 56, 75, 95, 99, 122

Kinæsthesis, 9, 10, 19, 34

_Kroner_, 53

_Kuelpe_, 41

_Kussmaul_, 53

_Ladd_, 18, 41

Lemonade, taste of, 29

_Linnæus_, 8

Magnesia, taste of, 5

Malacia, 156

Mammals, senses of, 141

Manifold, of sensations, 2

of taste, 3, 17

Meats, taste of, 16

Medusa, sense organs of, 132

Memory, and taste, 144

Mental images, nature of, 144

of taste, 146

classification of, 148

Mixture, of tastes, 28

Mode, of sensation, 7

Motive, of æsthetic products, 192

Muscles, of tongue, 66

_Myers_, 23

_Nagel_, 73, 76, 94, 97, 122, 125

Names, of tastes, 23 ff.

Nerves, of taste, 80, 83 ff., 115

Neurone, nature of, 82, 85

_Nichols_, 45

_Oehrwall_, 114

Onion, taste of, 13

Organization, of taste, 27 ff., 190

Palate, sensitiveness of, 75

Papillæ, stimulation of, 10, 22

sensitiveness of, 22

location of, 68

varieties of, 70

function of, 105

development of, 117

_Parker_, 133, 138

Parorexia, 156

_Patrick_, 15

_Pavlow_, 63, 161

Perception, nature of, 29

Periodic law, 5

Perversions, of taste, 156

_Peterson_, 53

Philosophy, and art, 194

Pica, 157

Potassium, taste of, 5

Primitive peoples, 23, 126

Psychology, and classification, 6, 18

Psychophysical attributes, 174 ff.

Qualities, of taste, 1

distribution of, 21

of different senses, 175

Quinine, taste of, 13, 22, 32

Race differences, 126

_Rainey_, 53

_Ramsay_, 111

Reactions, instinctive, 11

time of, 56, 175

Reptiles, senses of, 139

_Richet_, 111, 163

Saliva, flow of, 64, 93

Salivary glands, activity of, 62

function of, 103

Salt, 5, 20, 22, 31, 36, 40, 45, 57

Sapidity, conditions of, 93 ff.

Schema, of color qualities, 27

of tones, 28

of tastes, 39

Sense organ, of taste, 60 ff., 75

development of, 116, 129

Senses, higher and lower, 168 ff.

æsthetic value of, 168 ff.

of lower animals, 132 ff.

development of, 132

Sensitiveness, of taste, 43, 53, 99

Sensitiveness, of tongue, 21, 99

measures of, 43

varieties of, 44

of taste and smell, 46

of the cell, 130

Sham feeding, 162

_Sheldon_, 138

Smell, sense organ of, 11

self-sacrificing character of, 14

loss of, 15

function of, 17

names for, 24

sensitiveness of, 46

adaptation to, 49

Social character, of senses, 187

Sour, 5, 20, 21, 22, 31, 36, 40, 45, 57

Spatial attributes, 181

Specific energy, of taste nerves, 115

_Stahr_, 117

_Sternberg_, 96, 112

Stimulus, meaning of, 3

adaptation to, 48, 51

adequate and inadequate, 92

for taste, 92 ff., 111

Subjective tastes, 149

Sugar of lead, 5

_Sulzer_, 100

Sweet, 5, 7, 20, 21, 31, 36, 40, 45, 57

Taste, acquirement of, 50

adaptation to, 49

æsthetic value of, 168

agreeableness of, 7, 24, 50, 158

biological rôle of, 158

blends of, 9, 18, 28

classification of, 3 ff.

contrasts of, 37

development of, 49, 116, 128 ff., 184

disorders of, 123 ff.

distribution of, 21, 73, 75, 123

in lower animals, 128 ff.

names for, 23

organ of, 60

organization of, 27 ff.

poverty of, 14

qualities of, 1

sensitiveness of, 43, 53

stimulus for, 92 ff., 105

Taste buds, characteristics of, 78

structure of, 79, 82

function of, 107, 114

Temperature, effect of, 58, 99

_Thorndike_, 188

Threshold, of taste sensation, 44

Time, relations, 55

of reaction, 57

Tongue, as sense organ, 9, 21, 61, 120

structure of, 65

movements of, 67, 103, 105

function of, 103

Touch, sense of, 9, 12, 19

_Valentin_, 45

Vegetables, taste of, 16

Vocabulary, of taste, 23

_Volta_, 101

Water, taste of, 150

_Woodworth_, 18, 41

_Wundt_, 8, 41, 142

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● Transcriber’s Notes:

○ Missing or obscured punctuation was silently corrected.

○ Typographical errors were silently corrected.

○ Inconsistent spelling and hyphenation were made consistent only

when a predominant form was found in this book.

○ Text that was in italics is enclosed by underscores (_italics_).