The Physiology of Taste; Or, Transcendental GastronomyBrillat-Savarin
Philosophy
The Physiology of Taste; Or, Transcendental Gastronomy
Brillat-Savarin
Gastronomy
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 so made, as to receive but
brief and short undulation, or that the two ears not being on the
same diapason, the difference in length and sensibility of these
constituent parts, causes them to transmit to the brain only an
obscure and undetermined sensation, like two instruments played in
neither the same key nor the same measure, and which can produce
no continuous melody.
The centuries last passed have also given the taste important
extension; the discovery of sugar, and its different preparations,
of alcoholic liquors, of wine, ices, vanilla, tea and coffee, have
given us flavors hitherto unknown.
Who knows if touch will not have its day, and if some fortuitous
circumstance will not open to us thence some new enjoyments? This
is especially probable as tactile sensitiveness exists every where
in the body, and consequently can every where be excited.
We have seen that physical love has taken possession of all the
sciences. In this respect it acts with its habitual tyranny.
The taste is a more prudent measure but not less active faculty.
Taste, we say, has accomplished the same thing, with a slowness
which ensures its success.
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