The Principles of Psychology, Volume 2 (of 2)James, William
Science
The Principles of Psychology, Volume 2 (of 2)
James, William
Psychology
[169] It may, however, be said that even in the tongue there is a
determination of bitter flavors to the back and of acids to the front
edge of the organ. Spices likewise affect its sides and front, and a
taste like that of alum localizes itself, by its styptic effect on the
portion of mucous membrane, which it immediately touches, more sharply
than roast pork, for example, which stimulates all parts alike. The
pork, therefore, tastes more spacious than the alum or the pepper.
In the nose, too, certain smells, of which vinegar may be taken as
the type, seem less spatially extended than heavy, suffocating odors,
like musk. The reason of this appears to be that the former inhibit
inspiration by their sharpness, whilst the latter are drawn into the
lungs, and thus excite an objectively larger surface. The ascription of
height and depth to certain notes seems due, not to any localization of
the sounds, but to the fact that a feeling of vibration in the chest
and tension in the gullet accompanies the singing of a bass note,
whilst, when we sing high, the palatine mucous membrane is drawn upon
by the muscles which move the larynx, and awakens a feeling in the roof
of the mouth.
The only real objection to the law of partial stimulation laid down
in the text is one that might be drawn from the organ of hearing;
for, according to modern theories, the cochlea may have its separate
nerve-termini exclusively excited by sounds of differing pitch, and
yet the sounds seem all to fill a common space, and not necessarily
to be arranged alongside of each other. At most the high note is felt
as a thinner, brighter streak against a darker background. In an
article on Space, published in the Journal of Speculative Philosophy
for January, 1879, I ventured to suggest that possibly the auditory
nerve termini might be "excited all at once by sounds of any pitch,
as the whole retina would be by every luminous point if there were
no dioptric apparatus affixed." And I added: "Notwithstanding the
brilliant conjectures of the last few years which assign different
acoustic end-organs to different rates of air-wave, we are still
greatly in the dark about the subject; and I, for my part, would
much more confidently reject a theory of hearing which violated the
principles advanced in this article than give up those principles for
the sake of any hypothesis hitherto published about either organs of
Corti or basilar membrane." Professor Rutherford's theory of hearing,
advanced at the meeting of the British Association for 1886, already
furnishes an alternative view which would make hearing present no
exception to the space-theory I defend and which, whether destined to
be proved true or false, ought, at any rate to make us feel that the
Helmholtzian theory is probably not the last word in the physiology of
hearing. Stepano, ff. (Hermann und Schwalbe's Jahresbericht, xv. 404,
Literature 1886) reports a case in which more than the upper half of
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