AN INQUIRY
INTO
THE RELATION OF
TASTES AND ALIMENTS
TO EACH OTHER,
AND
INTO THE INFLUENCE OF THIS RELATION
UPON
HEALTH AND PLEASURE.
In entering upon this subject, I feel like the clown, who, after several unsuccessful attempts to play upon a violin, threw it hastily from him, exclaiming at the same time, that “there was music in it,” but that he could not bring it out.
I shall endeavour, by a few brief remarks, to lay a foundation for more successful inquiries upon this difficult subject.
Attraction and repulsion seem to be the active principles of the universe. They pervade not only the greatest, but the minutest works of nature. Salts, earths, inflammable bodies, metals, and vegetables, have all their respective relations to each other. The order of these relations is so uniform, that it has been ascribed by some philosophers to a latent principle of intelligence pervading each of them.
Colours, odours, and sounds, have likewise their respective relations to each other. They become agreeable and disagreeable, only in proportion to the natural or unnatural combination which takes place between each of their different species.
It is remarkable, that the number of original colours and notes in music is exactly the same. All the variety in both, proceeds from the difference of combination. An arbitrary combination of them is by no means productive of pleasure. The relation which every colour and sound bear to each other, was as immutably established at the creation, as the order of the heavenly bodies, or as the relation of the objects of chemistry to each other.
But this relation is not confined to colours and sounds alone. It probably extends to the objects of human aliment. For example, bread and meat, meat and salt, the alkalescent meats and acescent vegetables, all harmonize with each other upon the tongue; while fish and flesh, butter and raw onions, fish and milk, when combined, are all offensive to a pure and healthy taste.