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On the Nature of Man
Nemesius of Emesa, tr. Wither, 1636
I. Of the Tasting; by what wayes, on what matter, and with what instrument it worketh.
That the sight beholds things by direct lines; that the senses of hearing and smelling attain the knowledge of their objects, as well divers other wayes, as by direct lines; and that touching and tasting doe neither by direct lines, nor by any other meanes become sensible of their proper objects, but then onely, when they come neare to such things as are subject to their sense (except in such cases as are before expressed,) wee have already declared.
The matter whereupon the tast worketh is the humors, or Iuices which are tasted. The instruments of tasting, are the tongue (chiefly the very tip of the tongue) and the roofe of the mouth: For in these are dispersed the sinewes descending from the braine, and they denounce to the principall part of the soule, what that tast is which they have received.
IIThe name of the qualities pertaining to the tast, and which are found in the Iuices, are these. Sweetnesse, sharpnesse, tartnesse, a binding bitternesse, a bitternesse lesse binding, a quality bringing a bitternesse by drought and heat; saltnesse fatnesse: For these are the qualities which tast discerneth; and it is in respect of these qualities that the water is said to be void of qualities; because if you tast water, it offers none of these qualities to your sense; whereas, if you have respect to other qualities, as cold and moisture, they are ingraffed therein. The two bitternesses differ from each other in their being more or lesse astringent.
These aforenamed are IIIin a maner all the simple-qualities which belong unto the sense of tasting; but the compound-qualities, are infinite; in regard there is a proper tast belonging to every living-creature, and to every plant. There is one tast in swines flesh, another in Goats flesh, and when wee would know what flesh it is which commeth to be tasted, we distinguish the same by the quality of the tast, which could not be done except there were a divers quality in every thing that is tasted.
Now because those things are infinite, and utterly divers one from another, wee cannot comprise or distinguish them under particular tearmes: For even in those things, wherein some one of the simple qualities beareth rule, there is a plaine difference of that which is the object of tast. For, though in dry figs, and in grapes, and in the fruit of the Palme, there is one predominant quality, to wit, sweetnesse, yet in every one of them the tast discernes a difference.