comparatively small number of original elements, variously combined,
suffice to make up the whole enormous mass of recognisably different
tastes and flavours.

The third and lowest part of the tongue and throat is the seat of those
peculiar tastes to which Professor Bain, the great authority upon this
important philosophical subject, has given the names of relishes and
disgusts. It is here, chiefly, that we taste animal food, fats, butters,
oils, and the richer class of vegetables and made dishes. If we like
them, we experience a sensation which may be called a relish, and which
induces one to keep rolling the morsel farther down the throat, till it
passes at last beyond the region of our voluntary control. If we don't
like them, we get the sensation which may be called a disgust, and which
is very different from the mere unpleasantness of excessively pungent or
bitter things. It is far less of an intellectual and far more of a
physical and emotional feeling. We say, and say rightly, of such things
that we find it hard to swallow them; a something within us (of a very
tangible nature) seems to rise up bodily and protest against them. As a
very good example of this experience, take one's first attempt to
swallow cod-liver oil. Other things may be unpleasant or unpalatable,
but things of this class are in the strictest sense nasty and
disgusting.

The fact is, the lower part of the tongue is supplied with nerves in
close sympathy with the digestion. If the food which has been passed by
the two previous examiners is found here to be simple and digestible, it
is permitted to go on unchallenged; if it is found to be too rich, too
bilious, or too indigestible, a protest is promptly entered against it,
and if we are wise we will immediately desist from eating any more of
it. It is here that the impartial tribunal of nature pronounces
definitely against roast goose, mince pies, _pate de foie gras_, sally
lunn, muffins and crumpets, and creamy puddings. It is here, too, that
the slightest taint in meat, milk, or butter is immediately detected;
that rancid pastry from the pastrycook's is ruthlessly exposed; and that
the wiles of the fishmonger are set at naught by the judicious palate.
It is the special duty, in fact, of this last examiner to discover, not
whether food is positively destructive, not whether it is poisonous or
deleterious in nature, but merely whether it is then and there
digestible or undesirable.

As our stat