(64) But though the taste be pleasant to the tongue, and is a good taste, but yet is not serviceable and useful for the whole body, then it is rejected nevertheless, when it comes before the council, and the tongue must spit or spew it out, and touch it no more.

(77) When the sweet quality perceiveth the taste of the bitter quality, it caggs at it [checks or stops it], and giveth back; even as a man, when he tasteth astringent, harsh or bitter gall, openeth both the gums of his palate [throat or jaws] in his mouth in his cagging, and wideneth his palate more than it is of itself; and just so does the sweet quality against the bitter.

(15) And when the Taste has tried it, and if it be good for the Essences of the Soul, then it gives it to the Feeling, which must try what Quality it is of, whether hot or cold, hard or soft, thick or thin, and then the Feeling a sends it into the Heart, [presenting it] before the Flash of the Life, and before the King of the Light of Life; and the Will of the Mind pierces further into that Thing, a great Depth, and sees what is therein, [considering] how much it will receive and take in of that Thing, and when it is enough, then the Will gives it to the Spirit of the Soul, viz. to the eternal Emperor, who brings it (with his strong and austere Might) out of the Heart, in the Sound upon the Tongue under the Roof of the Mouth, and there the Spirit distinguishes according to the Senses, as the Will has discovered [or manifested] it, and the Tongue distinguishes it in the Noise.

(14) First the King gives it to the Eyes, to see whether it be Good or Evil; and the Eyes give it to the Ears, to hear from whence it comes, whether out of a true, or out of a false Region, and whether it be a Lie or Truth; and the Ears give it to the Nose, (the Smell,) that must smell, whether that which is brought in (and stands before the King) comes out of a good or uevil Essence; and the Nose gives it to the Taste, which must try whether it be pure or impure, and therefore the Taste has the Tongue, that it may spit it out again if it be impure; but if it be a Thought to [be expressed in] a Word, then the Lips are the Door-keepers, which must keep it shut, and not let the Tongue forth, but must bring it into the Region of the Air, into the Nostrils, and not into the Heart, and stifle it, and then it is dead.

(57) The fourth princely counsellor is the taste on the tongue, which also ariseth from all the powers of the body through the spirit into the tongue: for all fountainveins of the whole body go into the tongue, and the tongue is the sharpness or taste of all the powers:

(80) And the sweet quality always flies from the bitter and the astringent, and always stretcheth its palate wider, and the bitter and the astringent continually hasten after the sweet, and refresh themselves from the sweet, and dry up the body.

(85) But when it seeth that it is like to be taken or captivated (the bitter quality from within pressing so hard upon it, and the heat from without pressing upon it also), it makes the bitter fervent or burning, and inflameth it, and there it [the sweet quality] leapeth, springing up through the astringent quality, and riseth up again aloft; so there cometh to be a hard knot behind it in that place where the struggling was, and the knot gets a hole or orifice.

(2) But if perception does not go by impression, what is the process?

The mind affirms something not contained within it: this is precisely the characteristic of a power- not to accept impression but, within its allotted sphere, to act.

Besides, the very condition of the mind being able to exercise discrimination upon what it is to see and hear is not, of course, that these objects be equally impressions made upon it; on the contrary, there must be no impressions, nothing to which the mind is passive; there can be only acts of that in which the objects become known.

Our tendency is to think of any of the faculties as unable to know its appropriate object by its own uncompelled act; to us it seems to submit to its environment rather than simply to perceive it, though in reality it is the master, not the victim.

As with sight, so with hearing. It is the air which takes the impression, a kind of articulated stroke which may be compared to letters traced upon it by the object causing the sound; but it belongs to the faculty, and the soul-essence, to read the imprints thus appearing before it, as they reach the point at which they become matter of its knowledge.

In taste and smell also we distinguish between the impressions received and the sensations and judgements; these last are mental acts, and belong to an order apart from the experiences upon which they are exercised.

The knowing of the things belonging to the Intellectual is not in any such degree attended by impact or impression: they come forward, on the contrary, as from within, unlike the sense-objects known as from without: they have more emphatically the character of acts; they are acts in the stricter sense, for their origin is in the soul, and every concept of this Intellectual order is the soul about its Act.

Whether, in this self-vision, the soul is a duality and views itself as from the outside- while seeing the Intellectual-Principal as a unity, and itself with the Intellectual-Principle as a unity- this question is investigated elsewhere.

(111) But that the tongue and the upper gums close the mouth, when the spirit cometh upon the tongue, signifieth that the seven qualifying or fountain spirits of nature in this world, at the time of the creation, were not mortified and dead through the wrath of God, but were lively, active and vigorous. For the tongue signifieth or denoteth the life of nature, in which stands the animated, soulish and holy birth or geniture: For it is a type [prefiguration or resemblance] of the soul.

(71) There the bitter quality penetrateth in the heat through the astringent, and the sweet in the water letteth it easily or gently through; and there the bitter in the heat goeth through the sweet water forth from the body and makes two open gates, which are the eyes, the first sense or sensibility.

(18) That pleasure arising from contact of the sense organs with the objects, which is like the nectar at first and which in effect is like poison, is declared to be Rajasic .

(3) In each of the senses abide attraction and repulsion for the objects of the senses. One should not come under their sway, for they are man’s enemies.

(18) So also the tongue sharpeneth, articulateth and distinguisheth all that which the five senses in the head bring through the heart on to the tongue; and the spirit goeth forth from the tongue through the Mercurius or tone in that place, as it was decreed or concluded by the council of the five senses, and executeth it all. Of the Mouth.

(58) And the bitter quality penetrateth into the body, into the astringent or sour and into the sweet qualities, and frameth all sorts of colours according to that quality to which the body is most eagerly inclined, or according to that quality which is strongest in the body, according to that [strongest quality] the bitter quality frameth the body, with its colours, and according to that [same] quality the creature has its greatest impulse and inclination, motion, boiling and will. IV. Of the Fourth Circumstance or Species.

(25) But the organ is not the only requisite to vision or to perception of any kind: there must be a state of the soul inclining it towards the sphere of sense.

Now it is the soul's character to be ever in the Intellectual sphere, and even though it were apt to sense-perception, this could not accompany that intention towards the highest; to ourselves when absorbed in the Intellectual, vision and the other acts of sense are in abeyance for the time; and, in general, any special attention blurs every other. The desire of apprehension from part to part- a subject examining itself- is merely curiosity even in beings of our own standing, and, unless for some definite purpose, is waste of energy: and the desire to apprehend something external- for the sake of a pleasant sight- is the sign of suffering or deficiency.

Smelling, tasting flavours may perhaps be described as mere accessories, distractions of the soul, while seeing and hearing would belong to the sun and the other heavenly bodies as incidentals to their being. This would not be unreasonable if seeing and hearing are means by which they apply themselves to their function.

But if they so apply themselves, they must have memory; it is impossible that they should have no remembrance if they are to be benefactors, their service could not exist without memory.

(17) Now all such things the adversary prepares beautifully and spreads out before the body, wishing to make the mind of the soul incline her toward one of them and overwhelm her, like a hook, drawing her by force in ignorance, deceiving her until she conceives evil, and bears fruit of matter, and conducts herself in uncleanness, pursuing many desires, covetousnesses, while fleshly pleasure draws her in ignorance.

(114) But that the spirit, when it goeth forth at the mouth, conceiveth itself yet once more behind the astringent quality upon the tongue at the hindermost gums, and awakeneth or rouseth up the astringent quality, being as it were asleep, and then goeth suddenly forth at the mouth:

(79) Now when the astringent or harsh and the bitter qualities get their light from the heat, then they see the sweet quality, and taste of its sweet water, and then they continually make haste after the sweet water, and drink it up, for they are very hard, rough and thirsty, and the heat drieth them quite up.

(98) But when the spirit conceiveth the word, that shuts the mouth, and conceiveth it at the hinder gums upon the tongue in the hole or hollowness, in the bitter and astringent quality.

(65) Timaeus: Firstly, then, we must endeavor to elucidate so far as possible those affections which we omitted in our previous account of the flavors, they being affections peculiar to the tongue. It is evident that these also, like most others, are brought about by means of certain contractions and dilations ; and, more than other affections, they involve also conditions of roughness and smoothness. For all the earthy particles which enter in by the small veins—which, extending as far as to the heart, serve as it were