(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.

(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.

(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.

(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.

(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.

(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.

(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.

(14) And the bitter quality is now impregnated with the light, and trembleth in the astringent and hard quality, and stirreth therein, and is captivated in the astringent quality, as in a body.

(3) The mouth of N. had been thirsty; but he will never hunger (any more); N. will never thirst; for Chas delivers him and does away with hunger

(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.

(74) Now when these are imaged or formed, there it [the astringent quality] lies as a corporeal, springing, boiling mobility, for it moveth or boileth through and in the bitter quality in itself, as in its own imaged, formed or framed body; but without the heat, which is the spirit of nature [or nature-spirit], it has as yet no life to growing, vegetation, springing or spreading abroad.

(13) For all powers are discerned or distinguished in the bitter, and the bitter receiveth the flash of the light, as if it were horribly terrified, and goeth with its trembling and terror into the astringent and hard quality, and there it is bodily captivated.

(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.

(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:

(28) This is thus in the original of the quality in itself; but in the midst, in the rising up of this fierce spirit, this [same] spirit is caught and mitigated in the sweet water, where its fierce source or fountain is changed into a trembling, bitter, and greenish colour, like a greenish duskiness, and it retaineth in itself the condition and property of all three qualities, viz. of the fiery, the astringent and the sweet; and so from these three existeth the fourth quality, viz. the bitter.

(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.

(15) Presiding over the ear and the eye, the organs of touch, taste, and smell, and also over the mind, he experiences sense-objects.

(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.

(78) When the sweet quality thus stretcheth or wideneth itself, and retireth from the bitter, then the astringent always presseth after it, and would also fain taste of the sweet: and always makes the body, that is behind it, and in it, to be dry; for the sweet quality is the mother of the water, and is very meek, mild, soft and gentle.

(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.