The Timaeus of Plato

65 c] TIMAIOS. 239
are entirely free from violence. On the other hand bodies
formed of larger particles, reluctantly yielding to the agent, and
spreading the motions through the whole frame, cause pleasure
and pain ;
when they are disturbed giving pain, and pleasure
in being restored to their proper state. Those things which
suffer a gradual withdrawing and emptying, but have their
replenishment sudden and on a large scale, are insensible to
the emptying but sensible of the replenishment so that while
;
they cause no pain to the mortal part of the soul, they produce
very intense pleasure. This is to be observed in the case of
sweet smells. But when the parts are disturbed suddenly, but
gradually and laboriously restored to their- former condition,
they afford exactly the opposite result to the former : this may
be seen in the case of burns and cuts on the body.
XXVI II. Now the affections common to the body as a
whole and the names that have been given to the agents which
produce them have been :
well-nigh expounded next we must
try to explain, if we can, what takes place in the separate parts
of us, both as to the affections of them and the causes on the
part of the agents. First then we must set forth to the best
of our p3wer all that we left unsaid concerning tastes, which
are affections peculiar to the tongue. It appears that these,
sensations affecting the whole body and 13. TOIS Spwriv avrd] i.e. the agents
their causes; we have now to inquire or forces which produce the iraOrifjMTa.
into the separate sensory faculties. We 16. ^v TOIS irp6o-0v M* in 60 A. Plato's statement
of the tongue by substances that are is quoted by Theophrastos de causis plandissolved
in the mouth. Whatever power- tarum VI i: to the list of x v f*l given by
fully contracts the small vessels of the Plato in the present passage he adds Xitongue
is harsh and astringent; that which irapos. Farther on he gives the views of
has a detergent effect we call alkaline, Demokritos, who referred differences of
or if its action is milder, saline. A sub- taste to differences in the shape of the
stance which is volatile and inflames atoms : cf. de sensu 65 69. Opinions
the vessels is called pungent; and one not dissimilar to Plato's are ascribed to
that produces a kind of fermentation or Alkmaion and to Diogenes of Apollonia
effervescence is acid. All the foregoing by pseudo-Plutarch de pladtis philoso'
exercise a disturbing influence upon the phorum IV 18.
substance of the tongue: that which 17. irtpl -rqv y^"' 1 ""'] The under
mollifies it and restores the disturbed surface of the soft palate is said by anaparticles
to their natural state, producing tomists to share this function with the
a pleasurable sensation, is named sweet. tongue.