Lecture 8 — Errors about flavor

Odor and flavor must be discussed, for they are almost the same affection. But the two of them are not in the same things.

But the genus of flavors is more evident to us than that of odor. The cause of this is that we have a sense of smell that is worse than that of other animals and than the senses that are in us, but a surer sense of touch than do the other animals. But taste is a kind of touch.

The nature of water, then, tends to be flavor. Therefore, according to what Empedocles says, water necessarily has in itself the kinds of flavors, imperceptible because of the smallness. Or, such matter is present in it like a “panspermia” of flavors, and all of them are made of water, different ones from different parts. Or, water does not contain the difference, but the cause is something acting; as some might say, it is heat and the sun.

Now to say what Empedocles did is a very obvious falsehood. For we see that heat changes flavors when fruits are placed in the sun, or on a fire, in such a way that these flavors are not caused by a “drawing in” from water, but by a change and a drying in the fruit itself. And when they are laid out for a time, they are changed from sweet to harsh, bitter, and everything else. And when they are cooked they are changed to every kind of flavor, so to speak.

Likewise it is also impossible for water to be the matter of a “panspermia.” For we see different flavors caused from the same thing, and from the same food. It remains, then, that the water is changed in being affected by something.

It is clear, then, that it does not get this power we call flavor only from the power of heat. For water is the finest of all moistures, finer even than oil itself. Oil spreads out farther than water because of its stickiness; water is easily broken up, which is why it is harder to hold water in the hand than oil. When water—water alone—is heated, it does not show thickening. Therefore it is clear that there is another cause. For all flavors have more density. But heat is a co-cause.

118. Odor and flavor must be discussed (440b28). After the Philosopher has determined about color, here he next determines about flavor.

First, he says what his intention is about.

Second, he carries out the proposal, where he says the nature of water (441a3; [122]).

Accordingly, he first says that after color odor and flavor must be discussed.

On this point, he gives the cause of two things.

The first is why these should be treated in conjunction, namely because of their association, for the two are almost the same affection. He calls each of them an affection because both are in the third species of quality, which is “affection” or “passible quality.” He says that flavor and odor are almost the same affection because both are caused by mixture of moistness and dryness following an alteration caused by heat. However, the two of them are not altogether in the same things, because odor is more a result of dryness, and so is more principally in evaporation of smoke, but flavor is more a result of moistness.

119. Second, where he says but the genus of flavors (440b30), he gives the cause why flavor must be discussed before odor. For it would seem that odor should be discussed immediately after color, because odor like color is perceived through an external medium, but flavor is not.

But the order of learning requires that one proceed from the more to the less evident, and the genus of flavors is more evident to us than that of odors. Hence flavors must be treated first.

Flavor is more evident to us because it is perceived by us with a surer sense. For we have a sense of smell that is worse both in comparison to other animals and in comparison to other senses that are in us.

The reason for this is that, as was said above, the sense of smell is brought to complete actuality by heat of fire. (Cf. ch. 4, nn. 68, 72.) Now the organ of smell is near the brain, which is cooler and moister than all other parts of the body, as was established above, (Cf. ch. 4, nn. 69–70.) and the human being of all animals has the largest brain in relation to the size of his body, as is said in the book On Parts of Animals. (Aristotle, On the Parts of Animals 2.7, 653a27–28.) Therefore the human being is necessarily deficient in the sense of smell.

120. But the human being has a surer sense of touch than do the other animals, for the following reason. Since an animal’s body is constituted out of objects of touch—namely heat and cold, moistness and dryness, and other such things that follow from these—it was impossible for the organ of touch to be divested of every tangible quality in the way that the pupil is without any color: rather, the organ of touch had to be in potentiality to tangible qualities in the way that an intermediate is in potentiality to the extremes, as is said in On the Soul 2. (Aristotle, On the Soul 2.11, 423b26–424a10; cf. Aquinas, Commentary on Aristotle’s On the Soul, bk. 2, lect. 23, nn. 546–48.) And so the sense of touch is necessarily surer to the extent that the body’s complexion is more well-tempered, being brought, as it were, to an intermediate state. This must be most true in the human being, in order for his body to be proportioned to the noblest form, and so the human being of all animals has the surest touch, and consequently the surest taste, which is a kind of touch. A sign of this is that the human being is less able to withstand extremes of cold and heat than are other animals. And even among human beings, one is more mentally capable than others to the extent that he has a better sense of touch, which is evident in those who have soft flesh, as was said in On the Soul 2. (Aristotle, On the Soul 2.9, 421a23–26; cf. Aquinas, Commentary on Aristotle’s On the Soul, bk. 2, lect. 19, n. 483.)

121. Then, when he says the nature of water, he carries out the proposal.

First, he makes a determination about flavor according to the truth;

second, he eliminates the false positions of some on the nature of flavor, where he says Democritus and most students of nature (442a29; [154]).

The first part is divided into two.

In the first, he determines what the nature of flavor is.

In the second, he determines the species of flavors, where he says as colors come from mixture (442a12; [148]).

On the first point, he does two things.

First, he eliminates some opinions about the generation of flavors.

Second, he determines the truth, where he says however many flavors (441a30; [129]).

On the first point, he does two things.

First, he presents three opinions about the generation of flavors.

Second, he disproves them, where he says now to say what Empedocles did (441a10; [124]).

122. In determining the nature or generation of flavor he starts with water, which seems to be the subject of flavor. He says that the very nature of water of itself tends to be—that is, has a natural aptitude to be—flavorless, (Gauthier, pp. 48–49, indicates that Moerbeke’s translation has sapor (“flavor”) at 441a4, but that Aquinas follows the reading insipida (“flavorless”), which is found both in the older translation and in Moerbeke’s translation of Alexander’s commentary.) and if water does have some flavor, this is from admixture of something earthen. Yet although water is of itself flavorless, it is the root and principle of all flavors, and how this is possible was explained in three ways.

123. Empedocles said that all flavors are in water itself in actuality, but are imperceptible because of the smallness of the parts they are rooted in.

The second opinion was that of Democritus and Anaxagoras, as Alexander says in the commentary. (Alexander of Aphrodisias, On Aristotle’s “On Sense Perception,” trans. Alan Towey, p. 70.) It was that flavors are not in water in actuality, but that there is in water a matter of flavors like a panspermia—that is, a universal seed—in such a way that all flavors are made of water, different flavors from different parts of water; for they held that the principles of bodies are indivisible parts. But no indivisible part is flavored in actuality: rather, a flavored body must be something composite. And so they held that these parts are not flavors in actuality, but the “seeds” of flavors, in such a way that different indivisible bodies are seeds of different flavors, as well as of different natures.

The third opinion is of those who say that the difference among flavors is due not to water itself, but to an agent that alters water in different ways, such as the sun or some other hot thing.

124. Then, when he says now to say what Empedocles did, he disproves the opinions mentioned in order.

First, the opinion of Empedocles. He says that the statement of Empedocles is an obvious falsehood. For if the difference among flavors were present in actuality in the small parts of water, it would have to be that a change of flavor could occur only by different parts of water being drawn into the body of which the flavor is changed. But this is not always what happens: if fruits picked from a tree are exposed to the sun, or again, cooked at a fire, it is clear that their flavor is changed by the action of heat, not by some “drawing in” from water. The latter might be said about fruits that change flavor while hanging on a tree by drawing different moistures from the earth. But in fruits cut from a tree we see a change of flavor that is caused by the fruits themselves changing when there is a dissolution of the moisture in them through drying. Thus, when they are laid out for a certain time in the sun, they change from sweet to bitter, or the reverse, or to any other flavors, according to different amounts of cooking.

125. Second, when he says likewise it is also impossible (441a18), he disproves the second opinion, that of Democritus and Anaxagoras.

He says that it is also impossible for water to be the matter of flavors in the sense that it contains the “seeds” of them all in such a way that its different parts would be the seeds of the different flavors, because we see that one and the same body changes to different flavors. For just as the same food taken by an animal or plant is converted into different parts of the animal or plant, so it is also converted into the different flavors appropriate to the different parts; for example, in one and the same plant there are different flavors in the root, the seed, and the fruit. And different plants fed the same nourishment have different flavors. This is a clear indication that different flavors are not caused by different parts of water. It remains, then, that they are caused by the fact that water changes from one flavor to another according as it is somehow affected by something that alters it.

126. Third, where he says it is clear, then (441a21), he disproves the third opinion, that of those who say that flavors are caused only by alteration of water by heat.

He says that it is clear that water does not get the quality of a flavor only from the power of heat that alters it. For water is the finest of all moistures—that is, of all bodies that are perceptibly moist; he does not say “of all moist things” because air, which is moist, is finer than water.

127. Now there might be a doubt about oil, because it floats on water and spreads out farther than water does. And so, to remove the doubt, he adds that water is finer even than oil itself. The fact that oil floats on water is because of its component of air, which is also why wood floats on water. The fact that oil spreads out farther than water is because of its slipperiness and stickiness; water is very easily divided, and so one part of it does not follow after another, as happens with oil. And because water is finer and more easily divided than oil, it is more difficult to hold water in the hand than oil, for the whole of it more easily slides out of the hand.

128. If water is pure and has nothing mixed with it, then, because of its fineness, it is not thickened by a hot agent as are other things, in which there are earthen parts that remain when the fine moisture evaporates. Therefore, it clearly follows that one must posit another cause of the generation of flavors than alteration of water by heat, because all flavors are found in bodies with some density. This does not exclude heat as a cause that changes water to a certain flavor; but it is not the whole cause, for something else is required. Hence it is a co-cause rather than a cause.