[Gutenberg 22741] • Physiologie du goût

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1879 edition. Excerpt: ... and memory; whereas, in the case of the sleeping man, each sense is abandoned to its own resources. I have thought of comparing those two conditions of the brain to a piano, before which is seated a musician who passes his fingers over the notes in an absent-minded manner, and by mere memory shapes out a melody; whereas, if he used all his faculties, he could combine with it a complete harmony. This comparison might be carried out much farther, when we consider that reflection is to our ideas what harmony is to sounds, and that certain ideas contain others, just as a principal note in a chord contains others which are subordinate to it, and so on. About 1790, there lived in the village Gevrin, in my native parish, a merchant of an ex- DEGREES, tremely shrewd character, called Landot, tive who had scraped together a considerable anecdotefortune. All at once he was struck with such a paralytic shock that he was believed to be dead. The faculty came to his assistance and saved him; but not without loss, for he left behind him nearly all his intellectual faculties, and especially memory. There being, however, still life in him, of whatever sort, and having recovered his appetite, he continued to take charge of his property. Seeing him in this state, those who formerly had business dealings with him believed that now was the time for their revenge, and, on a pretext of keeping him company, they came from all parts and made proposals of bargains, purchases, sales, exchanges, and other such transactions as had previously been his main occupation. The assailants, however, speedily found, to their astonishment, that they had reckoned without their host. The old rascal had lost not a whit of his business capacity, and the same man who sometimes did n