There is a pipe that goes into the inside of
the neck, called throat, from the roof of the mouth to the breast,
which is made up of cartilaginous rings nicely set one within
another, and lined within with a very smooth membrane, in order to
render the air that is pushed from the lungs more sonorous. On the
side of the roof of the mouth the end of that pipe is opened like a
flute, by a slit, that either extends, or contracts itself as is
necessary to render the voice either big or slender, hollow or
clear. But lest the aliments, which have their separate pipe,
should slide into the windpipe I have been describing, there is a
kind of valve that lies on the orifice of the organ of the voice,
and playing like a drawbridge, lets the aliments freely pass through
their proper channel, but never suffers the least particle or drop
to fall into the slit of the windpipe. This sort of valve has a
very free motion, and easily turns any way, so that by shaking on
that half-opened orifice, it performs the softest modulations of the
voice. This instance is sufficient to show, by-the-by, and without
entering long-winded details of anatomy, what a marvellous art there
is in the frame of the inward parts. And indeed the organ I have
described is the most perfect of all musical instruments, nor have
these any perfection, but so far as they imitate that.
SECT. XLI. Of the Smell, Taste, and Hearing.
Who were able to explain the niceness of the organs by which man
discerns the numberless savours and odours of bodies? But how is it
possible for so many different voices to strike at once my ear
without confounding one another, and for those sounds to leave in
me, after they have ceased to be, so lively and so distinct images
of what they have been? How careful was the Artificer who made our
bodies to give our eyes a moist, smooth, and sliding cover to close
them; and why did He leave our ears open? Because, says Cicero, the
eyes must be shut against the light in order to sleep; and, in the
meantime, the ears ought to remain open in order to give us warning,
and wake us by the report of noise, when we are in danger of being
surprised.
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