THE FOOD OF THE GODS.

* * * * *

CHAPTER THE FIRST.

THE DISCOVERY OF THE FOOD.


I.

In the middle years of the nineteenth century there first became
abundant in this strange world of ours a class of men, men tending for
the most part to become elderly, who are called, and who are very
properly called, but who dislike extremely to be called--"Scientists."
They dislike that word so much that from the columns of _Nature_, which
was from the first their distinctive and characteristic paper, it is as
carefully excluded as if it were--that other word which is the basis of
all really bad language in this country. But the Great Public and its
Press know better, and "Scientists" they are, and when they emerge to
any sort of publicity, "distinguished scientists" and "eminent
scientists" and "well-known scientists" is the very least we call them.