food value. But to serve saccharin in the place of sugar is like giving
a rubber bone to a dog. It is reported from Europe that the constant use
of saccharin gives one eventually a distaste for all sweets. This is
quite likely, although it means the reversal within a few years of
prehistoric food habits. Mankind has always associated sweetness with
food value, for there are few sweet things found in nature except the
sugars. We think we eat sugar because it is sweet. But we do not. We eat
it because it is good for us. The reason it tastes sweet to us is
because it is good for us. So man makes a virtue out of necessity, a
pleasure out of duty, which is the essence of ethics.

In the ancient days of Ind the great Raja Trishanku possessed an earthly
paradise that had been constructed for his delectation by a magician.
Therein grew all manner of beautiful flowers, savory herbs and delicious
fruits such as had never been known before outside heaven. Of them all
the Raja and his harems liked none better than the reed from which they
could suck honey. But Indra, being a jealous god, was wroth when he
looked down and beheld mere mortals enjoying such delights. So he willed
the destruction of the enchanted garden. With drought and tempest it was
devastated, with fire and hail, until not a leaf was left of its
luxuriant vegetation and the ground was bare as a threshing floor. But
the roots of the sugar cane are not destroyed though the stalk be cut
down; so when men ventured to enter the desert where once had been this
garden of Eden, they found the cane had grown up again and they carried
away cuttings of it and cultivated it in their gardens. Thus it happened
that the nectar of the gods descended first to monarchs and their
favorites, then was spread among the people and carried abroad to other
lands until now any child with a penny in his hand may buy of the best
of it. So it has been with many things. So may it be with all things.