flowers and woods and in it the human race will dwell in the
abundance and joy of the legendary age of gold--provided that a
spiritual chemistry has been discovered that changes the nature
of man as profoundly as our chemistry transforms material
nature.

But this is looking so far into the future that we can trust no man's
eyesight, not even Berthelot's. There is apparently no impossibility
about the manufacture of synthetic food, but at present there is no
apparent probability of it. There is no likelihood that the laboratory
will ever rival the wheat field. The cornstalk will always be able to
work cheaper than the chemist in the manufacture of starch. But in rarer
and choicer products of nature the chemist has proved his ability to
compete and even to excel.

What have been from the dawn of history to the rise of synthetic
chemistry the most costly products of nature? What could tempt a
merchant to brave the perils of a caravan journey over the deserts of
Asia beset with Arab robbers? What induced the Portuguese and Spanish
mariners to risk their frail barks on perilous waters of the Cape of
Good Hope or the Horn? The chief prizes were perfumes, spices, drugs and
gems. And why these rather than what now constitutes the bulk of oversea
and overland commerce? Because they were precious, portable and
imperishable. If the merchant got back safe after a year or two with a
little flask of otto of roses, a package of camphor and a few pearls
concealed in his garments his fortune was made. If a single ship of the
argosy sent out from Lisbon came back with a load of sandalwood, indigo
or nutmeg it was regarded as a successful venture. You know from reading
the Bible, or if not that, from your reading of Arabian Nights, that a
few grains of frankincense or a few drops of perfumed oil were regarded