Page:A thousand years hence. Being personal experiences (IA thousandyearshen00gree).djvu/89

 means the least important section of the difficulties, the responsibilities, and, I may add, the respectabilities concerned in the modern provision trade. As I have already hinted, our respected dead are more to us, whom they leave sorrowing behind, than phosphate supply only, all-important as that may be. They are, in fact, valuable masses of natural organism, ready-made and cost-free to society's hand; and the only question is, how far must chemical analysis proceed to entirely dehumanize the subject, without, at the same time, needlessly destroying and wasting natural molecular structure, and the inimitable superiority of the mellowing flavour that comes of it. We call the complete analysis the Atomic, reducing, as it does, all previous structure to the ultimate atoms. The less complete we call the Molecular; and the great question ever is, how far this needs to go. Even the most accurate and precise chemists find some debatable area; and this area is ever a trouble to the respectable and conscientious of the trade, who are perpetually tantalized by seeing, only too clearly before them, the superior profits of supermolecule, and of every step short-taken towards the ultimate atom. It is, alas, but too well known that there is a class of restaurants where the supermolecule is only too loosely guarded, and where unscrupulous gourmets stream in incessantly, paying freely the extra prices demanded, and asking no questions.