Chemist: I cannot follow you into that. Let us keep clear of all such sentiment, if you please, and bear in mind the great precept which Dr. Andrew Wilson, in his application of Hofmann's figures, has laid down for our guidance, that "animal matter, being likest to our own composition, is most easily and readily converted into ourselves."
Vegetarian: With all due deference to the Andrew Wilson formula, may I ask what matter is likest to our own?
Chemist: Why, animal matter, of course.
Vegetarian: Yes, but what animal matter?
Chemist: Oh, we don't go into that.
Vegetarian: But I do; and I beg you to observe that the "matter likest to our own composition" is human flesh, so that according to the Andrew Wilson formula, we all ought to be cannibals, because for human beings human flesh must be the most digestible of foods.
Chemist: Very likely it is so, though I do not approve of cannibalism.
Vegetarian: Then allow me to read you a sentence from C. F. Gordon Cumming's book, "At Home in Fiji." "At every cannibal feast there was served a certain vegetable, also commonly used by the cannibal Maoris of New Zealand, which was considered as essential an adjunct as mint-sauce is to lamb or sage to goose. Its use, however, was prudential, as human flesh was found to be highly indigestible, and this herb acted as a corrective." Now I ask you if that does not logically dispose of the Andrew Wilson formula?
Chemist: Nonsense, sir! I will not discuss cannibalism. You fail to see that some things, though logical enough, may not be expedient.
Vegetarian: I am delighted to hear you say that. I beg you to remember it when you next talk of "Hofmann's experiments." It is possible that flesh-eating, like cannibalism, is "not expedient," when it is regarded from a wider standpoint than that of the chemical doctrinaire.