“If,” said the philosopher, emphatically, “if there were any prospect of emigrating to the moon, there would be some hope; but in the present state of affairs we shall soon be eating our own heads off, as the proverb says.  Europe is almost exhausted, the ultima Thule of arable territory in America has been reached, Asia barely supports her own immense population; nothing is left but Africa, and she presents a merely hopeful prospect for the future.  In a hundred years, what will society do for breadstuffs?”

“Live on rice and potatoes,” suggested Anthrops.

“Rash boy, and check the advance of civilization!  Have you not reflected that the culture of wheat has been an inseparable adjunct to progress and refinement?  The difficulties required to be overcome in preparing the ground and sowing the grain promote prudence, foresight, and care.”

“It is certainly hard work enough to dig potatoes,” quoth Anthrops.

The philosopher passed over the interruption with a dignified wave of the hand, and continued:—­

“The watching and waiting, during its progress to maturity, necessarily produce that patience which is so essential to all scientific effort; and the graceful loveliness of the plant in its various stages of growth materially assists in developing that love for the beautiful which is a necessary element in all harmonious individual or social character.  Now what aesthetic culture can you evolve from that stubbed, straggling weed you call the potato?”

The discomfited pupil meekly suggested that he had been considering the dietetic, not the aesthetic properties of the despised vegetable.

“Impossible to separate them, Sir!” cried the philosopher.  “If, indeed, you could fill the stomach without the intervention of any process of brain or hand, they might be considered apart.  But consider the position of the stomach.  Like a Persian monarch, it occupies the centre of the system; despotic from its remote situation and the absolute power it exercises, all parts of the external organism are its ministers:  the feet must run for its daily food, the hands must prepare that food with cunning devices, the brain must direct the operations of feet and hands.  Now, unlearned youth, wilt thou contend that the degree of refinement evinced by attention or indifference to the niceties of cooking, and so forth, has no bearing upon the character of the man and the race?  Take as a standard the method of immediately conveying the food to the mouth, as it has progressed from barbarism.  First, fingers; then, pieces of bark; then, rough wooden spoons, knives, two-pronged steel forks; and lastly, an epitome of civilization in each one that is used, five-pronged silver forks, evincing both the increased complexity of the nature that devises the extra prongs, and the refinement of taste that insists upon the silver.  It is impossible to use wheat in any of its preparations,” ("With five-pronged forks,” murmured his attentive pupil parenthetically,) “without at least a piece of bark, for mixing and cooking, if not for eating.  But in devouring potatoes, we are—­I shudder to think of it—­each moment upon the brink of being reduced to the absolute savageness of fingers.  No, Sir! the moon and wheat both failing us, there is but one method of escaping universal famine,—­peremptory reduction of the population.”