The Crioceres 



vaguely sees it, is not an impossibility; it is 

 partly realized for all of us, men and ani- 

 mals. 



Breathing is the most imperious of needs. 

 We live by the air before we live by bread; 

 and this happens of itself, without painful 

 struggles, without costly labour, almost with- 

 out our knowledge. We do not set out, 

 armed for war, to conquer the air by rapine, 

 violence, cunning, barter and desperate la- 

 bour; the supreme element of life enters our 

 bodies of its own accord; it penetrates us 

 and quickens us. Each of us has his gener- 

 ous share of it without giving the matter a 

 thought. 



To crown perfection, it is free. And this 

 will last indefinitely until an ever ingenious 

 Treasury invents distributing-taps and pneu- 

 matic receivers from which the air will be 

 doled out to us at so much a piston-stroke. 

 Let us hope that we shall be spared this par- 

 ticular item of scientific progress, for that, 

 woe betide us, would be the end of all things : 

 the tax would kill the tax-payer ! 



Chemistry, in its lighter moods, promises 

 us, in the future, pills containing the concen- 

 trated essence of food. These cunning com- 

 pounds, the product of our laboratories, 

 would not end our longing to possess a stom- 

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