Note 28 — THE ORIGIN OF SOAP.
Reading edition
The scientific pedant of the Middle Ages displayed his profundity by continually quoting Aristotle and other “ancients.” His modern successor does the like by decorating his pages with displays of algebraical formulæ. In order to secure the proper respect of my readers I here repeat the equation that I enunciated many years ago, “c = s/p” where c stands for civilization, s for the quantity of soap consumed per annum, and p the population of a given community.