I would rather have one such prejudice held by men of a dozen different races than a myriad reasons.

Such a prejudice is incarnate reason approved by immemorial experience.
"What argument have you against cannibalism; what reason is there why we should not fatten babies for the spit and eat their flesh?
The flesh is sweeter, African travellers tell us, than any other meat, tenderer at once and more sustaining; all reasons are in favour of it.

What hinders us from indulging in this appetite but prejudice, sacred prejudice, an instinctive loathing at the bare idea?
"Humanity, it seems to me, is toiling up a long slope leading from the brute to the god: again and again whole generations, sometimes whole races, have fallen back and disappeared in the abyss.

Every slip fills the survivors with fear and horror which with ages have become instinctive, and now you appear and laugh at their fears and tell them that human flesh is excellent food, and that sterile kisses are the noblest form of passion.

They shudder from you and hate and punish you, and if you persist they will kill you.