often retrogressive_.

To this class of writers belong also those translators who, besides
translating their author, at the same time correct and alter him, a
thing that always seems to me impertinent. Write books yourself which
are worth translating and leave the books of other people as they are.
One should read, if it is possible, the real authors, the founders and
discoverers of things, or at any rate the recognised great masters in
every branch of learning, and buy second-hand _books_ rather than read
their _contents_ in new ones.

It is true that _inventis aliquid addere facile est_, therefore a man,
after having studied the principles of his subject, will have to make
himself acquainted with the more recent information written upon it. In
general, the following rule holds good here as elsewhere, namely: what
is new is seldom good; because a good thing is only new for a short
time.

What the address is to a letter the _title_ should be to a book--that
is, its immediate aim should be to bring the book to that part of the
public that will be interested in its contents. Therefore, the title
should be effective, and since it is essentially short, it should be
concise, laconic, pregnant, and if possible express the contents in a
word. Therefore a title that is prolix, or means nothing at all, or that
is indirect or ambiguous, is bad; so is one that is false and
misleading: this last may prepare for the book the same fate as that
which awaits a wrongly addressed letter. The worst titles are those that
are stolen, such titles that is to say that other books already bear;
for in the first place they are a plagiarism, and in the second a most
convincing proof of an absolute want of originality. A man who has not