Street," far too bare of scientific clothing to satisfy the Mrs.
Grundy of the domain: lacking all recognised tools of science and
all sense of the difficulties in his way, he proceeded to tackle the
problems of science with little save the deft pen of the literary
expert in his hand. His very failure to appreciate the difficulties
gave greater power to his work--much as Tartarin of Tarascon ascended
the Jungfrau and faced successfully all dangers of Alpine travel, so
long as he believed them to be the mere "blagues de reclame" of the
wily Swiss host. His brilliant qualities of style and irony
themselves told heavily against him. Was he not already known for
having written the most trenchant satire that had appeared since
"Gulliver's Travels"? Had he not sneered therein at the very
foundations of society, and followed up its success by a pseudo-
biography that had taken in the "Record" and the "Rock"? In "Life
and Habit," at the very start, he goes out of his way to heap scorn
at the respected names of Marcus Aurelius, Lord Bacon, Goethe, Arnold
of Rugby, and Dr. W. B. Carpenter. He expressed the lowest opinion
of the Fellows of the Royal Society. To him the professional man of
science, with self-conscious knowledge for his ideal and aim, was a
medicine-man, priest, augur--useful, perhaps, in his way, but to be
carefully watched by all who value freedom of thought and person,
lest with opportunity he develop into a persecutor of the worst type.
Not content with blackguarding the audience to whom his work should
most appeal, he went on to depreciate that work itself and its author
in his finest vein of irony. Having argued that our best and highest
knowledge is that of whose possession we are most ignorant, he
proceeds: "Above all, let no unwary reader do me the injustice of
believing in me. In that I write at all I am among the damned."