Introduction 25 
silent. I wish I, could see more signs of literary culture 
among my scientific opponents ; I should find their books 
much more easy and agreeable reading if I could ; and then 
they tell me to satirise the follies and abuses of the age, 
just as if it was not this that I was doing in writing about 
themselves. 
What, I wonder, would they say if I were to declare that 
they ought not to write books at all, on the ground that 
their past career has been too purely scientific to entitle 
them to a hearing? They would reply with justice that I. 
should not bring vague general condemnations, but should 
quote examples of their bad writing. I imagine that I 
have done this more than once as regards a good many of 
them, and I dare say I may do it again in the course of this 
book ; but though I must own to thinking that the greater 
number of our scientific men write abominably, I should 
not bring this against them if I believed them to be doing 
their best to help us; many such men we happily have, 
and doubtless always shall have, but they are not those who 
push to the fore, and it is these last who are most angry 
with me for writing on the subjects I have chosen. They 
constantly tell me that I am not a man of science ; no one 
knows this better than I do, and I am quite used to being 
told it, but I am not used to being confronted with the 
mistakes that I have made in matters of fact, and trust 
that this experience is one which I may continue to spare 
no pains in trying to avoid. 
Nevertheless I again freely grant that I am not a man 
of science. I have never said I was. I was educated for 
the Church. I was once inside the Linnean Society’s rooms, 
but have no present wish to go there again; though not 
a man of science, however, I have never affected indifference 
to the facts and arguments which men of science have made 
it their business to lay before us; on the contrary, I have 
given the greater part of my time to their consideration 
for several years past. I should not, however, say this 
