A very large part of the sum-total of the work accomplished by Nordau in _Degeneration_ consists in describing scientifically the psychological phenomena which underlie the idiosyncrasies of certain authors and artists: in giving scientific names to their weaknesses, and in setting forth the relations in which such weaknesses stand to madness. These idiosyncrasies, these weaknesses, and their relations to madness were well known to observant people long before Nordau’s book was written, and to these his work is simply the technical explanation of familiar phenomena. In another chapter we shall dwell at greater length on the difference of views which Nordau tends to bring about. Here we wish to point out that, in spite of the mass of scientific phraseology employed by Nordau, and in spite of the difference of views he endeavours to bring about, in what seems to be his main object, he is entirely in accord with millions of sound-minded people in this country. We English deplore, as deeply as any one can, the existence of artists and works of so-called art which appeal rather to the morbid than to the healthy mind; of poetry, novels, and dramas calculated to flatter the corrupt, instead of stimulating in all a desire for elevation. We especially deplore the diabolical work done by pornographic artists and authors. Owing to this accord in aims with Nordau, his work has been read, and is being read, by thousands in this country, in the hope that his vaunted science and his strong mind would show us the right remedies. But in this respect we have been sorely disappointed; for instead of meeting with that complete grasp of the subject to which English scientists have accustomed us, we meet in his proposal of remedies with that dazed and superficial logic which throughout his work clashes so strangely with his power of perceiving and of marshalling his facts. The way he proposes to treat the “mystics, but especially egomaniacs and filthy pseudo-realists,” forcibly reminds us of the solemn resolution of the rats to bell the cat. He says: