Nordau boldly asserts that such an association would have “the power to exercise an irresistible ‘boycot.’” Why? He evidently thinks so because his association would be an influential one. He clearly does not know what ought to be an axiom to any one who meddles with social questions—namely, that the circulation of a condemned book increases in an inverse ratio to the respect which the condemning authorities enjoy. Thus, if his association were to consist of nobodies and were to condemn a book, the condemnation would only increase the circulation a little; but if it were to consist of the leading men of the German Empire, the condemned book would be read all over the world. In the matter of public censors nothing is of any avail that is not absolutely despotic. By allowing Government and police to exercise all kinds of violence, isolated newspaper paragraphs and leaders can be suppressed before they are published, and the open circulation of condemned books may be prevented. But once the public get hold of the contents of an article and the name of a book, a secret circulation at once sets in. Eyewitnesses who were in France when the French Government confiscated and prohibited Edmond About’s _La Question Romaine_ can relate the eagerness with which this book was read, and tell of the numbers of copies circulated secretly. We cite this example from the continent, as it corroborates what always happens in England. Nordau fondly imagines that the judgment of his association would absolutely “annihilate” not only the book, but the author. The contrary would happen. As long as there is a grain of love of liberty in humanity, the condemnation by an authority of a man’s book will make him the object of public sympathy. When Nordau says that “no respectable bookseller would keep the condemned book, no respectable paper would mention it,” his meaning entirely depends on his standard of respectability—one of those standards he absolutely refuses to give us. Every one knows that there are respectable booksellers and papers, and that there are non-respectable booksellers and papers. But who could undertake to draw the line of demarcation between the two categories? In a small German town where there are only one or two booksellers this line is easily drawn. But how about places like Berlin, Hamburg, Paris, Vienna, and London? Besides, a bookseller and a newspaper might be highly respectable, but differ diametrically from an association which would have Nordau’s approval. Surely he would not push his mania so far as to deny a respectable character to all the booksellers and newspapers who, for instance, refuse to boycot Ibsen?