We may, however, see satire as opposition, and moreover opposition to vice and folly, and still be taking for granted that which demands more probing. For even if it were so simple a crusade as that, no crusade is as simple as it looks, and this one is particularly open to suspicion. It is therefore not wholly superfluous to ask why vice and folly are the favorite satiric goals. Psychologically it would be sufficient to say that it is because anything a man disapproves of naturally seems to him foolish if not actually vicious. But socialized man cannot admit that his reaction to anything is based on mere temperamental prejudice. Condemnation of vice and folly is of course its own justification, and humor is its own reward. Unfortunately, however, humorous condemnation is not always applicable to these offenders against taste and morality. Folly is sometimes too artless to be censured, and vice is often too serious to be ridiculed. Evidently then, yet another solution is needed, a least common denominator that will go into both, even if it does leave a remainder. Now it happens that a body of explicit testimony, substantiated by a review of satiric practice, does indicate the existence of this unifying bond, this thing which, when present, makes both vice and folly criticizably absurd; and its generic name is deception. This fraudulent family has two main branches: the intentional type, including hypocrisy and humbug; and the unconscious, represented by sentimentality and other forms of self-befoolment; besides a half-conscious variety, whence come vanity, snobbishness, superstition, vulgarity, and other children of perverted ambition and false reasoning. All these give plenty of scope to the satirist, even when we subtract some possibilities by the important qualification that not all that deceives is ludicrous; deception being sometimes too innocent and even altruistic and sometimes too tragic and cruel.[39] According to this test, anything which assumes a virtue when it has it not may draw satiric fire. It is the assumption itself, the pose, that furnishes the shining mark loved by the satirist. On this point we again have Horatian testimony:[40] “_Quid, cum est Lucilius ausus_ _Primus in hunc operis componere carmina morem,_ _Detrahere et pellem, nitidus qua quisque per ora_ _Cederet, introrsum turpis_, * * *” Gascoigne[41] symbolised by his steel glass that which reflected the beholders as they were, not flattered as by the plated mirror; and said his effort was to “sing a verse to make them see themselves.” He also identified the root of all evil with hypocrisy;--“So that they seem, and covet not to be.” Cervantes[42] spoke of his “Herculean labor” as being “nothing more nor less than to banish mediocrity from the realm of Spanish poetry, and to sweep from its sacred precincts, which had become as foul as an Augean stable, all shams, lies, hypocrisies, and vulgar baseness whatsoever.”