I believe he is quite right here, but surely a good flaming review helps to get a book talked about. I have often inquired at my publishers’ after a review and I never found one that made any perceptible increase or decrease of sale, and the same with advertisements. I think, however, that the review of _Erewhon_ in the _Spectator_ did sell a few copies of _Erewhon_, but then it was such a very strong one and the anonymousness of the book stimulated curiosity. A perception of the value of a review, whether friendly or hostile, is as old as St. Paul’s Epistle to the Philippians. {162} Hoodwinking the Public Sincerity or honesty is a low and very rudimentary form of virtue that is only to be found to any considerable extent among the protozoa. Compare, for example, the integrity, sincerity and absolute refusal either to deceive or be deceived that exists in the germ-cells of any individual, with the instinctive aptitude for lying that is to be observed in the full-grown man. The full-grown man is compacted of lies and shams which are to him as the breath of his nostrils. Whereas the germ-cells will not be humbugged; they will tell the truth as near as they can. They know their ancestors meant well and will tend to become even more sincere themselves. Thus, if a painter has not tried hard to paint well and has tried hard to hoodwink the public, his offspring is not likely to show hereditary aptitude for painting, but is likely to have an improved power of hoodwinking the public. So it is with music, literature, science or anything else. The only thing the public can do against this is to try hard to develop a hereditary power of not being hoodwinked. From the small success it has met with hitherto we may think that the effort on its part can have been neither severe nor long sustained. Indeed, all ages seem to have held that “the pleasure is as great of being cheated as to cheat.” The Public Ear Those who have squatted upon it may be trusted to keep off other squatters if they can. The public ear is like the land which looks infinite but is all parcelled out into fields and private ownerships—barring, of course, highways and commons. So the universe, which looks so big, may be supposed as really all parcelled out among the stars that stud it. Or the public ear is like a common; there is not much to be got off it, but that little is for the most part grazed down by geese and donkeys. Those who wish to gain the public ear should bear in mind that people do not generally want to be made less foolish or less wicked. What they want is to be told that they are not foolish and not wicked. Now it is only a fool or a liar or both who can tell them this; the masses therefore cannot be expected to like any but fools or liars or both. So when a lady gets photographed, what she wants is not to be made beautiful but to be told that she is beautiful. Secular Thinking