aved on the door of your Holy Office:

"Here seven cardinals, assisted by minor brethren, had the master of
thought in Italy thrown into prison at the age of seventy; made him fast
on bread and water because he instructed the human race, and because
they were ignorant."

There was pronounced a sentence in favour of Aristotle's categories, and
there was decreed learnedly and equitably the penalty of the galleys for
whoever should be sufficiently daring as to have an opinion different
from that of the Stagyrite, whose books were formerly burned by two
councils.

Further on a faculty, which had not great faculties, issued a decree
against innate ideas, and later a decree for innate ideas, without the
said faculty being informed by its beadles what an idea is.

In the neighbouring schools judicial proceedings were instituted against
the circulation of the blood.

An action was started against inoculation, and parties have been
subpoenaed.

At the Customs of thought twenty-one folio volumes were seized, in which
it was stated treacherously and wickedly that triangles always have
three angles; that a father is older than his son; that Rhea Silvia lost
her virginity before giving birth to her child, and that flour is not an
oak leaf.

In another year was judged the action: _Utrum chimera bombinans in vacuo
possit comedere secundas intentiones_, and was decided in the
affirmative.

In consequence, everyone thought themselves far superior to Archimedes,
Euclid, Cicero, Pliny, and strutted proudly about the University
quarter.

_AUTHORS_

Author is a generic name which can, like the name of all other
professions, signify good or bad, worthy of respect or ridicule, useful
and agreeable, or trash for the wastepaper-basket.

* * * * *

We think that the author of a good work should refrain from three
things--from putting his name, save very modestly, from the epistle
dedicatory, and from the preface. Others should refrain from a
fourth--that is, from writing.

* * * * *

Prefaces are another stumbling-block. "The 'I,'" said Pascal, "is
hateful." Speak as little of yourself as possible; for you must know
that the reader's self-esteem is as great as yours. He will never
forgive you for wanting to condemn him to have a good opinion of you. It
is for your book to speak for you, if it comes to be read by the crowd.

* * * *